Body of bottle hunter recovered in Waipahu
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Firefighters spent five hours yesterday unearthing the body of a homeless man who was killed Friday night in a cave-in near the Old Waipahu Sugar Mill.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The man, who other homeless people said was known as Uncle Willie, had been digging for old bottles at the Alexander & Baldwin construction site when the ground caved in at about 7 p.m. Friday.
Firefighters lifted the body of a homeless man out of a construction site near the Old Waipahu Sugar Mill yesterday. A cave-in Friday night buried the man, who had been digging for old bottles, under 6 feet of dirt.
His body was found yesterday under 6 feet of dirt. His flashlight, backpack, shovel and probe were found underground nearby.
Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Richard Soo said the department was notified of the cave-in at 10:40 a.m. yesterday. Teams of firefighters with shovels took turns digging for the man, and a backhoe was brought in to keep the slopes of dirt, which towered nearly 20 feet above the rescuers, from caving in.
Another bottle hunter in the same area was partially trapped but was rescued by a third man who also had been digging nearby. The two men then tried to free the trapped man but failed, authorities said.
They then left the construction site without informing authorities. Other homeless people in the area said the men were afraid of being arrested on outstanding warrants.
Police said they were unable to confirm that.
"Probably," said Joe Self of the Honolulu Police Department's missing persons division. "But we're not running checks on them right now; that isn't our main concern. Our main concern is to get this person out of that hole."
Firefighters found the man's shovel early in the afternoon. Several hours later they found his probe, and then his backpack and flashlight.
At about 3:20 p.m., shortly after the backhoe pushed away another layer of dirt and a shift of firefighters with shovels moved back in, they spotted the man's hand protruding from the dirt.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The firefighters traded their shovels for brooms and kept working until the body was freed.
Mari Gararin said the man known as Uncle Willie "was a good digger, but I guess he dug his own grave." The man had been searching for antique bottles that can be worth thousands of dollars.
Self said police received an anonymous call about the cave-in at about 8:30 p.m. Friday. Officers went to the construction site and looked around, but found nothing.
Police returned to the scene at about 9:30 yesterday morning, after word of the collapse spread through the homeless community of Waipahu and someone informed construction workers about the body.
Mari Gararin, who lives near the Waipahu bridge, said she and her friend Leonardo Rosales told authorities about the cave-in that had killed the man they knew as Uncle Willie.
Gararin said a homeless man named Nolan told her early yesterday that he had heard the cave-in Friday night and pulled out a digger named Mario, whose legs had been buried.
Nolan said he and Mario tried to dig Willie out, Gararin said. But when that didn't succeed, Nolan didn't want to call the police, she said.
"He had warrants out and he was afraid," Gararin said. "And I can see that, but you can't just leave somebody under there like that.
"His soul can't rest," she said.
Nolan didn't want her to report the incident at first, Gararin said. But later he gave Rosales directions to the precise area so Rosales could pass the information on to the firefighters. Later on, Nolan came to the construction site to watch firefighters work.
Homeless people and bottle hunters who stopped by the construction site said people who dig for bottles wait until nightfall before sneaking in.
They start at the wall of a long, deep culvert, then dig long tunnels inward, sometimes using sticks to prop tunnel roofs. The soil is loose and difficult to keep in place.
"Uncle Willie was a long way in there," Gararin said. "He was a good digger, but I guess he dug his own grave."
Antique Hawaiian bottles in good condition can bring sums ranging from $40 to thousands of dollars, the diggers said.
Adam Ilaban, a Waipahu man who stopped by to check on firefighters' progress, said he'd once found a bottle that sold for $2,500.
Construction sites across the island can sometimes turn up bottles, but the area near the Old Waipahu Sugar Mill is particularly prized because of the plantation communities that lived nearby.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
