Murder defendant Kirk Matthew Lankford will testify that Masumi Watanabe died as a result of "a terrible accident," and that, desperate and frightened, he sealed her body in a plastic garbage bag and dropped it in the ocean several hundred yards offshore of Kualoa Ranch on O'ahu's Windward Coast, his defense lawyer told jurors yesterday.

Watanabe, 21, a visitor from Sado Island, Japan, disappeared while walking on Pupukea Road on the North Shore on April 12, 2007. Her body was never recovered.

Wilkerson delivered his opening address to the jury yesterday afternoon after Prosecutor Peter Carlisle rested the state's case.

Wilkerson said Lankford, 23, a technician with Hauoli Pest Control, struck Watanabe when she "stepped out in front" of his truck on Pupukea Road.

"She came out of nowhere and he accidentally hit her," Wilkerson said.

It appeared that one of her arms struck the windshield, cracking it, and then Watanabe "spun away" to the side of the road, the lawyer said.

Lankford stopped to see what had happened to Watanabe and she did not appear to be seriously injured, he said. "Her hands were scuffed and a little bit bloody," he said.

Watanabe voluntarily got in the truck, the lawyer said. "There was no struggle, no argument," Wilkerson said.

DISCIPLINED BEFORE

Lankford is married, the father of two children and sole supporter of his family and he was afraid that if he reported the accident, "it would be cause for immediate dismissal," Wilkerson said.

He had been disciplined by the company before for driving too close to the shoulder of the road, according to earlier testimony in the trial.

So Lankford decided to drive Watanabe home. But the victim spoke no English and Lankford could not communicate with her.

He drove her down Pupukea Road, then up the road, slowing at houses and asking her, "Here? Here?" Wilkerson said.

When Lankford drove along Makana Road, which parallels Pupukea, Watanabe became "very excited and started speaking louder and louder and louder in Japanese" until she "almost screamed at him," Wilkerson recounted.

Near a vacant lot at 402 Makana Road, Watanabe "opened the door and dove out," striking her head on a boulder by the side of the road, according to the defense lawyer.

'THERE WAS NO PULSE'

Lankford was driving an estimated 40 miles per hour at the time, and when he stopped and returned, he found Watanabe lying dead on the roadside, Wilkerson said.

"There was no pulse. Her head was severely disformed and disfigured," Wilkerson said.

Lankford "loaded her up in the back of his truck," and left the area, Wilkerson said.

"There was nothing he could do to save her. He tried to save himself and his family," the lawyer said.

"You might not like what he did, but he did not commit murder," Wilkerson said.

Lankford continued working the rest of the day with the dead woman's body hidden in the back of the truck, according to Wilkerson. At one point, he stopped at Foodland Supermarket to look for his cell phone and to buy cleaning materials.

Later he stopped at the unoccupied house of a Hauoli customer on Ke Waena Road. "He said a few prayers and he decided what he was going to do and he did it," Wilkerson said.

PUT BODY INSIDE PANEL

Lankford cleared out a side storage panel in the back of the truck and he put Watanabe's body inside, his lawyer told jurors. "He proceeded to go about his business for the day," he said.

That night, Lankford went to Home Depot and purchased items including a shovel, gloves, duct tape, a flashlight and garbage bags. He transferred Watanabe's body to the back of his personal pickup truck and drove to Kahana Bay on the Windward Coast intending to bury the body there, Wilkerson said.

CONFRONTED BY MAN

But while trying to dig a hole there, Lankford was confronted by a homeless man named John Thoma, Wilkerson said.

Thoma — who lives in an abandoned Army bunker dug into the mountainside nearby —testified earlier in the trial that he demanded to know what Lankford was doing digging in the ground at midnight in such a remote area.

Wilkerson said that when Thoma told Lankford that he was going to call the police, Lankford was "frightened and scared" and drove off in his pickup truck "towards Chinaman's Hat," or Mokoli'i islet off Kualoa Ranch.

"He believed possibly the police were coming," the lawyer said.

Near Kualoa Ranch, Lankford removed the bag containing Watanabe's body from the truck, which had been sealed closed with duct tape, "and walked her out into the ocean as far as he could," Wilkerson said.

Because the sea is shallow in that area, Wilkerson said, Lankford walked "a few hundred yards offshore and left her body there." Then he "got back in his truck and went home."

The next day he arranged to have the Hauoli truck's broken windshield replaced, telling his bosses that it had been broken when a bird flew into it, Wilkerson said.

The trial continues today in Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto's court.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.