Rain hampers search for escapees
By Rod Ohira and Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writers
HAU'ULA — Rain today hampered the search for Halawa prison escapees Albert Batalona, Warren Elicker and David Scribner, who are believed to be hiding out in a Hau'ula valley.
With thermal-imagining equipment from the ground, police detected heat signatures in the valley for a second straight night.
Police appear confident the escapees are still in the valley. Evidence recovered from a stream bed campsite about 1.5 miles from the entrance of the Hau'ula Loop Trail supports that belief, police sources said today.
The campsite is where a pig hunter saw three or four men acting suspiciously last weekend. The evidence includes "documents" belonging to one of the escapees. The sources said the "documents" included a notation about the men being "cold and wet."
Batalona, 27, Elicker, 25, and Scribner, 20, escaped Friday from the Halawa Correctional Facility. They are considered armed and dangerous.
Police suspect the escapees have been receiving outside assistance in the way of food since Sunday, sources said. But they do not know how that help is getting into the valley. Sources said the escapees tried to lure the pig hunter to their campsite because he was armed with a rifle. The hunter, however, kept his distance.
The campsite was on an island in the middle of a stream, sources said.
The area where the search is being conducted is narrow, steep and thick with foliage, making it difficult for helicopter searchers to see activity on the ground. When it rains, that part of the valley floods.
Police said an infrared heat-detecting scope showed "some movement" in the valley before daybreak yesterday. The figures appeared to be walking about 1 1/2 miles mauka of Kamehameha Highway and that led police to believe they were not wild pigs and there appeared to be more than one of them, Lt. Bill Kato said.
"Who else would be up there in the middle of the night?" Kato asked. "We're not 100 percent sure that it's them.
"We need to go in and find out who it is."
Kato said he believes that the suspects are more likely to be in the Hau'ula valley area than anywhere else on O'ahu because of the credibility of the hunter's accountand because there is no reliable information from the public placing them anywhere else on the island. Detectives have checked out tips from other areas and none has led to the escapees, Kato said.
"Generally, we're not getting many CrimeStoppers tips from elsewhere, and the person who saw men up here is very credible," he said.
He said the police helicopter is using a loudspeaker to ask anyone in the forest to show themselves, and he says he thinks that anyone other than those trying to hide would come out and make themselves known.
Kato said the Honolulu Police Department would continue to press its search today as it did yesterday, sending heavily armed squads of police officers through the dense brush, into ravines and over ridges.
Kato also issued a plea to the public, especially hunters and hikers, to stay out of the area. As a precaution, the state yesterday closed the Hau'ula Loop Trail, Kaipapa'u Forest Reserve and the Ma'ahua Loop Trail until further notice.
"We have police officers up there, and they are armed," he said.
The search in the valley enters its fourth day today.
"We have to press forward and find out who's up there," Kato said. Officers who have been up in mountains report that it's steep, cold, windy, rainy. "So it would be a stretch for them to stay up there very long," he said.
Kato said HPD is being assisted by the Sheriff's Department, attorney general's office, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Batalona was serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the 1999 takeover robbery at the Kahala branch of American Savings Bank.
Elicker was sentenced to two consecutive 20-year terms and was not eligible for parole for at least 26 years and eight months. His sentence includes a 2001 home-invasion robbery Scribner was serving a 10-year sentence for an October 2002 robbery and escape convictions.
