Posted on: Thursday, April 15, 2004

Aki told police he 'never touched' girl

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

A Circuit Court jury yesterday listened to a taped interview of Christopher Aki telling detectives he did not hurt 11-year-old Kahealani "Kahea" Indreginal and did not know where she was.

Aki — who is on trial for the murder of Indreginal — was interviewed at 10 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 13, 2002, three days after the girl's family reported her missing.

Detective Phil Camero said Aki, who was interviewed three times, was not considered a suspect during the first interview because police had no evidence a crime had been committed.

Four hours later, Kahealani's body was found in a wooded area off the 'Aiea Loop Trail sand the case was reclassified as a homicide, Camero said.

City prosecutor Peter Carlisle says Aki picked up Kahealani after a school bus dropped her off near her home then took her to the state park, where he beat her to death with a steel pipe after an altercation.

Aki had been smoking crystal methamphetamine the day before, prosecutors said.

Defense atttorney Todd Eddins says Aki took Kahealani to the park to confront her uncle, Dennis Cacatian, about touching her in a sexually inappropriate way. Cacatian, a convicted rapist, became enraged and bashed the girl's head with a large rock and repeatedly stabbed her, Eddins says.

Eddins told the jury Tuesday that Aki falsely confessed to killing the girl because Cacatian put a gun to Aki's head and threatened to kill him and his family if he told the truth.

Aki is charged with second-degree murder.

In the first interview, Aki provided background information about himself, Kahealani and her family. Aki was interviewed by police again on Dec. 13, this time as a suspect, and he blamed two other men who were arrested and later released without charges. When he was interviewed a third time, on Dec. 14, Aki told police he killed the girl and took sole responsibility for her death, police say.

Aki sounded relaxed and articulate during the first interview, joking at times with detectives.

Aki described Kahealani as like a sister to him, a good student who would confide in him, a mother to her brothers and sister who lived with her in the family's apartment in a Halawa public housing project.

Asked what he was doing Dec. 10, the day the girl was killed, Aki said he stayed around his mother's home in Kalihi waiting for a call about a doctor's appointment and left about 12:30 p.m. to pick up his friends, Wyatt Ballesteros and Charise Kekawa.

He said he drove his mother's blue Dodge Neon to Makalapa to pick up the two, dropped Kekawa off at work, played pool while he waited for her to get off work, then drove his two friends home and returned to his mother's home.

Aki told detectives the last time he saw Kahealani was Monday evening when he and his girlfriend Tanya, Kahealani's half-sister, visited her home in Halawa.

On the tape, when Aki is told that two people heard him say on Tuesday that he was going to pick up Kahealani, he tells detectives, "No, no, no, no."

Asked if he has ever hit or hurt the girl, Aki says, "No, I have never touched her." He says his "gut feeling" is that the girl had run away from home.

Camero said the interview concluded at about 10:50 a.m. and Aki was allowed to leave. Camero said he received a call at about 2 p.m. from a man who had found Kahealani's body off a trail in the state park.

Camero said although the body was badly decomposed, he believed it was the missing girl based on a description of the clothes the girl was wearing.

In response to questions from Eddins, Camero said Aki was not informed of his rights against self-incrimination when he was first interviewed because he was not considered a suspect and police still had no evidence a crime had been committed.

Camero said he could not say why Aki was asked during the first interview if he had hurt the girl if Aki was not yet a suspect.

The trial resumes today.