A former Big Island police sergeant serving a life sentence for the 1992 kidnapping and murder of his wife has died in prison.
A former Big Island police sergeant serving a life sentence for the 1992 kidnapping and murder of his wife has died in prison.
Kenneth Wayne Mathison died Sunday at Halawa Correctional Facility on Oahu, the state Department of Public Safety said Wednesday. He was 63.
According to a source, Mathison was in hospice care.
It took a jury less than four hours on Nov. 22, 1995, to convict Mathison of kidnapping and murdering his wife, Yvonne, a hostess at Ken’s House of Pancakes in Hilo. He was sentenced on March 1, 1996, to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the murder and 20 years for the kidnapping, with both sentences to run concurrently.
Yvonne Mathison died Nov. 27, 1992, after being bludgeoned with a pipe and run over by a van. Mathison was found cradling his wife’s bloody body and told fellow officers he had accidentally run her over with the family van.
See tomorrow’s print or online version of the Tribune-Herald for more details.