Myles Fukunaga was a lonely, 19-year-old hotel worker whose polite demeanor and innocent-looking face left Honolulu jurors in tears even as they convicted him of the Sept. 18, 1928, kidnapping and brutal murder of a boy.
The crime shocked the community. Gill Jamieson, the 10-year-old son of a Hawaiian Trust Co. executive, was abducted from Punahou School by Fukunaga, who tricked administrators there into thinking the boy's mother was in an automobile accident.
He took the boy to Waikiki by cab and led him to a secret spot behind the Seaside Hotel where Fukunaga worked. There, Fukunaga beat him with a steel chisel and choked little Gill to death.
Fukunaga's motives were simple. He blamed the boy's father and Hawaiian Trust for the impending eviction of his parents from their Honolulu rental home.
The killer was a daydreamer who read Shakespeare. He had no close friends, no female companions and had shamed his family with a failed suicide attempt. He saw the $10,000 ransom, which he would use to help his parents, as a way to redeem his honor.
But the serial number on one of the bills, spotted by an Oahu Transit ticket agent who knew Fukunaga, led to his capture. His own 12-year-old sister helped police find him outside a Roman Catholic Church five days after the crime.
Fukunaga did not deny that he murdered the boy.
His trial two weeks later was swift. His defense lawyer called no witnesses. And Fukunaga's soft-spoken admissions of guilt won the hearts of the jury, which still voted to convict him.
After he was sentenced to death, Fukunaga thanked the court.
The next year, on Nov. 19, 1929, at 8:10 a.m. in O'ahu Prison, Fukunaga was hanged. He was buried in the Mo'ili'ili Cemetery.
