More than 200 pages transcribed from videotaped interviews with Peter Boy Kema's siblings were released yesterday by state officials, but the interviews do not shed any light on what happened to the missing child-abuse victim from Hilo.

The interviews were from three videotaped sessions with the boy's half-siblings, whose names were not released to protect their privacy. The state Department of Human Services originally hoped to release videotapes in May when it released more than 2,000 pages of confidential files pertaining to Peter Boy's case. But officials decided that transcribing the material was a better way to protect the privacy of the children. Blackening their names on paper was easier than electronically shielding their faces on videotapes.

The interviews were done by Hilo police and social workers on April 22, 24 and 30, 1998.

They asked the children when they had last seen Peter Boy, what his life was like and if they knew who he was with. They asked him how he injured one of his arms — did he fall from a tree or did a mosquito bite get infected? It was a bite, one of the children said, that "started getting rotten and all that."

And the interviewers wanted to know if any of the children had a copy of a photograph supposedly taken of Peter Boy when he left for Honolulu with an auntie. The children thought their parents might have them.

The department notified a number of Big Island authorities on July 5, including the Family Court and all attorneys involved, that the transcribed interviews would be released. The state Attorney General's Office advised the department to not include the police and prosecutors on the notification list, however. One of the reasons is because the department had given both organizations their own tapes in April, said Derick Dahilig, Human Services spokesman.

Big Island police said yesterday that they were caught flat-footed by the release. Lt. Randall Medeiros, who oversees the Hawai'i County Police Department's Criminal Investigation Section, complained to the department.

"I wasn't made aware of this pending release, and I let my superiors know and they seemed just as surprised as I was," Medeiros said.

Medeiros, who was present during one of the 1998 interviews, said it was not his place to say if Human Services officials should have informed police.

"I had some concerns, but I think beyond that I don't think it would be prudent to comment on how this release may or may not affect resolving this investigation," he said.

Henry Oliva, deputy director of the department, said the goal was always to open as much of the confidential files as possible. The transcripts were the last files to be released.

"It was important to add transparency to the case and to make sure the public had access to all the documents," Oliva said.

Oliva said he did not know of any requests to withhold the transcripts from the parties notified earlier this month.

Peter Boy disappeared sometime in the spring or summer of 1997. He would have turned 6 that May. His father, Peter Kema Sr., has long maintained that he traveled to O'ahu and gave the boy away to a family friend identified as Auntie Rose Makuakane in August 1997. Police have never been able to prove the woman exists.

The interviews transcribed meander quite a bit.

At several points the interviewers discuss where Peter Boy is and the children respond by saying he's with an auntie. But when asked her name, they say they learned her name — Rose — from newspaper stories.

The questions often lead the children, appearing at times to suggest answers. In turn, though, the answers are vague and it is not clear if the children had been coached on what to say.

The statement that most consistently matches previous statements by the children has to do with when they last saw Peter Boy, which was sometime in the spring of 1997 as the family prepared to move from Nanawale to Kaumana. Whenever asked, the children have always said — and say in the transcripts — that Peter Boy did not move with them.

At one point in the April 30 session, an interviewer asks if the child thinks Peter Boy is dead.

"No, he's alive in my heart," the sibling responded. "He's always alive in my heart."