Posted on: Friday, June 21, 2002

Murder suspect's past includes success

By James Gonser and Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writers

Cline Kahue kept his eyes closed during his arraignment yesterday. Bruce Asato • Honolulu Advertiser

Cline Kahue is a man of two reputations.

His history of assault arrests and mental problems has come to light since he was accused of killing a 71-year-old man and assaulting two women in a flurry of unprovoked attacks along the Ala Wai Canal on Tuesday. But others know Kahue as an educated, even gentle, man.

He is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and worked as a substitute teacher with the state Department of Education between 1988 and 1994.

When he attended Punahou in the early 1970s, his future looked bright.

He was an all-star offensive guard for the school's ILH championship team in 1971, his senior year, as well as a champion wrestler.

"Kahue was well-educated, well-spoken, a gentle person, a real gentlemen type of guy," said his Punahou football coach, Dave Eldredge. "When you think of a football player you think of someone very rough, tough and rugged, and he was a gentle man."

Kahue's other side was on display yesterday during his arraignment in District Court, where he refused to wear a shirt. Handcuffed and wearing only a pair of green shorts, he kept his eyes closed during the entire hearing. When his name was called by the judge, a slightly trembling Kahue raised his arms over his head and mumbled.

Kahue, 48, is charged with second-degree murder in connection with the death of Jack Albert Wyatt. Wyatt drowned after he was shoved into the canal and struck his head on the rocks. Kahue is being held on $100,000 bail, and the judge set a preliminary hearing for Monday afternoon in District Court.

Police said charges against Kahue in connection with the attack on the women are pending based on further investigation.

Yesterday, one of the women, University of Hawai'i student Jessica Minder, recalled her brush with her assailant on the Ala Wai and said she never stood a chance when he "football tackled" her into the water.

Minder, 23, said she was jogging on the Ala Wai Canal near Olohana Street at about 8:20 a.m. when she saw her attacker running toward her. He wore no shirt or shoes, she said.

Police said the man had just attacked Wyatt, a former Honolulu Star-Bulletin free-lance writer, and punched Consuela Aubin, 57.

Minder said as the man approached, "I started running out of his path, more toward the water side. Once I saw the look in this man's eyes and the expression on his face, I knew what his goal was."

Suddenly, she said, he "lunged at me and pretty much football tackled me into the Ala Wai."

Both tumbled into the shallow water. Minder scrambled up first and looked for her attacker.

"I quickly got up and turned around to see if he was going to be on top of me, ready to pummel me or what not," Minder said. "He was kind of dazed, still facing the other way."

Minder said she crawled from the canal and "ran as fast as I could" toward the Hale Koa Hotel where her boyfriend, Lloyd Lam, was waiting. Minder said she reported the incident to police at the Waikiki substation.

The attack left her with bruises and cuts on her left shin and right knee, and she was still a bit shaken yesterday.

She said she was unaware of the attacks on the other two people until later.

Kahue was arrested near Ala Wai Boulevard and McCully Street after he tried to swim away from the scene, police said. Witnesses, including a woman who was sitting on the lanai of her 11th-floor Seaside Avenue condominium, have told police they saw the attacks.

Minder said she'll continue her exercises, but with more caution.

"I'm still going to try to do my workouts every day," Minder. "I'm just going to become more aware, and I'm going to work on my self-defense mechanism. My boy-friend's a boxer. He's teaching me how to box."

Kahue was being held at the O'ahu Community Correctional Center yesterday, where he was being monitored by medical mental health staff, warden Clayton Frank said. Kahue will likely be placed in a medical mental health unit for assessment, not with the general jail population, Frank said. A court order would need to be issued for Kahue to be released to the Hawai'i State Hospital, he said.

Capt. Milton Olmos of HPD's Central Receiving Division said Kahue was offered paper clothing before his court appearance when he was in the police cellblock, but he didn't want it.

"If they refuse, we can't force them" to wear it, Olmos said. "The policy is, if they come in and need clothes, we'll offer them something. He didn't want to wear it."

After graduating from Punahou in 1972, Kahue attended the University of Hawai'i sporadically in the 1970s, late 1980s and early 1990s and earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of California at Davis.

According to the state Department of Education, Kahue worked as a substitute teacher in the Honolulu District between 1988 and 1994. Records do not indicate which courses he taught.

He registered again as a substitute teacher in 1995, the same year his mother filed a temporary restraining order against him.

In June of that year, Janet Kahue's request form said that her son had "pushed, grabbed or shoved" her within the previous month and she indicated that she believed extreme psychological abuse or malicious property damage was imminent.

"From May 3, 1995, he has been taking kitchen knifes (sic) and putting them around the condo which has scared me since he has blame (sic) me and his father for his problems and mental illness," Janet Kahue wrote.

On a form titled "serving instructions," intended to help police with the restraining order, Janet Kahue indicated her son might be armed with kitchen knives.

She also checked off the box next to "mentally ill," and the word "schizophrenic" is typed next to it.

Court records indicate that Cline Kahue did not attend any of the court hearings that were scheduled to consider his mother's request for a restraining order.

On July 17, 1995, a District Court judge granted the restraining order and also issued a $250 bench warrant for his arrest because he failed to show up for the hearings. Kahue was arrested on Feb. 10, 1996, and was later released after the terms of the restraining order were read to him in open court.

Kahue was acquitted of four assault offenses by reason of insanity in 1997 and also was involuntarily committed to The Queen's Medical Center in the 1990s.

Advertiser staff writers David Waite and Mike Gordon contributed to this report.