‘Ha‘ikū creeper’ frightened community for months as victims, neighbors waited for police action

Mirelis Olivieri was sleeping with her 8-year-old son in their Ha‘ikū home in the early morning hours of July 28 when she woke up to a hand on her leg and a figure dressed all in black at the edge of her bed. 

“Who the f— are you?” she screamed, leaping out of bed. She chased the spooked intruder, who dashed into another room and out the door. 

Olivieri called police, who classified the case as a first-degree home burglary and a fourth-degree sexual assault. With the assailant at large, she and her roommate bought robust security cameras, floodlights and stronger locks. 

The longtime Ha‘ikū resident’s terrifying encounter was one of a series of reported “peeping Tom” incidents, break-ins and assaults over the past several months that residents have attributed to a person known as the “Ha‘ikū creeper.”

In interviews with the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative, concerned community members say they’d taken to installing cameras, applying for gun courses, learning self-defense and avoiding late-night outings. On social media, they traded questions with their neighbors and shared surveillance footage of late-night snoopers they suspected could be the culprit. 

And, they continued to wonder why police hadn’t provided updates since going public in August with the July 28 incident at Olivieri’s home. 

The Maui Police Department declined the Hawaiʻi Journalism Initiative’s interview request last week and a follow-up request for information on Thursday about the series of incidents that have caused fear in the community.

But on Friday just before 5 p.m., the police department announced a person had been arrested two days earlier in connection with multiple residential break-ins in Ha‘ikū.

The police department said in a news release the suspect is in custody and detectives are continuing to investigate the incidents, but they did not name the suspect and did not say whether the person had been charged. The police also did not share details of the cases and whether they were related to the July 28 incident or previous reports.

“In order to safeguard the ongoing investigation and to protect victim privacy, we are not granting interviews nor releasing specific details at this time,” MPD spokesperson Alana Pico told the Hawaiʻi Journalism Initiative via email Friday evening.

For a community that had been in the dark for months, the arrest was both welcome news and a long time coming.

SHATTERED SILENCE

The peace and quiet of country living is what residents say they love most about Maui’s North Shore. Until recently, it was a place where they felt safe enough to keep their doors unlocked. But for months, stories like Olivieri’s have been circling through the community. 

Ha‘ikū resident Janet Corvino heard about “the creeper” in July on the NextDoor app that allows neighbors to connect. She started documented all the suspicious activity.

“Any woman in the Ha‘ikū area is talking about it and is scared,” Corvino said Tuesday.

On March 16, a Ha‘ikū woman warned of a “peeping Tom” watching her late at night. She reported it to the police. 

On Aug. 31, another Ha‘ikū woman said the creeper shone a flashlight into her home around 12:45 a.m. She called police and the suspect disappeared before returning later and trying to pry open the windows. Police advised her to sleep somewhere else.

On Sept. 20, a Ha‘ikū woman said her friend in Pukalani spotted someone walking through her house at about 3 a.m. She called 911 and the suspect disappeared.

On Oct. 12, a Ha‘ikū man said someone broke into his home while he and his partner were sleeping. The intruder slipped a hand under the sheets, waking up his partner, before running off and escaping through a window. They filed a police report and warned neighbors on NextDoor: “This bastard is real, and he’s around this area!” 

It’s unclear if all the incidents are related, but they stoked enough worry that about 30 residents, mostly women, came out to a meeting a couple of months ago with some police officers at the Ha‘ikū Community Center, according to Olivieri and a resident who attended the meeting but requested anonymity.

Both said the officers told the community that they were shorthanded. With only about five cops to patrol an area stretching from the far side of Huelo to Pā‘ia and Makawao, it was difficult for them to respond to every call. 

“The officers were very honest with us and straightforward,” the anonymous resident at the meeting said. “And of course, no one liked to hear that. But that is their situation.”

Pico said police also participated in a Ha‘ikū Community Association meeting on Nov. 12 where a Criminal Investigation Division lieutenant addressed the public’s concerns.

When Olivieri called police on the night of July 28, she said it took them about 20 minutes to arrive. The officers took fingerprints from the doorknob they believed he touched. Because the suspect was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, black pants and a black head covering that appeared to be a ski-type mask, she couldn’t note details like the color of his eyes, hair or skin. All she remembers is seeing a wide, muscular back as he ran away. 

That wasn’t the last time someone broke in. About two weeks later, her roommate, who requested anonymity, told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative that she had fallen asleep in the living room when she woke up to the sound of the door latch clicking. She bolted awake to discover a man dressed in dark clothes standing in the house. Through his mask she could see his brown eyes. They stared each other down before he calmly walked out of the house. 

Because the roommate didn’t see the intruder on July 28 and Olivieri didn’t see the intruder who came two weeks later, they’re not sure whether it was the same person.

But days prior to the first incident, they remembered seeing their window askew, a detail they hadn’t thought much of until someone broke in.

Olivieri believed it was someone she knew because rumors had been floating around about who it might be. She said the suspected culprit groped her “out of the blue” at a party years ago and gave her “sexual vibes” at another party in August. 

She said the detective on her case didn’t reach back out to her until around October, and even then had no updates, Olivieri said. She came forward in August and again this week in hopes that police would find the perpetrator, especially for the women in the area who “want to feel safe again.”

“It’s been going for so long that people ask the same question that I am asking: are they really doing something about it?” Olivieri said Thursday.

When she found out Friday that a suspect had been arrested, she called it “great news.”

ARMED AND READY

Olivieri said adrenaline and the instinct to protect her son drove her to chase the intruder that night in July. She now keeps a baseball bat at the ready, saying: “If he comes back, I’ll break his legs.”

Angelena Handley Campos, whose family owns Handley’s Gun Shop in Kīhei, said after someone tagged her on a Facebook post about the creeper, about a dozen women flocked to her shop wanting to arm themselves. 

“I know they were scared because they came down to me to ask for what they could have right now, today, not in a month or two months or six months down the road,” Handley Campos said. 

The women scooped up items like pepper ball guns, pepper spray and Tasers. Some also asked how to start the process of purchasing a firearm. Handley Campos said the required safety courses are typically booked out months in advance.

Handley Campos said whether it’s the Ha‘ikū creeper or another threat, “you need to be prepared and protect yourself, period.” She urged people who do get a permit and a registered firearm to store it safely, learn how to access and use it, and practice scenarios they might face when waking up in the middle of the night to respond to suspicious activity.

Corvino got a Taser and had considered taking a gun safety course after noticing suspicious things around her own home, including tapping on the window and a fence pushed down. She suspected the creeper had been on her property twice. She put up blinds on her windows, installed cameras and lights around her house, and set alarms every night. She stopped teaching yoga classes after dark and hosted a free self-defense class at her home that was attended by about 10 women.

“For the women here, something has been stolen from us and our peace of mind in living in Ha‘ikū,” Corvino said.

She was frustrated by the lack of information from police and said the community couldn’t afford to wait for the suspect to escalate. But when she read about the arrest Friday, she was “thrilled.”

Because police only mentioned break-ins and nothing about peeping or assault in the brief news release, she still had questions about whether it was truly the “creeper.” But she was still glad to see police take action.

“I’m hoping to have a good night’s sleep as a result,” Corvino said, something she has not had in months.

HIGH-RISK CRIME

Meda Chesney-Lind, criminologist and professor emerita at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and former president of the American Society of Criminology, said Thursday that “to wake up and have somebody in your bedroom, that’s everybody’s worst nightmare.”

However, the incidents that people believed were related to the “creeper” were unusual because of how high risk they were and how different the crimes were.

Peeping Toms typically don’t escalate to break-ins and sexual assault — they get off just by watching. Burglars are property offenders — they go to great lengths to avoid running into people when they break in. 

The combination of breaking in and sexually assaulting someone, especially a stranger, is “a very risky set of behaviors to engage in.”

“It’s an atypical pattern for the crime of sexual assault to have people breaking into the house just to sort of assault people that they don’t know,” Chesney-Lind said. “Because normally … it’s much more likely that you’re going to be sexually assaulted by someone you know, at least casually.”

She pointed out the high risk of breaking in while people are home makes it more likely the perpetrator would be caught.

Maui County Council Member Nohe U‘u-Hodgins, who holds the residency seat for the Makawao-Ha‘ikū-Pā‘ia area, said while growing up in Pā‘ia, she never locked her doors and neighbors looked out for each other’s homes. But now that she’s an adult and a mom, and has watched shows like “To Catch a Predator,” her family has installed cameras on their property and recently got Air Tags for their cars amid reports of vehicle thefts in the area.

She lives Upcountry where it’s quiet and peaceful, “but you don’t have that community watch effect” anymore. 

She said Thursday that people were scared of the “creeper” because of the lack of information and wished police would share more with the public.

“It’s so violating to have your space be trespassed upon and stolen from,” she said. “People are more on edge because they don’t know what’s happening.”

Friday’s announcement that a suspect was in custody came as good news.

“I’m very happy the caught the person!” she said via text. “I hope this gives the people of upcountry some relief.”