Missing man's wife still hopeful

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

In June 2001, 80-year-old Masayuki Kubo left his Kapi'olani Boulevard condominium on a Saturday morning to take his daily walk. Kubo still hasn't returned home. And his wife, Jessie Kubo, is waiting. And hoping.

Masayuki Kub was last seen on June 23, 2001. Advertiser library photo

Investigator Phil Camero of the Honolulu Police Department Missing Persons Section said there have been no recent leads in the case. Because Masayuki Kubo suffered from Alzheimer's disease, authorities don't believe foul play is involved.

Kubo's disappearance, one of several high-profile missing-person cases, is an example of the anguish that friends and family members experience as they wait for some indication of what happened to their loved ones. Last year, HPD's Missing Persons Section, which consists of two officers, opened 959 cases, of which 31 are still pending.

Camero has witnessed grim and somber endings in cases in which a body of a loved one has been recovered. The 49-year-old Camero has also seen the occasional "miracle," as when two female Danish hikers were found safe in 1999 after being stuck in the mountains of Windward O'ahu for nearly a week.

But work in the missing persons unit deals less with enforcement and more with emotions.

"In many of the unsolved cases, the mother of the missing person still calls, so it's a constant reminder of what many of these families are going through," said Camero, a 23-year HPD veteran who's been with the Missing Persons Section since 1995.

"Police officers are human, too, and we definitely want to see closure for the families," he said. "It's tough when you don't know what happened to your loved one, and I guess that's what drives me in my job."

Kubo's disappearance on June 23, 2001 sparked one of the more extensive searches by volunteers. Fliers about Kubo are still posted in businesses around town where he is suspected of venturing.

"To this day, I still get calls from people asking if we ever found Mr. Kubo," said Alan Miyamura, who organized many of the volunteer searches with his wife, Sharlene. "People are still concerned about him, and I think part of the reason is many feel he could be their dad or grandpa."

Miyamura said he believes Kubo could still be alive, possibly with someone who decided to care for the elderly man. "With all of the intense search efforts, we felt if he had passed on, we would have found him by now," Miyamura said.

Jessie Kubo, 79, said she is "eternally grateful" to the search volunteers, people who never met her husband.

As new leads failed to pop up in the passing weeks and months, the searches became less frequent. Many of the calls to police about someone wandering the streets resembling Kubo turned out to be false alarms.

"Lately, I told police not to call me if they get a call of someone resembling Masa. Only if they find him," Jessie Kubo said. "I guess I don't want to get my hopes up and get all discouraged again."

Kubo, a retired Federal Aviation Administration construction engineer, left the couple's eighth-floor condominium unit at 7:30 a.m. the day he disappeared. His wife recalls hearing her husband getting dressed that morning.

"I heard him opening our drawer to get his walking clothes, but I was too tired to ask him where he was going," said Jessie. "Maybe I should have gotten up, but I felt so tired that morning. I guess a part of me will always feel like that was the biggest mistake of my life."

Kubo left the building wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes, and carrying a state identification card, a bus pass, and about $10 in cash.

There were two prior incidents in which Kubo had gone walking and appeared to become disoriented. On Mother's Day 1991, Kubo had fallen during a walk in Kapahulu, and was recognized and assisted by one of the Kubos' former neighbors, his wife said. Another time, Jessie Kubo said another friend had found Kubo after he wandered all the way to Kapi'olani Park in Waikiki.

Miyamura said about six major volunteer searches for Kubo were conducted around urban Honolulu. He and his wife sometimes walked in downtown Honolulu at night in hopes of finding Kubo living on the streets.

The case has had only one major lead. A security guard at the Maile Sky Court in Waikiki told police that on the day after Kubo's disappearance, a man identifying himself as "Masa" gave her a telephone number to call. The number turned out to be a disconnected listing, and the guard eventually called a taxi for the man, Camero said.

"It was a solid lead, and we followed up, but the security guard later could not identify the cab," Camero said. "We talked with the various cab companies and showed photos of Kubo to the drivers that were in the area that time of day, but nobody remembers picking him up."

Jessie Kubo recalls watching her husband staring out of their condo window many times. "I asked him what he was thinking, and he replied something like, 'Oh, I was just looking at all of the people walking around down there.' He always liked to be outside," she said.

Jessie Kubo now stays home during most of her free time, hosting weekly guests or baking goodies for local charity events.

"I still talk to him — his picture — in the mornings and in the evenings," she said, clutching a tissue. "I just hope one day soon I can get an answer to all of this."

Advertiser staff writer Zenaida Espanol contributed to this report.