SECOND OAHU MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN COLD CASE

Aaron Meyer, 49, pled guilty and was sentenced Thursday for the 1977 shooting of Toshio Kawano.

Kawano, 58, and his wife, had operated for many years a small bakery and liquor store on King Street.  On the evening of September 26, 1977, Kawano was tending the store alone when he was shot several times during what appeared to be a robbery attempt.  Kawano died during surgery a few hours later.  There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, and after an exhaustive investigation, the case was eventually classified as an unsolved homicide.

In 2004, the case was adopted for further investigation by the Cold Case Unit of the Department of the Attorney General.  On December 14, 2006, the department obtained murder indictments against Meyer and co-defendant Melvin Kumakau, 52.

Pursuant to a plea agreement, Meyer pled guilty to the charges of Manslaughter and Robbery in the first Degree, and was sentenced immediately by Judge Virginia Crandall to an indeterminate ten-year prison term for Manslaughter and an indeterminate twenty-year prison term for Robbery in the First Degree.

Co-defendant Meyer pled guilty to Manslaughter and Robbery in the First Degree on January 7, 2009, and was sentenced respectively to ten- and twenty- year prison terms.

The Cold Case Unit was established in 2004 to investigate and prosecute cold homicide cases throughout Hawaii and to develop a statewide, coordinated approach to cold homicide investigations.

(Posted:  Monday, January 19, 2009)