Alleged police station shooter first to face trial r
Three people charged with murder and attempted murder on Kaua’i this year were in Fifth Circuit Court Tuesday as their cases continued to move slowly through the criminal justice system.
William Lowell McCrory, 45, accused of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Brent Kerr, 44, outside Kerr’s van Oct. 26 at Kalapaki Beach, pleaded innocent.
McCrory is accused of killing Kerr and dumping his body in bushes in front of the closed Coco Palms Resort in Wailua.
McCrory remains in Kaua’i Community Correctional Center in lieu of $50,000 bail, according to Craig De Costa, Kaua’i County’s chief deputy prosecutor.
Gerard Silva, the West Side-area man accused of an armed invasion of the Kaua’i County Police headquarters in Lihu’e last March, finally has a trial date of Jan. 14. He will go to trial on a felony charge of attempted murder and multiple terroristic threatening charges.
Silva also is in the correctional center where he has been for the past eight months. He was arrested in front of the police station after being wrestled to the ground by two police officers. His rifle discharged during the struggle, but no one was injured.
The delay in going to trial has been caused by repeated status hearings concerning Silva’s mental fitness to proceed.
Those issues have evidently been resolved, and Silva is facing a lengthy sentence if convicted in January.
Jonathan Ibana, the 21-year-old man accused of stabbing his 14-year-old girlfriend three times after an argument, had a fitness hearing set for Dec. 6.
Ibana is charged with attempted murder in the second degree and kidnapping. He, too, has been in the correctional center since his arrest four months ago.
Howard Giddens, the 28-year-old man charged with murder and attempted murder charges stemming from a Sept. 18, 2000 incident in which he allegedly shot and killed a neighbor and wounded another man in Hanamaulul, has spent most of the past 14 months incarcerated on Oahu. He has a court hearing slated for early December.
The only Kaua’i resident currently charged with murder or attempted murder not presently incarcerated is 21-year-old Christina Robles, who is charged with second-degree murder in the April 30 strangulation death of a newborn male infant at her parents’ Koloa home.
Robles has a status hearing slated for Nov. 29 and remains free on $10,000 bail.
