Hibiscus Drive landlord Lois Cain was quirky, caring

Lois Kiehl Cain was a quirky former belly-dancing University of Hawaii librarian who had a soft spot for taking in strangers to her home on Hibiscus Drive where they lived rent free, including defecting Russian fishermen, a family escaping Asia’s economic downturn and the man suspected of killing her and two Honolulu police officers on Sunday.

Cain, 77, “was always positive. She had a burning, restless energy,” said her longtime, next-door neighbor, John Farmer, 65, who now lives in Kailua. “When you talked to her she’d be shifting around. She was always kind of thin and wiry and she would burn a lot of calories just talking to you. She was not one to sit around and watch TV. She had been a dancer who had this colorful past.”

A landlord-tenant dispute between Cain and her tenant, Jerry “Jarda” Hanel, 69, turned violent when Hanel allegedly assaulted Cain and another tenant, then shot and killed HPD officers Tiffany Enriquez and Kaulike Kalama.

Cain had recently filed to evict Hanel.

Two sets of human remains discovered Tuesday at Cain’s home at 3015 Hibiscus Drive, which are believed to be those of Cain and Hanel, could take several weeks to positively identify, according to the city’s Medical Examiner’s office.

“When it came to Jerry, everybody was frustrated with her about that,” Farmer said. “My sister and brother-in-law moved back into our house in 2007 or 2008. From Day 1 they were saying he (Hanel) was a menace and he was menacing them. People were telling her for 11 years that Jarda was a problem. Everyone loved her, though. She was a big-hearted, kind woman. Now that this has happened, everyone’s shaking their head. This guy had restraining orders for years and she didn’t do anything about it. Maybe it was a weakness in her not wanting to deal with the situation. She was always positive, always a positive person.”

Cain’s father, Col. Paul V. Kiehl, was chief surgeon at Tripler Hospital, according to a 1975 feature story about Cain in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin headlined “Gyrations of a Belly Dancer.”

The story focused on her belly- dancing performances at a Greek restaurant on Cooke Street in Kakaako. Although she had previously traveled the world with a flamenco dance troupe, Cain had no formal training in belly dancing but nevertheless taught it during the day while she danced at night.

Cain attended UH and later graduated from the University of Washington. She also was a medical student who worked in electrocardiography and heart catheterization at Tripler.

“That’s because my father was a doctor and I’d never really planned on anything else — until I learned to dance,” she told the Star-Bulletin.

Another Star-Bulletin photo of Cain in 1975 captures her belly dancing in front of former Mayor Frank Fasi. In the photo, Fasi wore a toga and head dress as king of a mock Roman circus put on by St. Andrew’s Priory School’s Latin Club.

Cain later became a UH librarian.

Farmer said he remembers the day that Cain moved in next door in the 1970s and they became close because the two homes shared a common driveway. After her husband died in 2005, “then it was just Lois,” Farmer said.

“She was this big-hearted person who took in this group of Russians who defected from a fishing boat,” Farmer said. “They got to Hilo and they all defected. I’m not sure how it came to be she took in five Russians below her house. Then it whittled to two guys and then one guy left in the late 1990s and that’s how Jarda came to be there. She charged him no rent because that’s the kind of woman she was. Then a family from Asia moved in upstairs during a downturn in the Asian economy. Lois took them in for what was supposed to be for a little while, but they were there five years.”

Cain also was a “bit of a hoarder” known for quirky behavior.

One night at 2 a.m. Farmer’s sister and brother-in-law heard a strange noise coming from their common driveway.

“My brother-in-law went outside and Lois was outside blow-drying bricks,” Farmer. “It was the kind of quirky stuff she did. She was a character.”

Farmer remembered his last conversation with Cain following a dinner at his sister’s house next door.

“She said she had to move all kinds of stuff and I said, ‘I have a truck, just give me a call,” Farmer said. “She was a bit of a pack rat, a bit of a hoarder. Tenants had left surfboards over the years and she asked me to look at them for their value. I thought some of them might be collector’s items. I offered her a low-ball thing, but she wanted to get full market value.”

Although he now lives in Kailua, Farmer said he considers Hibiscus Drive his home.

“That’s my neighborhood,” he said. “That’s where my heart is. God bless Lois. She was quirky and a little bit eccentric and she cared. The neighborhood is mourning her loss.”

Staff writer Diane Lee contributed to this report.