Yesuah Boerstler, a former resident of Kapa‘a, died in Maui on Friday, according to family friend Laurie Ross. He was 18. Gary Yabuta, deputy chief of the Maui police department, said that Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Criminal Investigations Division
Yesuah Boerstler, a former resident of Kapa‘a, died in Maui on Friday, according to family friend Laurie Ross. He was 18.
Gary Yabuta, deputy chief of the Maui police department, said that Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Criminal Investigations Division was investigating the death.
Cuomo did not return telephone calls yesterday. The coroner at Maui Memorial Medical Center also did not return calls.
Media reports indicate that the teen attended a party on Wednesday night in a remote area near Pauwela Lighthouse in Haiku. Passers-by found him lying near a road the next morning.
He had sustained head injuries consistent with being run over by a vehicle, according to media reports, and he died at Maui Memorial Medical Center on Friday afternoon.
The death is being investigated as a homicide, according to the reports.
Ross said she met Boerstler and his younger brother in 1998 when her family moved near his family in Kapa‘a.
“They’ve always been like our kids,” she said.
Boerstler lived with his mother on Maui at the time of his death, she said. He also spent time on Kaua‘i with his father, William Boerstler, who traveled to Maui to talk to police yesterday, she said.
Boerstler loved to ride his skateboard, Ross said. The child of musicians, he always appreciated music, she said, and played drums in a punk rock band.
He had a gentle nature.
“Even if his friends were around, he would still come up to you and hug you,” Ross said.
He didn’t own a house or a car or have a flashy job, she said.
“He was just a person — just a really swell guy, and you can’t get better than that,” she said. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”
