County, KPD mum on details of murder-suicide

LIHU‘E — County and Kaua‘i Police Department officials are refusing to comment on the ongoing investigation into the deaths of Clara Kaneshiro and Duane Bukoski.

“It is our policy not to release details on suicides, therefore we will not be providing further information on the Bukoski-Kaneshiro case,” said Mary Daubert, county public information officer, in response to newspaper requests for information regarding the case.

Earlier, KPD and county officials classified the Feb. 23 discovery of two dead bodies as a homicide-suicide, eventually identifying both people and the fact that a gun found at Bukoski’s Lawa‘i home matched the caliber of the bullets recovered during the investigation.

County officials and KPD investigators would not reveal who the shooter was, the type of gun used, or any possible motive for the incident.

They did say Kaneshiro and Bukoski knew each other.

The homicide is the first on the island this year.

Kaneshiro was 43, and Bukoski was 38.

There were two murders on Kaua‘i in 2009, with the Nov. 9 death of Daniel Bonanno an unsolved murder still under KPD investigation.

Joseph Hoapili Jr., 51, of Lihu‘e, pleaded guilty in January of this year to second-degree murder, admitting in court to stabbing his wife Fredlynn Hoapili to death in their Lihu‘e home on March 3 of last year.

His sentencing is scheduled for March 25, and under terms of a plea agreement he will likely receive a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole, county Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho said earlier.

Hoapili’s sentence will include a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison before being eligible for parole because he is a repeat offender with a prior drug conviction, said Iseri-Carvalho.

Bonanno, 47, of Kapa‘a, was found dead in his mother’s pickup truck Nov. 9 in Wailua Homesteads.