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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, September 12, 2009

Hearing delayed for Hawaii girl's accused killer


By John Burnett
Hawaii Tribune-Herald

HILO, Hawaii -- A courtroom packed with family and neighbors of Javieanne Win expected a preliminary hearing Friday for the man accused of raping and killing her. Instead, they got a frustrating weekend with no movement of the wheels of justice.

Third District Judge Harry Freitas granted Deputy Public Defender Sam MacRoberts request for a continuance to 1:30 p.m. Monday for defendant Anthony Serges Poulin. That postponed the hearing to determine if probable cause exists to try the 30-year-old Wainaku man. Poulin is charged with second-degree murder and multiple counts of abuse of a family/household member in the drowning death Sunday of Win, a 5-year-old first grader at Chiefess Kapiolani Elementary School.

Poulin, who remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail, was escorted into the courtroom wearing an orange Hawaii Community Correctional Center jumpsuit.

MacRoberts, who was substituting for Poulin's court-appointed attorney, Stanton Oshiro, said that Poulin agreed to waive his right to a preliminary hearing within 48 hours of his initial court appearance, which occurred Wednesday afternoon.

"Basically, what's going on is that Mr. MacRoberts is making sure your attorney, Mr. Oshiro, gets another date," Freitas told Poulin. "That gives him more time to talk to you. Are you agreeable to that?"

"Yes, sir," Poulin replied.

As Poulin was escorted out of the courtroom, a neighbor of Win's shouted "Pig!" "Rapist!" and "Murderer!" as well as an unprintable epithet.

Police and paramedics responded to a 3:06 p.m. call Sunday of an unresponsive child in a filled bathtub in the family's apartment on Puueo Street in Hilo. Win was taken by ambulance to Hilo Medical Center where she was pronounced dead at 4:28 p.m. The girl's mother, Jennifer Abiley, was not home and Win was in the care of Poulin, Abiley's boyfriend.

An autopsy found Win's death was a homicide by "asphyxiation due to forceful submersion." A postmortem examination also reportedly showed that Win suffered a broken arm and injuries consistent with forced sexual penetration.

Less than 40 minutes before emergency personnel went to the apartment, police had received a call from a woman who said she witnessed a man grab a little girl by the hair and slam her against a cement wall at Shipman Street and Kamehameha Avenue in downtown Hilo. Surveillance video from Alert Alarm of Hawaii caught the girl shortly before the attack. The video, which was turned over to police, shows the girl walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of businesses at Shipman and Kamehameha, less than two hours before her death.