Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth said he’s using lessons learned from the Peter Kema Jr. case to propose changes in the laws governing child abuse and home schooling and to advocate for a longer statute of limitations period for manslaughter.
Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth said he’s using lessons learned from the Peter Kema Jr. case to propose changes in the laws governing child abuse and home schooling and to advocate for a longer statute of limitations period for manslaughter.
“There’s a lot more that needs to be done, and there still are children that are, unfortunately, being abused,” Roth said Monday after Peter Kema Sr. was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1997 death of his 6-year-old son, Peter Kema Jr., also known as “Peter Boy” and “Pepe.”
Kema Sr., who lied to authorities for almost 20 years about the whereabouts of the chronically abused boy, said only, “uh, no, Your Honor” when asked by Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura if he wished to say anything prior to sentencing.
Deputy Prosecutor Haaheo Kahoohalahala said a witness had compared the boy’s body “to that of a Holocaust victim.”
“Pepe’s death was a combination of physical abuse, child neglect and emotional abuse, including the lack of medical care for his injuries and lack of treatment, which ultimately led to septic shock,” Kahoohalahala said during the brief hearing. “If (Kema Sr.) had not fought in court to get his son back, (Peter Boy) may be alive today. If he had not pulled his son out of school to hide the abuse, he may be alive today. The death of Pepe at the hands of the defendant was inexcusable. And even more inexcusable is that it took the defendant over 20 years to finally admit what he did when he changed his plea just a few months ago.”
In a deal with prosecutors, Kema pleaded guilty April 5 to manslaughter and hindering prosecution. He and his wife, Jaylin, were indicted last year for murder in Peter Boy’s death, which resulted from a festering untreated arm wound brought about by abuse from Kema Sr.
Jaylin Kema, who was in the rear of the courtroom gallery Monday, also pleaded guilty to manslaughter and cooperated with authorities. She was sentenced June 13 to a 10-year probation term and a year in jail, which she already served.
Other members of Peter Boy’s family also were there, including his maternal grandfather, James Acol Sr., older brother, Allan Acol, and younger sister, Lina Acol.
Acol Sr. — who promised his wife, Yolanda, before she died in 2008 that he would continue to seek justice for their grandson — said after Monday’s sentencing it had been “a long journey” and the family will now look for “peace of mind” and “closure.”
“I guess my wife is with (Peter Boy) now and they’re happy,” he said.
Acol Sr. also expressed surprise Kema Sr. didn’t address the court or the family.
“I thought he’d at least turn to us and look at us and apologize, say something. If you’re human, say something. He didn’t say anything. No remorse, nothing,” he said.
The boy went missing in the summer of 1997. His parents didn’t report him missing until 1998. At that time, Kema Sr. and his wife faced the statewide media. Kema Sr. told police, prosecutors and reporters he had given his son to an “Aunty Rose Makuakane” as a hanai, or informal Hawaiian adoption, at Aala Park in Honolulu.
The authorities didn’t believe his story, but no body has been found, and it wasn’t until last year that a grand jury indicted the couple on second-degree murder charges.
Kema Sr.’s plea deal called for him to show authorities where he had left the body, and if no remains were found, to pass a polygraph test.
Kema took police and prosecutors to a remote area of Puna coastline near MacKenzie State Recreation Area, where he said he had set the boy’s body adrift in a cardboard box after an unsuccessful attempt to incinerate the remains.
“This is a man who showed no remorse, took the life of a child,” Roth said after the hearing. “… Mr. Kema didn’t address the family, didn’t apologize. You know, after this whole ordeal, not only has he put this whole family through so much pain and suffering with what he’s done to Pepe … then burning the body, throwing those leftover pieces into the ocean, keeping the family in the dark for 20 years.”
Roth said he also will seek to tighten reporting requirements for Child Welfare Services because Acol Sr. reportedly went to the Kona office of what was then Child Protective Services with his concerns about Peter Boy’s condition a short time before the boy disappeared and was told by a worker that the office couldn’t help with a Hilo case.
“They’re mandated reporters, and they should have people sent out immediately to deal with the situation,” Roth said.
In light of the Kema case, and a current case where the parents and maternal grandmother of a 9-year-old Hilo girl are accused of murder for allegedly starving the child to death, Roth said it’s also time for more oversight of home schooling and home-schooled children.
“Our understanding is, anybody can pull a kid out (of school) for home schooling, and the Department of Education has three different choices. They can acknowledge it. They can acknowledge and approve. Or they can acknowledge and say that they disagree,” he said. “However, even if they disagree, the child is pulled out and nobody is going to look and see what’s happening with that child. We believe that’s wrong. If a child has already been through the (CWS) system or a parent has been through the (CWS) system, or if the parent has been involved with abuse or some other kinds of crime of violence, we believe there should be a judge that makes the decision about allowing that child to be pulled out of school.
“Because when you have a school, you have a teacher who is able to look at these kids and determine what’s going on. If there’s problems, if they’re seeing that they’re malnourished or they’re being abused, they will report. They should report.”
Roth also said it’s time for legislators to lengthen the statute of limitations on manslaughter from its current 10 years in non-vehicle-related cases. He said if the Kemas had stood trial for murder and a jury returned a manslaughter verdict, which is possible if they found the death was caused recklessly instead of intentionally, they would have walked free because the statute of limitations had expired.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.