Posted on: Saturday, December 14, 2002

'Everyone called her cousin'

• Police question man in Kahealani case
• Death prompts safety advice
• Kahealani's family, friends, community grieve
• Mom's loss still stings 5 years later

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Behind the glitter of the Hawaiian bangles Kahealani Indreginal enjoyed wearing, there was just a quiet, everyday kid who liked to dance and draw, read and go to the beach.

Last night as word began to spread that a body believed to be Kahealani's had been found in a wooded area above 'Aiea, it was easier to think of her as she lived than to imagine how she may have died.

It was a life rich in family and friends. It lasted just 11 years.

At home, Kahealani lived with seven brothers and sisters.

In her Pu'uwai Momi housing area in Makalapa, where nearly 1,000 people live close together in pink-colored, concrete-block tree-shaded apartment units, there are hundreds of neighborhood kids to share games and confidences.

And at 'Aiea Elementary School, where Kahealani was in the sixth grade, there was an even bigger 'ohana.

"Everyone called her cousin," said Jocelyn Vargas, who was Kahealani's teacher last year.

"There wasn't a bad bone in her," added Suzanne Naval, Kahealani's teacher this year. "I've never seen her sad or upset."

Naval said girls at that age often tend to be moody. Not Kahealani.

"She was always friends with everyone, never angry or negative," Naval said. "In the yearbook, she'd be the type of person voted to be most friendly."

By all accounts, Kahealani was shy. Friends said that even when she went to the neighborhood manapua truck, as she did on the day she disappeared, she'd sometimes have to ask another person to buy snacks for her.

No matter, though. She had talent, and enthusiasm, too.

"She was always in there gung-ho, trying to learn," Vargas said. "She was an everyday kid who didn't stick out. Not loud and boisterous, not a rascal. She always did what was required and asked for help when she needed it."

Kahealani applied her quiet eagerness to everything she did at school.

Like the time last Sunday, when Kahealani and others in the school's performance group went to Halawa gym to do Maori, Tahitian and Hawaiian dances.

Kahealani was one of the few students in the group who could master the Maori E Papa dance, in which white poi balls are twirled on long strings.

"All the girls like that dance, but she was one of only three or four who could actually do it," Naval said. "She really practiced hard to get it down."

Family members said Kahealani enjoyed reading and was good at it, reading at or above her grade level. This year Kahealani and other students in the class had just finished reading "Tuck Everlasting" and "Ben and Me," a biographical study of Benjamin Franklin told from a mouse's perspective.

She also did above-average work in social studies, science and music. Often she liked to draw, a talent that may have contributed, along with a fondness for Hawaiian jewelry, to her desire to grow up to be a fashion designer, friends said.

Although not overly athletic, Kahealani always enjoyed her physical education classes, too. She liked basketball and dodgeball.

Kahealani had attended 'Aiea Elementary since kindergarten.

On Wednesday and Thursday, counselors had visited classrooms individually to tell students the latest news, answer questions and handle the tears.

At a school assembly yesterday afternoon, before students learned of Kahealani's possible death, many of those friends cried, hugged each other and clung to their teachers and counselors. They tied yellow ribbons of hope outside the school.

Principal Arthur Kaneshiro said the assembly was organized as a way for students to acknowledge that something terrible had happened.

"We didn't want the kids to go home for the weekend without getting the school together," Kaneshiro said. "It's our way of dealing with the emotion."

By late afternoon, the students' worst fears had come true. Word spread quickly outside about the discovery of the body near a hiking trail in the mountains above the school grounds.

"Her close friends are taking it very hard," Vargas said. "I told them to remember all the good things they shared, to hold onto the memories."

Advertiser staff writer Jennifer Hiller contributed to this story.