Kaua’i’s unsolved mysteriesBY LESTER CHANG
TGI Staff Writer
Kaua’i Police investigators have probed hundreds of
missing-person cases over the years, but three stand out: Nancy Baugh of
Hanalei, Kumiko Kurimoto of New York, and Stephen and Jenny Sun-Reisberg, two
Harvard University students from Cambridge, Mass.
The three cases, which
span more than 20 years, are head and shoulders above other cases because of
the circumstances surrounding the disappearances of the people, said Claire
Ueno.
“In most of the cases, they are found,” said Ueno, a juvenile
counselor and missing-person investigator with the Kaua’i Police investigative
services bureau. “But these people — they just vanished, gone.”
Foul
play has been ruled out because no bodies have been recovered and because
police investigations haven’t pointed to any criminal intent.
l After
midnight on June 2, 1979, Baugh, 20, was reported by witnesses to have been
dragged out of a house on Aku Road in Hanalei by force, screaming into the
night. The abduction, police said, occurred shortly after her boyfriend,
27-year-old Paul Wayne “Sonny” Featherman, died from a single shotgun blast in
the house in what investigators speculated was a failed drug sale.
l In
late September 1990, Stephen Reisberg, 31, and his wife, Jenny, 28, apparently
went for a hike into the mountains of Koke’e State Park. Only their personal
belongings, some camping equipment and food were found in their rental vehicle
at Pu’u Kila Lookout in Koke’e. In spite of a massive ground and aerial search
of the Alakai Swamp and other areas by state and county agencies, family and
friends, there no signs of the Reisbergs.
l Kurimoto was a 50-year-old New
York visitor who fell in love with the island on a previous visit and returned
to Kaua’i in February this year. She went to a beach in Ha’ena on March 14 and
vanished. Only her personal belongings were found. Following a full-scale land
and ocean search, the family contacted a psychic who predicted Kurimoto would
be found and be reunited with her family. Kurimoto remains missing.
The
family of the missing people agonizes over the disappearance of their loved
ones, hoping new evidence will surface that will shed light on what might have
happened to them.
In the case of Nancy Baugh, family members in New Jersey
prodded political leaders in that state to contact Hawaii’s congressional
members and Kaua’i County officials to ask police to actively pursue the
investigation into the disappearance of the woman.
More detectives were
assigned to the case, but their investigation has gone nowhere because no new
information or evidence has been brought forth.
The circumstances
surrounding Baugh’s case were rooted in violence. The shotgun blast that killed
Featherman rattled the quiet community in Hanalei.
Police found Featherman
naked and dead in the rental house. The shotgun blast had torn away the left
side of his face.
Baugh was never found, but two years ago, the Baugh
family in Beach Haven, N.J. demanded answers and sought out the help of
high-powered officials in that state and Hawai’i.
The missing woman’s
brother, Steven Baugh, was single-mindedly driven to find out what happened to
Nancy Baugh.
“Not a day has gone by that my parents have not thought of
her,” Baugh said at the time. “They are old and they have a right to know what
happened to their daughter before they die.”
The murder-abduction took
place when drugs, police say, were finding their way in the North Shore.
At the time Baugh was taken, rumors circulated her disappearance was tied
to “white slavery,” a term used in a resolution the Board of Commissioners of
the Borough of Beach Haven had sent to Hawai’i officials.
But a Kaua’i
Police officer who worked on the case years ago dismissed the claim, noting
there were “lots of haole girls up there at the time.”
Baugh and
Featherman moved from Cocoa Beach, Fla. to Kaua’i in 1977 because they wanted
to live on a tropical island. Featherman liked plants and aspired to be a
horticulturist on Kaua’i, and Baugh supported his dream. Their dream ended the
night Featherman was killed.
The disappearance of the Reisbergs also is
mired in mystery.
The couple arrived on Kaua’i on Sept. 8,1990, and had
planed to stay at least three weeks before returning home.
Stephen Reisberg
was an avid hiker, his wife was less, but they wanted to hike the trails of
Kaua’i, Ueno said. They came to the island prepared, bringing hiking and
camping equipment. Police were told by an associate of Reisberg that the man
wanted to hike Mount Waialeale, the second-wettest spot on Earth.
The
couple’s professor at Harvard University, who had known of their travel plans,
became concerned when the Reisbergs failed to return to the university.
He
reported them missing Sept. 26, 1990, sparking a massive search for the couple
from Sept. 27 to Sept. 30. The search involved 25 people from the Kaua’i Police
and Fire departments, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources,
Honolulu Police officers with two search dogs, and helicopters with
heat-seeking equipment.
Search teams also were dropped into the Alakai
Swamp by helicopter and risked getting lost themselves, Ueno said.
Family
members came to Kaua’i to help with the search and were flown over the search
area, Ueno said.
She said the search was exhaustive but
unproductive.
“Not one clue, not a sign of anything,” she said.
At the
same time, investigators turned their attention to the couple’s rental vehicle
— a blue Chevy Geo from Alamo — for possible clues as to their whereabouts.
Authorities found some personal identification but no driver licenses. Also
found were airline tickets, a backpack, cooking utensils, clothes, crackers and
a container of juice with half the contents consumed, Ueno
said.
Investigators dusted the vehicle for fingerprint evidence and
searched it for blood or signs of a struggle, but the examination did not bear
out any foul play, Ueno said.
Then what happened to the
Reisbergs?
Investigators speculated they might have gotten lost and fallen
off the side of a mountain, Ueno said.
“Wherever they went, they just
parked the car, went on the hike, and bingo, disappeared,” Ueno said. “This is
one of the biggest mysteries that has faced the Kaua’i Police.”
The
disappearance of Kurimoto this year also vexed investigators. Searchers found
her personal belongings on the beach after she was reported missing March 14.
But no other signs of the woman emerged during a month-long search by state and
county agencies.
Ueno said Kurimoto had visited Kaua’i before, liked the
island and returned in February.
She stayed at the home of a male friend in
Koloa for two weeks and then at the beach home of another male friend in
Ha’ena.
Authorities said she was last seen at the second home at 10 a.m.
March 14.
She had left for a beach in front of the old Charo’s restaurant
in Ha’ena, and when a friend went to greet her, she wasn’t there, Ueno said.
Police were summoned and, during a search of the coastline, the woman’s
towel, slippers and identification were found, but not Kurimoto.
A
month-long search kicked off, employing county lifeguards who searched the
waters, firefighters and police officers who searched the shoreline and state
Department of Land and Natural Resources employees who talked with people in
Kalalau Valley.
Investigators also posted fliers of the woman in the
community and family members flew in from Japan and New York to help with the
search.
Her disappearance baffled searchers and police.
“Nobody saw her
walking on the road or on the beach, even though she had told a friend she was
going to the beach,” Ueno said.
Kurimoto’s husband from New York and her
sister from Japan participated in a search that yielded scant evidence of what
might have happened to her.
Family members hired a psychic who gave them a
glimmer of hope: Kurimoto, they were told, had become unconscious, was
temporarily covered by foliage, brush and trees in the jungle, but would wake
up and be found.
Kurimoto never surfaced.
Police suspect she might have
gone for a swim in the ocean, got in trouble and drowned.
“But we don’t
know if she drowned, because there is no body,” Ueno said. “We don’t know what
happened to her. It is a mystery.”
Lt. Alvin Seto, who spearheads Kaua’i
Police investigations into missing persons, said all three cases are still
under review and that investigations will be stepped up should new evidence
come about.
“Until then, they are missing persons,” Seto
said.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225)
and lchang@pulitzer.net
