Hilo jury acquits man in 1996 double murder

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — More than seven years after Tetsuya "Grizzly" Yamada was jailed for the shotgun murders of his ex-wife and her daughter, a Hilo Circuit Court jury in his retrial acquitted him of all charges yesterday and sent him home.

YAMADA

DeCambra sat in the front row of the courtroom gallery when the verdict was read and immediately rushed out. Several other spectators gasped and two unidentified women left the room in tears.

Yamada, who was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder for the Sept. 29, 1996, slayings, stood calmly and did not smile when the verdicts were read.

"Right is right," Lee Loy told reporters afterward. "The jury did right for Hilo. The jury did right for the justice system...

"This should have been done five years ago" at Yamada's first murder trial in 1999, he said. Yamada was convicted of two lesser counts of manslaughter after his defense attorney argued the defendant suffered from blackouts caused by earlier head injuries and should not be held responsible for the crimes.

The state Supreme Court overturned the convictions in 2002, ruling that jurors had received improper instructions.

Russell and DeCambra lived on Yamada's Waiakea Uka property at 889 Ainalako Road in a house next to a home Yamada shared with his new wife, Puanani Haili.

Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Hashizaki said the killings occurred after a series of disputes at the property that finally prompted Russell to obtain court orders to keep Yamada and Haili away from her and DeCambra.

Police who were sent to the home on the evening of the shootings found Russell's body behind the house and discovered DeCambra dead in a closet in the home.

Yamada walked up to an officer at the scene holding the shotgun used in the killings and told the officer, "That's what I shot them with," according to Hashizaki.

Yamada admitted to police three separate times that he killed the women, Hashizaki told the jury.

But Lee Loy argued Yamada took the blame for the slayings to protect his second and now deceased wife, Haili. The defense attorney alleged police failed to thoroughly investigate the woman as a possible suspect, although one officer did ask that Haili's hands be tested for gunshot residue.

That test was never done because she had washed her hands before the request was made, according to a police dispatch tape.

Former police detective Edwin Takaka testified at the trial that he was unaware of the request that Haili's hands be tested. Tanaka said he made the decision to charge Yamada and close the case because he had no reason to think Yamada was taking the blame for someone else.

"I believed Mr. Yamada," Tanaka testified. "He said that he had shot two people."

Yamada recanted his confessions when he testified earlier this week, saying he misled police to protect Haili, who died in 1999.

Lee Loy also argued forensic tests of Yamada's clothes found no evidence of gunpowder or blood spatters that should have been present if he fired the shotgun blasts that killed the two victims.

The jury deliberated on the case for about eight hours before finding Yamada not guilty of all three counts.

First Deputy Prosecutor Charlene Iboshi called the verdict "very disappointing, but this is the way the system works and he can present his defense as he did."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.