When Will Some Americans Finally Stop Killing the Japanese?

US man found guilty of murder in Japanese woman’s death in Hawaii

HONOLULU (AP) — A former pest control worker in Hawaii has been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of a 21-year-old whose body has never been found.

Defendant Kirk Matthew Lankford had claimed that , who was visiting Hawaii from Japan, died when she struck her head on a rock as she leaped from his moving work truck last year.

Lankford testified earlier this month that he disposed of the body in the ocean without telling anyone because he was afraid he would lose his job.

He said his truck struck Watanabe accidentally on April 12, 2007, as she stood by the side of a road, and he persuaded her to climb in to take her where she was staying.

Lankford said Watanabe was not seriously injured when he hit her but her arm cracked the windshield of the truck belonging to his employer. He said Watanabe was speaking Japanese and they began yelling at each other and she leaped from the truck.

Lankford said he got rid of the body that night in the ocean.

“I kept thinking, I’m going to lose my job. The only way I’m not going to lose my job is if nobody finds out what happened,” he testified.

Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said Lankford’s explanations were absurd.

A witness told police she saw Watanabe get into a truck belonging to Lankford’s employer. Another witness testified he interrupted Lankford using a shovel to dig a hole near Kahana Bay about midnight of the day Watanabe disappeared.

Police had also found traces of Watanabe’s blood and her glasses in the truck Lankford used.

Watanabe’s parents and brothers marked the first anniversary of her disappearance Saturday by attending a memorial service at Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu.

(Mainichi Japan) April 15, 2008
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/archive/news/2008/04/15/20080415p2a00m0na022000c.html