AND ALL FOR UNDER A BUCK

AND ALL FOR UNDER A BUCK: We’ve come up with a formula that perfectly describes the treatment of information consumers on Kaua`i.

Yesterday’s Papers + Everything Old Is New Again = Our Local Newspaper.

This kind of “when we get around to it... and if we’re forced to” journalism results in things like the way someone decided to tip off the Star(ad)vetiser to the story today of the $38 million sale of the Aston Kauai Beach to JMI Realty of Texas rather than tell the Kaua`i paper because they knew the S-A would not just publish the story in a timely manner but actually get the story right.

So we were not surprised by the “day late and a dollar short” story that appeared in Wednesday’s local paper that must have been a head-scratcher for anyone who had not read our report almost a month and a half ago that Mayor Carvalho’s Administrative Assistant Gary Heu was warning people that alleged “Westside serial killer” Waldorf “Wally” Wilson was spotted on Kaua`i riding a bike in Puhi.

But of course the newspaper danced around the whole story by leaving out the fact that Wilson was identified as the suspect in two killings and an assault many years ago, according to Chapter 8- The Serial Killer in the book KPD Blue by Anthony Sommer (see left rail to read the entire book).

Seems police beat “reporter” Paul Curtis must have missed one of the “5 W’s” in J-school classes- the one where, after covering who, what, when, and where, they cover “why”- leaving out the fact that Wilson was a suspect in those killings.

Instead Curtis wrote that “a widely circulated e-mail came just short of accusing an innocent man of murder”.

Innocent? Well, maybe just short of it according to Sommer.

The article essentially repeats Joan Conrow’s report a few weeks back regarding the KPD and AG’s office contention that they checked and Wilson “is still living in Kane`ohe” although later in the article it says that “(i)f visiting another island for more than 10 days, (registered sex offenders) must register in person with the county police department on that island within three days of arrival” implying that no notification is needed to visit for 10 days so it doesn’t mean Wilson was never here as Curtis strains to imply.

Our favorite part of course is where Curtis writes:

“Word spread from as high up as Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s No. 2 man, Administrative Assistant Gary Heu, to as low as blogs written by local residents saying Wilson may be living in Puhi”

Well if Heu is “high” and we’re “low” we suppose today’s publication means the story has finally hit rock bottom.

So why would the local newspaper fail to report the core of the story? Well it wouldn’t be the first time they failed to touch the story with a 10 foot pole.

Sommer tells us why that might be, writing:

On Sept. 12, 2000, the KPD announced it had arrested a convicted rapist on a parole violation. The man’s name and mug shot were released through the mayor’s office.

The press release was almost instantly followed by another insisting the parole violator was in no way a suspect in the west side attacks and his only crime was violating the conditions of his parole.

The KPD was so vehement in pointing out that the man was not the serial killer, every editor in the state bought it. Except for one Honolulu television station, which used his name and broadcast his picture, all the “news executives” were frightened by the KPD’s threat of libel suits.

The next day, the KPD, through the mayor’s office criticized the lone television station that identified the arrested man for “irresponsible reporting.”

The television station was correct. It was the KPD that was lying. And the mayor’s office knew it but lying to the press was pretty much standard operating procedure. Next, Inspector Mel Morris, head of the investigations bureau, began dragging a red herring claiming, “KPD has not ruled out the possibility that there may be more than one person responsible.”

He said the man arrested is “unrelated to any of these cases. Any impression that might have been given that these cases are close to being solved is flat-out wrong.”

The arrested man was, of course, KPD’s primary, in fact only, suspect and (off the record, of course) they were certain he was the killer but they couldn’t prove it.

His name was Waldorf “Wally” Wilson, and his name and picture were all over the west side on anonymously printed flyers.

But the Honolulu media executives would not publish his name until two years later—and then only because Wilson filed a lawsuit against KPD, a newspaper and a magazine.

Wilson was convicted in 1983 of a brutal rape on Oahu. He was paroled on Jan. 9, 1999 and in January 2000 moved to Kauai. The attacks began three months later.

Wally Wilson’s brother was a KPD officer, Buddy Wilson, a long-time member of the Vice Squad known for his somewhat less than subtle tactics in investigating narcotics cases.

(Once again the circle that began with the Randy Machado trial looped back. Kelly Lau was a witness for Machado at his trial. Lau indicated quite clearly she was a confidential informant working for Buddy Wilson.)

All the while, KPD insisted Wally Wilson was not a suspect. For the next two years, the KPD engaged in tactics that Wally Wilson later claimed in his lawsuit violated his Constitutional rights.

But he was kept off the streets without ever actually being charged with any crime.

And there were no more attacks.

According to Wally Wilson’s lawsuit, KPD “coerced” him into taking a polygraph test on Sept. 12, 2000 and then “strongly pressured” the Hawaii Parole Authority to revoke Wilson’s parole. The results of the polygraph test were not given in the lawsuit.

A judge ultimately threw out Wilson’s lawsuit but by then KPD’s tactics were pretty obvious, as was its complete inability (or unwillingness) to bring criminal charges against him involving the three attacks.

Unable or unwilling to cover news in a timely manner?.. failing to include facts not just material but central to the story?... repeating whatever those he covers tells him to without questioning and an inability to adhere to basic reporting standards?...

Check, check and check.

So much for “without fear or favor.”

That’s our Paul and that’s our newspaper- serial offenders of journalistic standards by any measure.

IF I LISTEN LONG ENOUGH TO YOU

IF I LISTEN LONG ENOUGH TO YOU: A couple of decades ago Chryslers were the laughing stock of the car industry with people swearing off ownership and sales and stock prices plummeting.

That was followed by Lee Iacocca’s introduction of infamous “K car” and ads claiming that this year’s Chryslers had a “100% increase in quality”, causing us to wonder how you’d feel if you’d just bought last year’s model.

And recently Domino’s admitted that their pizza used to taste like cardboard and claims that now it didn’t.

Chrysler remains in third place and no one is rushing out to buy a pizza whose biggest selling point is that it doesn’t taste like cardboard anymore.

But the old adage that “saying it doesn’t make it so” was never more appropriate than when applied to the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD).

Despite the ubiquitous claims that, under new KPD Chief Darryl Perry, there’s been a 100% increase in quality of services we’re left with a distinctly nasty taste in our mouths over the foul tasting crap we’re being fed today in the local newspaper, coming out of the Investigative Services Bureau regarding the recent murder of Amber Jackson and connection to the alleged “west side serial killer”.

Despite the fact that women on this island are terrorized to go out alone and rumors fly like UFOs it seems that all they can say is “trust us we know what we’re doing”.

The question is how can you trust them when all they will say is:

“There is no circumstantial or physical evidence, testimony or suggestion or even suspicion that a connection (between the Jackson and west side murders) exists,” police officials said in an e-mail response to several recent questions. “To further expand would reveal intimate details of both cases that cannot be disclosed. If we did we would jeopardize the investigations.”

Compounding the problem of trusting they are competent to do their jobs is the revelation that Jackson’s nephew says that he “found out via a KPD e-mail that DNA evidence was sent out for analysis some two months after the discovery of Jackson’s dead body.”

The Keystone Kops nature of the “old” KPD was well established in the book KPD Blue (see left rail) which includes a chapter on the west side serial killer. And, as we reported, according to the mayor’s Administrative Assistant, the suspect in those cases was reported to be on the island.

Yet despite the fact that according to our records many thousands of people on Kaua`i read our news article last month on the matter, still no mention of suspect Waldorf “Wally” Wilson’s whereabouts by either KPD or the local newspaper.

Rather than give us some details and evidence that he isn’t here the chief only gave an interview to journalist Joan Conrow claiming that Wilson was never here and, again, he wanted us to “trust him”.

Now despite the apparent incompetence that led to a two month delay in getting the DNA evidence to the lab we’re again to trust them that they are “on the case”.

In addition they haven’t done anything to quell fears over the death of Nola Thompson who was found dead up by Loop Road, refusing to even give a suspected cause of death and again saying “trust us” there was no “apparent” foul play.

People have got to question if they would recognize foul play if they saw it.

All people are asking for is reassurance that they can believe- a few details that make sense- as to why they see no connection between the Jackson and west side murders and what went on up at Loop Road and how Thompson died.

If anything this “say no more- I can say no more” cloak and dagger amateurism coming out of KPD has increased the fear level in the community rather than lowered it.

The responsibility for this kind of stumbling and bumbling their way through their investigative and PR efforts falls on the doorstep of the chief no matter how often he asks us to trust him.

It’s time for Chief Perry to give us at least a couple of reasons to believe.

(PNN) ALLEGED WESTSIDE SERIAL KILLER WILSON SAID TO BE “OUT OF JAIL AND BACK ON ISLAND” ACCORDING TO MAYOR’S A.A. HEU

ALLEGED WESTSIDE SERIAL KILLER WILSON SAID TO BE “OUT OF JAIL AND BACK ON ISLAND” ACCORDING TO MAYOR’S A.A. HEU

ADMINISTRATION IN “DAMAGE CONTROL” AFTER EMAIL CIRCULATES WIDELY

(PNN) -- In the wake of the unsolved murders of Amber Jackson in June and tourist Nola Rebecca “Becky” Thompson- whose body was found this morning after having been missing for the last week- the man alleged to be the “west side serial killer” is thought to be on the loose and living in Puhi according to a source who quoted Kaua`i County Administrative Assistant Gary Hue as telling her to “be careful” because of it.

Waldorf “Wally” Wilson was identified as the man thought privately by many- including privately some Kauai Police Department (KPD) officers- to be “the west side serial killer” in the book “KPD Blue” by former Kaua`i Bureau Chief for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin Anthony Sommer.

Waldorf "Wally" Wilson, taken 1/25/10 (provided by Department of the Attorney General’s Online Sex Offender Search)

According to an email circulated widely yesterday and obtained by PNN, a woman who asked not to be identified said that Hue told her that Wilson “is out of jail and apparently back on island” and, she says that, “apparently he rides a bike - targets middle-aged Caucasian women and is currently thought to be living in Puhi.”

But the administration got hold of the email and went into “damage control” and convinced the woman that because Wilson “was never convicted of any crimes here on Kaua`i and what I wrote about him borders on libel and slander”.

Saying she “committed a grave blunder and forgotten that all of us have rights and are innocent until proven guilty” the originator of the email said that “(t)he email I sent has gotten back to the office of the mayor and they are in damage control mode right now and I am the subject of this damage control. They do not wish to create widespread panic about this situation which I helped to create.”

According to KPD Blue’s Chapter 8- The Serial Killer which PNN serialized in 2008 (see left rail):

In the spring and summer of 2000 on Kauai’s west side, three white women were stabbed and sexually assaulted. Two died. The third was left for dead and so severely injured that it took her three hours to crawl to a telephone only a few yards away and call for help....

KPD detectives quickly identified a prime suspect but insisted they could never gather enough evidence to arrest or charge him.

The suspect’s brother was a veteran KPD officer....

On April 7, 2000, the battered body of Lisa Bissell, 38, was found in a roadside ditch near Polihale State Park on Kauai’s west side.... On May 22, 2000, a 52-year-old haole woman was beaten and stabbed in the yard of a remote Kekaha beach home where she was house-sitting... The third victim was found on Aug. 30, 2000, at her camp site near Pakala Point Beach, a popular surfing spot. She was identified as Daren Singer, 43, of Paia, Maui...

In early September, KPD detectives rounded up all 70 registered sex offenders on the island. They said they didn’t find any suspects but, of course, they had.

On Sept. 12, 2000, the KPD announced it had arrested a convicted rapist on a parole violation. The man’s name and mug shot were released through the mayor’s office.

The press release was almost instantly followed by another insisting the parole violator was in no way a suspect in the west side attacks and his only crime was violating the conditions of his parole.

The KPD was so vehement in pointing out that the man was not the serial killer, every editor in the state bought it. Except for one Honolulu television station, which used his name and broadcast his picture, all the “news executives” were frightened by the KPD’s threat of libel suits.

The next day, the KPD, through the mayor’s office criticized the lone television station that identified the arrested man for “irresponsible reporting.”

The television station was correct. It was the KPD that was lying. And the mayor’s office knew it but lying to the press was pretty much standard operating procedure. Next, Inspector Mel Morris, head of the investigations bureau, began dragging a red herring claiming, “KPD has not ruled out the possibility that there may be more than one person responsible.”

He said the man arrested is “unrelated to any of these cases. Any impression that might have been given that these cases are close to being solved is flat-out wrong.”

The arrested man was, of course, KPD’s primary, in fact only, suspect and (off the record, of course) they were certain he was the killer but they couldn’t prove it.

His name was Waldorf “Wally” Wilson, and his name and picture were all over the west side on anonymously printed flyers.

But the Honolulu media executives would not publish his name until two years later—and then only because Wilson filed a lawsuit against KPD, a newspaper and a magazine.

Wilson was convicted in 1983 of a brutal rape on Oahu. He was paroled on Jan. 9, 1999 and in January 2000 moved to Kauai. The attacks began three months later.

Wally Wilson’s brother was a KPD officer, Buddy Wilson, a long-time member of the Vice Squad known for his somewhat less than subtle tactics in investigating narcotics cases.

(Once again the circle that began with the Randy Machado trial looped back. Kelly Lau was a witness for Machado at his trial. Lau indicated quite clearly she was a confidential informant working for Buddy Wilson.)

All the while, KPD insisted Wally Wilson was not a suspect. For the next two years, the KPD engaged in tactics that Wally Wilson later claimed in his lawsuit violated his Constitutional rights.

But he was kept off the streets without ever actually being charged with any crime.

And there were no more attacks.

According to Wally Wilson’s lawsuit, KPD “coerced” him into taking a polygraph test on Sept. 12, 2000 and then “strongly pressured” the Hawaii Parole Authority to revoke Wilson’s parole. The results of the polygraph test were not given in the lawsuit.

A judge ultimately threw out Wilson’s lawsuit but by then KPD’s tactics were pretty obvious, as was its complete inability (or unwillingness) to bring criminal charges against him involving the three attacks.

Initially, Wilson’s parole was rescinded because he had been in contact with a woman on Kauai that his parole conditions specifically directed him to avoid. The revocation lasted until Feb. 28, 2002, when he was set free. On June 15, 2002, Wilson was again sent back to prison for violating his parole by failing a polygraph test.

To this day, KPD never has stated Wilson was a suspect at all in the West Side attacks. Yet every time he was released, his parole was violated on one technicality or another, and he was sent back to prison.

The problem is, Wilson has now “maxed out,” served the full term for his earlier conviction, and is back on the street. Since he no longer is on parole, he can’t be hauled in for parole violations.

The case of the one and only serial killer in Kauai’s history remains unsolved.

According to Wilson’s page at the Department of the Attorney General’s Online Sex Offender Search page, Wilson is 50 years old, 5’ 11”, 185 lbs with black hair and brown eyes with tattoos on his right shoulder and left ankle. Although it lists a Honolulu address that is from 2004.

According to the site Wilson was convicted of first degree rape, first degree sex abuse and kidnapping on July 26 1983.