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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Burglar takes off with prized sax


BY Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

On May 10, a burglar stole a tenor sax belonging to Eric White of Go Jimmy Go.

Photo courtesy Go Jimmy Go

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The paint was barely dry inside Eric White's new house in Makakilo when he learned that a burglar made off with a truckload of stuff valued at more than $7,000, including two saxophones, a guitar and computer equipment.

White, who has played saxophone for the ska band Go Jimmy Go for the past 13 years, and his wife, Kehau, who is eight months' pregnant with the couple's first child, had just finished moving into their Makakilo house the night before it was burglarized earlier this month.

The couple had not spent a night in the house, but had all of their possessions stored there and had recently finished painting the interior. They returned home from a doctor's appointment the morning of May 10 to find the front door of their house slightly ajar.

The Whites lost honeymoon photos stored on a hard drive, computer equipment and other keepsakes and valuables that were kept in drawers.

The big blow was the loss of White's Selmer Series III tenor saxophone. White recorded several albums with it for several bands and took it on tour all over the world. Purchased in 2002, White christened it with a 17-day stint on the Van's Warped Tour.

"It's been to two tours of Europe (18 countries) and two tours of Asia. It's traveled through almost every one of the 50 states and played in close to 40 of them. ... Canada, too," White said. "She was like my wife as I finally found the one to settle down with and didn't have to go searching any more for the 'right one.' "

White and Go Jimmy Go recently completed a tour in China and Japan.

Honolulu police opened a burglary investigation.

Witnesses told police that on May 10 a man in his 40s driving a silver pickup truck was seen loading items from White's house into the truck.

The man broke in by breaking the back window of the house and opening the back door. A neighbor told Eric White the man parked the pickup truck in his garage and loaded stuff into the bed.

Kehau White lost her Michael Kelly guitar, an electric guitar, which was the first she ever owned. It was a gift from her best friend and her husband before they moved away to the Mainland.

"I named my guitar Rosa after her beautiful dark cherry coloring. She was fiery orange-red with a sunburst finish with mother-of-pearl inlay," said Kehau White.