Convicted killer Kirk Lankford apologized to the family of his victim yesterday at a parole hearing at Halawa prison but maintained that he did not murder Masumi Watanabe.

Lankford appeared much different yesterday than when he sat in court for his trial, when he occasionally wore glasses with his thinning red hair slicked back.

In court, Lankford barely filled out the business suits he sometimes wore. Yesterday Lankford was shaved bald and appeared much heavier as he sat in prison clothes and wore leg and wrist shackles.

At a hearing that ultimately will determine his minimum prison sentence, Lankford repeated his version of events — that he accidentally hit the 21-year-old visitor from Japan with his Hauoli Pest Control truck on April 12, 2007, tried to drive Watanabe to her home in Pupukea and that she died only after jumping out of his truck in a panic at a speed of 35 to 45 mph.

After she leaped out of the truck, Lankford told the Hawai'i Paroling Authority yesterday, "Her head was just destroyed" and there was "brain showing."

Paroling authority member Ron Reeber had asked Lankford, "What actually happened to Masumi after the murder occurred? ... Will you tell us that? ... It may be your last opportunity."

Watanabe, whose body was never found, was the only daughter of Fumiko and Hideichi Watanabe.

"Our precious daughter's contorted, bent, folded body, which was shoved into a garbage bag by this defendant, was never recovered despite ardent searches by volunteers and the Honolulu Police Department," Hideichi Watanabe told the parole board through an interpreter. "The totality of the circumstances and horror of this crime is still not clear to us and we have not been able to find closure because the body has not yet been found.

"Taking home my daughter's body would help us to bear this pain."

But Lankford repeated his story to the parole board that he floated Watanabe's body out to a spot near Mokoli'i Islet, also known as Chinaman's Hat, about one-quarter to a half-mile offshore from Kualoa and let it drift away.

Lankford was convicted on April 14 of second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. The parole board expects to have a decision on his minimum sentence in 30 days.

City Prosecutor Peter Car- lisle yesterday brought in 35,000 form letters signed by people in Japan and Pupukea asking the board to set the highest allowable minimum prison term.

He also referred to an alleged 2006 sexual assault of an exotic dancer by Lankford in his Hauoli Pest Control truck at Roosevelt High School, which Lankford was never charged with; the first sexual encounter Lankford had with his ex-wife, which also occurred at Roosevelt in the Hauoli truck; and alleged violence against animals by Lankford.

Carlisle asked the board to set a minimum prison term of 120 years. Lankford told the board that he can still "be a productive member of society" and that his two young sons need their father.

As Lankford and his attorney sat in front of piles of letters that Carlisle had brought in, parole board chairman Al Tufono said, "What we have in front of us just screams out long minimum."

Watanabe's family flew in from Japan — they live on Sado Island in Niigata prefecture — for the hearing. Following the statement by her father, Lankford ignored his attorney's advice and frequently spoke to the family and to the board, and also rebutted statements by Carlisle.

In one of several apologies to the family, Lankford said he feels "guilty about it every day."

Tufono then asked Lankford's attorney, Don Wilkerson, "When he apologizes, what is he sorry for?"

Wilkerson responded, "He's not apologizing for murder because he didn't commit a murder."