No arrests or charges one year after start of possible serial murders. The battered, stabbed and raped body of Lisa Bissell, 38, was found in a ditch in Kekaha on April 7, 2000. One year later, no one has been
No arrests or charges one year after start of possible serial murders.
The battered, stabbed and raped body of Lisa Bissell, 38, was found in a ditch in Kekaha on April 7, 2000.
One year later, no one has been charged in connection with Bissell’s murder or the murder of Daren Singer, 43, of Maui, whose body – also beaten, raped and stabbed – was discovered on Pakala Beach last Aug. 30.
In between the two homicides, a 52-year-old woman working as a caretaker at an isolated house in Kekaha was raped, stabbed, beaten and left for dead. She survived.
Similarities in the three cases, including that all three victims were small, middle-aged Caucasians, has raised the possibility of a serial killer on Kaua`i. But police say they have been unable to establish a definitive link between the brutal attacks.
Kaua`i County Police detectives, with early assistance from Honolulu Police detectives and the FBI, pulled in and questioned many of the registered sex offenders on Kaua`i. At least one of those offenders was taken to Honolulu for a police lineup late last year, but the surviving Kekaha victim was unable to identify her assailant.
One of the previously convicted violent sex offenders, identified by a Honolulu television station as the major suspect in the case, remains in an Oahu prison on a parole violation. But he has never been charged for any of last year’s possible serial attacks.
Kaua`i County Police chief George Freitas said Tuesday that not all the DNA evidence collected in the investigations of the cases has been completely analyzed yet.
“We are awaiting the results of one more sample,” Freitas said.
Chief inspector Mel Morris and his team of detectives are re-evaluating all evidence collected in the cases so far looking for new leads.
And there is still a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction and arrest of the perpetrator or perpetrators in the murders and attempted murder.
“We still feel that there are people in our community who have information that can help us solve these crimes,” Morris said.
Anyone with information can call Crimestoppers at 241-6787.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
