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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 5:48 p.m., Sunday, December 17, 2006

Man arrested for not registering as sex offender

Advertiser Staff

A 71-year-old man, convicted in 1980 for the February 1979 rape, sodomy and shooting of a McCully woman, was arrested Friday at his 2nd Avenue residence on a grand jury warrant charging him with failure to register as a convicted sex offender.

Vernon Reiger Sr., also known as Vernon Ray Scott, was indicted Dec. 6. According to the indictment, Reiger did not comply with registration requirements from June 5, 1999, when he was released from prison, through December 2006.

Reiger was arrested at 4:10 a.m. Friday. He posted $25,000 bail and has a District Court appearance at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

The victim of the 1979 shooting survived. According to court testimony, the woman was shot three times in the head with a gun equipped with a silencer. Reiger was described at trial as a former "syndicate hit man."

The 1979 attack occurred at McCully Villa, 2121 Algaroba St., where Elise Watanabe had been raped and shot to death in her apartment in March 1978. The Watanabe case is an unsolved homicide.

In both the 1978 and 1979 cases, police suspect a master key was used to gain entrance to the apartments.

Police were not available for comment on whether Reiger's arrest is connected to any cold-case investigation.