Hawaii Six...Oh-Oh?



Colorful Fishes

I recently went to Hawaii on business. You know the scene--the weather is perfect, everything is in Technicolor, and everyone is there to do nothing but relax except the people on business.

I woke up quite early the first day and didn't see a newspaper outside my hotel room so I ventured to the Starbucks and found that they were providing free copies of The Honolulu Star Advertiser.  I am always up for a little local news, and if you can trudge your way through that newspaper, inside, like a toy in a box of Crackerjacks, you will find a USA Today.



Knotty Banyan Tree

In the February 7th issue of the Honolulu Star Advertiser on page A2, I found a column more colorful than any fishes, more knotted than any Banyan tree, (abridged for your reading enjoyment):

Whatever Happened To...

Investigation has no luck matching fingers to child

Question: Whatever happened to the police investigation into finding the child whose six fingers were found in a plastic bag in a Dumpsite near Alta Park in 2012?

Answer: The case is still active but without leads. Honolulu police investigators remain stumped (sic) by the discovery of the six child fingers and are still looking for leads identifying the child and how the six fingers got into a Dumpster in Kukui Gardens...

Police conducted a search of the Kukui Gardens area shortly after the fingers were reported to them but were unable to find the child or other body parts.

The fingers, coming from the upper tips of the knuckles were found in a plastic zip-close bag on Feb. 2 by a woman who was looking for bottle and cans to recycle.

The woman initially thought the fingers were dried ginger root, but upon further examination she saw fingernails.

Pam Cadiente, chief investigator for the Honolulu Medical Examiner's Office, said the fingers belonged to a girl younger than 10 years old and were probably separated by a hard force.

She said the fingers might have been cut from a living person or a cadaver or a cadaver of someone who died a long time ago.

"It remains unsolved...until we know the circumstances we cannot know if a crime was commited," Cadiente said.


I love the fact that  the fiingers were mistaken for ginger root. It seems so very regional. Had the fingers been found in the continental United States what might they be mistaken for? Fish sticks? I also love the investigator's supposition that the fingers were probably separated by "a hard force," her distinction between a cadaver or a really dead cadaver, and her conclusion that we cannot know if a crime was committed.

Maybe it was done in sport; as they say, everything's fun and games until someone gets hurt.

The story ends with a plea to call CrimeStoppers if you have any clues to this (my words) digital mystery.

Mr. Mullet sentenced for hair cutting attacks

Now here is a nomen est omen if you ever saw one. Saturday's New York Times reports that Samuel Mullet Sr, 67, was sentenced as the Amish Sect Leader who was behind the series of attacks in 2011 which spread fear through Amish communities in eastern Ohio. "Followers of Mr. Mullet broke into homes, restrained men and women, and forcibly sheared their victims, sometimes with tools used to clip horse manes."

Whatever happened to business in the front, party in the back, Mr. Mullet?

And don't all mullets require tools to clip horse manes?