LIHUE — Testimony continued in Fifth Circuit Court Wednesday on the second day of a trial against a former Kauai Police Department officer and state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement branch chief who is charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse.
Tarey Low sat quietly in court listening to the continued testimony of his alleged victim, expert witnesses and law enforcement officers who handled the case.
Psychologist Alex Bivens, who specializes in child sexual abuse, was called as an expert witness, though he had no knowledge of this particular case.
Bivens told the court the most typical thing a child who is sexually abused will do is not tell anyone.
“One thing we know is the closer the relationship between the abuser and the victim, the longer it takes to report it,” he said
The victim testified she didn’t report the alleged abuse because Low allegedly threatened her life, which is something Deputy County Prosecutor Jennifer Winn said the victim knew he could do because he was a law enforcement officer who had access to weapons and ammunition.
Low is alleged to have begun abusing the victim when she was 14 years old after he began a relationship with her mother. The alleged abuse continued multiple times per week after the victim turned 18 years old. She is now 25. The victim testified that Low wanted her to become pregnant. She said she had a prescription to the NuvaRing, a form of birth control.
After the alleged abuse was reported to authorities, an investigation began which included alternate-light-source screening of two mattresses that were removed from Low’s Kealia ranch.
Alternative-light-source screening, said Stephanie Reagan, criminalist II and the laboratory and crime-scene supervisor for KPD, is a light source of different colors.
“You have anything from red, green, orange, blue, purple, so using different colors or UV or IR lighting to help you visualize things not seen with the naked eye,” she said.
Usually what they’re looking for is the presence of any biological material such as saliva, semen, vaginal fluid, or anything that comes from the body, as well as trace evidence, she said.
Three separate cutouts of the mattresses were sent to the Honolulu Police Department for testing, because the Kauai Police Department’s lab wasn’t operational until 2016.
One of the samples came back as having no interpretable DNA profile, meaning some DNA might be contained but it was minimal, and the other two samples came back as no DNA profile obtained.
KPD officer Sgt. Sandy Wakumoto testified that he was one of the officers who conducted the investigation into this case. A search was conducted of the properties, but not right away.
Winn asked why it took over a month after the victim reported the alleged abuse to execute the search warrants.
“I was conducting follow ups with the witnesses and get other documents and in that time we were also talking to at that time Deputy Prosecutor Lisa Arin and we decided we would obtain search warrants at the Kealia ranch and their current residents,” he said.
The search warrants allowed them to take firearms registered to Low, bedding and mattresses.
There were over 100 rounds of ammunition found at the ranch, and several guns registered to Low were confiscated.
The trial continues today.
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Bethany Freudenthal, courts, crime and county reporter, can be reached at 652-7891 or bfreudenthal@thegardenisland.com.
