A Hawaii man has been charged with murder in the deaths of three men whose bodies were found in a small, remote community known for its eclectic, off-the-grid lifestyle, Hawaii officials said.
The man, Jacob Daniel Baker, 36, of Pahoa, was arrested on Thursday after an expansive manhunt on the Big Island of Hawaii, the Hawaii Police Department said in a news release.
The police identified two of the victims as Robert Shine and John Carse, both 69. The identity of the remaining victim, a 79-year-old man, had not been disclosed as of Monday afternoon local time.
Mr. Baker was charged with one count of first-degree murder; three counts of second-degree murder; one count of burglary; one count of auto theft; two counts of theft; two counts of criminal property damage; and one count of breaking into a vehicle, the police said.
He was being held at the East Hawaii Detention Center on $193,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court on Monday afternoon. A lawyer for Mr. Baker was not listed in court records.
Patrol officers responded to a call “of an unknown type disturbance” around 8:45 p.m. on May 25 at Papaya Farms Road in Pahoa, where they found Mr. Shine’s body partly submerged in a cement pond, Captain Jeremy Lewis said during a news conference last week. An autopsy indicated that Mr. Shine died because “of a strangulation,” the police said. The pathologist’s final ruling was pending, the police said.
On May 26, officers responded to a call at a home off Papaya Farms Road, where they discovered the body of a man who had suffered blunt-force trauma, Captain Lewis said. That crime was about 500 feet from the first death, Chief Reed Mahuna of the Hawaii Police Department said.
Later that evening, officers performed a welfare check at a home on Kalapana Kapoho Beach Road, where they found Mr. Carse’s body, the police said. He was found 19 miles away from the other two victims. An autopsy indicated Mr. Carse died “as a result of sharp force trauma,” the police said. The pathologist’s final ruling was pending as well, the police said.
Mr. Baker was apprehended after a resident’s surveillance footage showed him hiding in a vacant lot in the Kaimu area of Kalapana and ducking as traffic passed, the police said. Officers and detectives searched the area and ultimately found Mr. Baker hiding in a small cave, the police said.
The police did not identify a motive or say how they had connected the three deaths to Mr. Baker, for whom the police said they had no known permanent address. Chief Mahuna said at a news conference on Wednesday there was no known connection among the victims.
The killings and sprawling manhunt have rattled the residents of Puna, a forested region of the Big Island that’s about the size of Oahu and known as a remote piece of paradise. The communities of Papaya Farms and Red Road, where the killings occurred, are small, tight-knit alternative communities filled with artists and others who live off the grid, said Dawn Hurwitz, who has lived in Puna for more than 30 years.
“The community down there is very interactive,” Ms. Hurwitz said. “It’s the kind of place where if you have extra something, you put a crate out by your gate and somebody will grab it.”
Mr. Baker was previously known to the community and the police, though he’d had no recent significant interactions with law enforcement officials, Chief Mahuna said at the news conference on Wednesday.
Court documents show that days before the killings, two women filed for temporary restraining orders against Mr. Baker, saying he had threatened them and left many residents feeling unsafe. A judge denied both of those requests, citing insufficient evidence of harassment.
The police were not aware of those allegations at the time of Mr. Baker’s arrest, Chief Mahuna said.
Court records show Mr. Baker was listed in more than a dozen other cases since at least 2012, most of them traffic citations.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
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