Tragedy of boy missing in Hawaii revealed
Print Edition
THE father of a Hawaii boy who went missing 20 years ago has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal with prosecutors that requires him to reveal the location of the child’s body.
Peter Kema also entered a guilty plea to hindering prosecution and agreed to a 20-year prison sentence, with a mandatory minimum of six years and eight months if he helps authorities find the remains of his son, also called Peter, who was 6 when he disappeared.
If Kema doesn’t cooperate, prosecutors can ask for a 25-year term, Hawaii County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ricky Damerville said.
“This saga doesn’t end until we find that body,” the prosecutor said after the hearing on Wednesday.
The defendant didn’t provide those details in court on Wednesday. He only responded “yes” when a judge asked if he recklessly caused the boy’s death by not getting him medical treatment.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the boy known as “Peter Boy,” became the face of a campaign for missing and abused children. Kema and his wife Jaylin have long been suspects in the boy’s disappearance, but prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to charge them until last year, when a grand jury indicted the couple on murder charges.
Jaylin Kema pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter in the first official confirmation that the child was dead. In exchange for a one-year sentence with credit for time served, she agreed to waive her marital privilege and testify against her husband if he went to trial.
She agreed to facts prosecutors laid out in court about abuse suffered by the boy, her failure to get him medical treatment and his eventual death.
In 1996 and 1997, extended family members were concerned that the boy’s father was abusing him.
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