Kagawa autopsy yields no answers

LIHU‘E — “Visible injuries” on Lauren Kagawa’s body and the suspicious nature of her death have led police, who believe foul play was involved, to investigate the case with “utmost zeal and professionalism,” Kaua‘i Police Chief Darryl Perry said via e-mail Wednesday, but “based on the hard evidence at hand, it would be premature to state that a crime had taken place.”

The autopsy conducted Tuesday did not result in an official cause of death determination by a licensed pathologist, but a blood toxicology analysis is being conducted, Perry said after returning from O‘ahu Wednesday afternoon.

The case is still being classified as an unattended death.

Kagawa, 27, was found early Monday morning outside her Puhi apartment complex. Perry said, “like other deaths of a suspicious nature it was treated seriously: preservation and photographing of the scene, recovery of evidence, interviewing and identifying potential witnesses, creating a timeline of events, autopsy and toxicological examinations, and the like.”

Asked via e-mail about details of the ongoing investigation, including questions of whether KPD has any suspects in custody and if there is any evidence to support or quash rumors surrounding the incident, Perry declined to go into further detail.

“When more information is received, I will let you know immediately, but we absolutely cannot jump to conclusions based on rumors and innuendos without supportive evidence,” he wrote. “Also, information received from the public is being acted upon immediately by our investigators.”

Perry said KPD is “investigating (this) case with the utmost zeal and professionalism as we would any case where the nature of a death appears to be suspicious; the decease(d) and family deserve no less.”

For further information on Kagawa’s death, see a future edition of The Garden Island.