DNA testing leaves Dana Ireland murder unsolved

Hawaii island police say testing of DNA over the years from former witnesses and others who may have been involved in the rape and murder of Dana Ireland didn’t put them any closer to who committed one of Hawaii’s most notorious crimes.

The lack of a match to newly discovered DNA evidence prompted a Hilo judge on Jan. 24 to vacate the 1999 conviction of Albert “Ian” Schweitzer, 51, for the Christmas Eve 1991 rape, kidnapping and murder of Ireland in Puna.

His brother Shawn Schweit­zer and Frank Pauline Jr., co-defendants, were also excluded as the source of DNA on a T-shirt soaked with Ireland’s blood and semen on a hospital gurney sheet on which Ireland was transported. The source of the DNA, from “all the biological evidence, in this case, belongs to one individual, Unknown Male No. 1,” according to the petition that led to Ian Schweitzer’s exoneration.

Hawaii Police Chief Benjamin Moscowicz said in a Jan. 26 written statement on the murder investigation, “It is important that the public knows that while we may not have shared it publicly, Hawaii Police Department has never stopped trying to identify Unknown Male #1 and has used additional DNA testing over the years to exclude numerous potential persons of interest.”

Ireland, a Virginia visitor found badly beaten and sexually assaulted off a fishing trail, died at the hospital in December 1991. Her bicycle, apparently run over by a vehicle, was found several miles away.

As for whether any former witnesses or others who may have been involved in the case have been cleared of the crime, Criminal Investigation Division Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins said, “There was an extensive list of people that were looked at.”

He said that there have been many DNA samples put into the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, over the past 32 years, but there have been “no concrete leads who the contributor is at this time.”

(CODIS is the generic term for the FBI’s program of support for criminal justice DNA databases and the software used to run them.)

Amon-Wilkins declined to identify anyone connected to the case whose DNA samples may have been processed in CODIS, which is performed by the Honolulu Police Department.

Honolulu police started participating in the CODIS program in late 2001, said HPD spokesperson Michelle Yu. “At that time, Hawaii state law allowed for DNA collections from individuals convicted of sexual assault and homicide.”

More than 1,500 rape kits sat unprocessed for years, and in 2016 a full inventory showed that only 13% of rape kits dating back to the 1990s had ever been tested by police.

In February 2016 an HPD deputy chief said rape kits are not tested when the perpetrator is already known, when the suspect admits to having sex with the victim or when an alleged victim withdraws the complaint.

After 23 years of incarceration, Schweitzer was exonerated and set free Jan. 24. Shawn Schweitzer, who confessed to the crimes in order to avoid the same fate as his brother, got an early release. Pauline, who was also serving a sentence for an unrelated sex assault and theft, claimed the brothers killed Ireland, but gave inconsistent accounts multiple times and eventually incriminated himself. He later recanted, saying he did it to have drug charges dropped against his half brother.

Pauline was killed in 2015 in an Arizona prison by a fellow inmate just after Judges for Justice announced they were seeking a review of his and the Schweitzer brothers’ convictions through DNA testing.