Murder on Waikiki

When I'm on vacation, I tune out the rest of the world. I don't check my e-mail, I don't watch the news. I'm there to vacation, and that's all that matters. The day after we arrived in Hawaii, we had nothing planned until that evening. This was the day we were going to enjoy the beach, do some shopping, explore the area restaurants, and just have a good time. We slept in until six in the morning, which was ten in the morning Utah time, so I felt like we were doing well. The hotel was comfortable, and we were right across the street from the beach.

My husband says he heard the sirens. I may have been vaguely aware of them, but in truth I don't remember. I remember just enjoying the leisurely morning, and looking forward to breakfast. We made it to the beach around nine o'clock, and were surprised to see the yellow Caution tape set up around the beach, right along the back patio of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. There was a video camera set up, a uniformed police officer, and two women in business attire standing around with parasols to protect them from the sun. Because of the sand, they had taken their shoes off, and I remember thinking it was odd seeing someone in a pencil skirt and business jacket and bare feet. Their job seemed to be to keep tourists from walking along the cordoned off area of the beach. Time after time, they directed people around a different direction. We wondered what had happened, but didn't want to bother the people working.

We decided to set the towels up near the caution tape, a few feet away. The area was less crowded, and it was easy to keep an eye on the girls to make sure they didn't try to go into areas they weren't supposed to go. We stayed on the beach for a few hours, then left to go get lunch. The yellow tape was gone when we went back in the afternoon, and that was the end of it.

We didn't think anything more about the incident until we were on the shuttle riding to the airport. One of the men riding in the shuttle was talking about how he was from New Mexico, and so he had friends and family members calling to make sure that it wasn't anyone from his family who was killed. Killed? We asked, and sure enough, that first morning we were in Hawaii, the body of a young woman from New Mexico was found stabbed on Waikiki beach. That explained the sirens, the police tape, all of it. We had remained blissfully ignorant of everything.

We talked with the people in the van about other details of the murder, and looked things up later after we got home. It turns out, they weren't able to move the body until the investigation had been finished so they posted policemen on the beach, and cordoned off the area, then moved the body closer to the motel and concealed it so none of the tourists would know it was there.

It was apparently lying there hidden about twenty feet from where we were sitting on the beach that day.