Suspect in threatening case is arrested in woman’s death
Honolulu police have arrested a man in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found in a Waikiki trash bin last week.
Joseph M. Kahawai, 42, has been in police custody and appeared in court on a separate case Thursday before being arrested on suspicion of murder in the afternoon, police said.
The body of Janine Meyer, 51, was found on the morning of Oct. 29 in a trash bin near the Hawaiian Colony apartments off Ala Moana Boulevard.
The cause and manner of her death has yet to be released by the city Department of the Medical Examiner. Police originally classified the incident as an unattended death.
Kahawai was in Honolulu District Court on Monday in connection with a terroristic threatening case involving someone else.
Court filings say that on Oct. 20, Kahawai threatened bodily harm to another man. He was arrested at a Waipahu address Monday afternoon and subsequently charged with second-degree terroristic threatening in that case. He is being held at the HPD cellblock pending a murder charge.
Hospital escapee charged in fatal stabbing of his friend
A man who escaped from Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe was charged Thursday by Hawaii County police in a fatal stabbing Tuesday in the Eden Roc subdivision.
After conferring with prosecutors, detectives charged 34-year-old David Seal of Mountain View with second-degree murder. He is being held without bail at the Hilo police cellblock pending his initial court appearance scheduled for today.
An autopsy is scheduled for today to determine the cause of death of the victim, 32-year-old Rory Wick of Mountain View. Wick was a Puna neighbor of Seal’s and was his high school friend on Maui.
Seal was committed to the Kaneohe facility in 2002 after his acquittal by reason of insanity for the kidnapping and sexual assault of an 8-year-old Maui girl.
Seal has been at large since he scaled a 14-foot wire mesh fence at the Kaneohe mental hospital Dec. 3, 2009. He had previously tried twice to escape.
