The parents of murder victim Masumi Watanabe yesterday said they don't believe killer Kirk Lankford's account of the crime and pleaded with him to tell them where he buried the 21-year-old Japanese visitor.

"Your cruelty, your callousness in the face of our devastating loss continues to astound us," Watanabe's mother, Fumiko, said through an interpreter at a sentencing hearing for Lankford, who received life in prison with the possibility of parole.

"When you spoke of our beloved daughter, you spoke as if she was unimportant, merely something you had to get rid of in order to keep your job," she continued.

"Please return Masumi to us. Even after all of this, we still bow humbly to you, to beg and plead to show us some way that we can return her remains to her hometown."

Her husband, Hideichi, told Lankford, "Will you please, somehow, return her body to us?"

"I can hear Masumi calling for us to take her home, her cry is incessant in my ear," he said, also speaking through an interpreter.

"I will have to live out my life with this never-ending cry of my daughter's voice ringing in my ears.

"I believe Masumi is resting in the soil of O'ahu. Would you please tell me where you have buried her?"

The judge and the prosecutor said Lankford could get a shorter sentence by telling authorities where he buried the remains of his victim.

Lankford, 23, an exterminator with Hauoli Pest Control at the time of the killing, maintained during the trial that the death last year of Masumi Watanabe was an accident and that he disposed of her body by carrying it several hundred yards offshore of a Windward O'ahu beach and dropping it in the ocean.

But Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto, Prosecutor Peter Carlisle and Watanabe's parents, who flew here from Japan to testify at yesterday's sentencing hearing, made it clear that they do not believe Lankford.

"You are a predator," Sakamoto told Lankford in passing sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

The Hawai'i Paroling Authority will determine later how much time Lankford must serve before being considered eligible for parole.

Lankford deserves "a very, very long stay in prison," Sakamoto said, adding that his chances of parole are poor "unless there is a showing of compassion ... a revelation of where Ms. Watanabe's remains are."

'I DID NOT KILL MASUMI'

But Lankford, while apologizing for his role in Watanabe's death and the pain it brought to her family, insisted that he did not kill her and did not revise his trial testimony of disposing of the young woman's body at sea.

"I did not kill Masumi Watanabe," Lankford said.

His father, Howard Lankford, told the judge, "I know in my heart" that Kirk did not kill Masumi.

Outside court, Howard Lankford said the conviction will be appealed. "He didn't kill anybody and life in prison is not appropriate," he said.

He criticized local law enforcement, saying they did not bother to look for Masumi Watanabe's remains after his son told his disposal-at-sea story in court.

Watanabe was first reported missing on April 12, 2007, and Kirk Lankford told the court on April 2, 2008, that he disposed of her body in the ocean.

'FAIR, JUST' RETRIBUTION

Carlisle portrayed Lankford in court as a narcissistic criminal who cares about no one but himself.

"For Kirk Matthew Lankford, the most important thing is Kirk Matthew Lankford," Carlisle told Sakamoto.

"That is why Masumi Watanabe was murdered. That is why her body has never been recovered and that is why convict Lankford should be in prison for the rest of his life."

He called the life sentence "fair and just retribution for what the defendant did to Masumi Watanabe, to her body and to her parents."

Carlisle called it a crime that "brought shame on the people of Hawai'i."

"If he doesn't tell us the truth, or we can't verify it, I hope he's not going to be leaving prison upright," he said.

Watanabe's parents said they can never forgive Lankford.

The victim, described by family and friends as a painfully shy young woman, was staying with distant relatives in a Pupukea Heights home as part of a family plan to help her become more outgoing and independent.

She had begun taking daily walks by herself along Pupukea Road, and it was there that the fatal encounter with Lankford occurred.

Witnesses said they saw a woman matching Watanabe's description talking to the driver of a Hauoli Pest Control truck that was stopped on the side of Pupukea Road the morning she disappeared.

LANKFORD'S ACCOUNT

When interviewed by police, Lankford denied seeing or talking to Watanabe.

But when another witness told police he had seen a man matching Lankford's description trying to dig a large hole in the ground at a remote Windward shore area the night Watanabe disappeared, police stepped up their investigation of the Kalihi man.

They obtained a search warrant and found Watanabe's glasses wedged behind the passenger seat cushion in Lankford's work truck, as well as traces of the young woman's blood in several places in the truck.

Lankford steadfastly denied wrongdoing until he finally took the stand in his own defense almost a year after Watanabe disappeared.

He said he had slightly injured her when his truck accidentally struck her on the side of Pupukea Road.

Lankford said Watanabe accepted a ride from him so he could drive her to her home.

But the two couldn't communicate with each other and Lankford began driving faster and faster around the neighborhood and Watanabe became agitated and frightened, the defendant testified.

He said she suddenly dove out of the truck and fatally struck her head on a roadside rock.

Convinced he would lose his job and his family, Lankford said, he decided to get rid of the body and tell no one what had happened. He said he put Watanabe's body in a storage area in the back of the truck and completed all his work duties that day.

After leaving the body in his work truck, Lankford said, he went to his Kalihi home and then to church. He returned to the Hauoli base yard late in the evening after buying a shovel, gloves, plastic bags, duct tape and other supplies at Home Depot, transferring the body to his personal pickup truck.

After his late night grave-digging was interrupted at Kahana Bay, he said, he continued driving along the coast and stopped at a shoreline spot near Kualoa Ranch. He claimed he walked several hundred yards offshore on the reef and dropped the plastic-wrapped body in the ocean.

SECOND-DEGREE MURDER

The jury in the murder trial deliberated a day and a half before convicting him of second-degree murder. The verdict came two days after the one-year anniversary of Watanabe's disappearance.

Watanabe's parents said they will attend the Hawai'i Paroling Authority hearing when Lankford's minimum prison sentence — how much time he must serve before being considered for parole — will be determined. A date for that hearing has not been set.

Carlisle said he believes Lankford's wife will testify against her husband at that hearing, as will another woman who was allegedly assaulted by Lankford in his work truck months before the Watanabe murder.

Lankford's wife, Corinne, filed for divorce earlier this month. Kirk Lankford was served with the court papers July 21 at O'ahu Community Correctional Center. The couple have two young sons.