Hawaii County police have charged the mother of missing “Peter Boy” Kema in connection with welfare fraud.
Jaylin M. Kema, 45, of Pahoa was charged Thursday with second-degree theft. Bail was set at $5,000. She is scheduled to be in court today. She was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of theft.
Her husband, Peter J. Kema Sr., 45, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of ownership of a prohibited firearm, ownership of prohibited ammunition, altering a serial number on a firearm, second-degree promotion of a detrimental drug and fourth-degree promotion of a harmful drug. No charges were filed against him.
Both remain in police custody, and an investigation is underway into possible drug and firearm charges as the result of items found at their Ainaloa subdivision home during the execution of a search warrant Tuesday.
The 1997 disappearance of their son, a 6-year-old known as “Peter Boy,” is one of Hawaii’s most high-profile unsolved criminal cases. State records show the boy had suffered repeated abuse. His father told authorities that he gave Peter Boy to a longtime family friend on Oahu. The child was never seen again, and the existence of the family friend couldn’t be verified.
Police initially investigated it as a missing person’s case but changed it to a homicide investigation. No one was ever arrested in the case.
Police received a request for help from the state Department of Human Services’ Welfare Fraud Investigation Division to execute a search warrant, which led to Peter Kema’s drug and firearm violations arrest.
“Our investigators and our deputies are working very closely with the police and other agencies,” said Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth on Thursday. “We’re still actively investigating. We are closer than we were last year.”
For years the case was assigned to one deputy. But last year Roth began putting together a new team, and with “just a different set of eyes, just a different set of thinking, sometimes things happen.”
“We do want to make sure that the families and community have closure and see justice.”
