The Honolulu Police Department has finally released information regarding the murder of a young child who died more than 60 years ago.
The child’s bones were discovered June 29, 2014, inside a 7- to 10-gallon galvanized steel can found in the closet of a Waikiki apartment, police said.
A Texas DNA laboratory announced in December that the skeletal remains were those of a child, roughly 33 to 36 inches tall, between the ages of 2 and 6 years, and the news spread across the country.
Othram Inc. positively identified the remains Dec. 17 as belonging to Mary Sue Fink, born April 29, 1959. Had she lived, she would be 65 years old today.
The Honolulu Star- Advertiser made repeated inquiries beginning Dec. 31 to HPD, which remained silent.
HPD investigated the case in 2014 and turned over the remains to the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office, which ruled the death a homicide.
The cause listed on her death certificate: “Battered child syndrome with multiple skull, rib and long bone fractures,” the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office said.
A supervisor with the Medical Examiner’s Office said on Jan. 1 that he had been instructed by police to refer all media questions to HPD.
HPD maintained its silence until late Tuesday, when it released information by means of a police bulletin.
Police said the remains were found wrapped in old newspaper from the 1960s, and that the child was between 2 and 3 years old at the time of death.
“Homicide detectives believe that the victim was murdered between 1961 and 1963,” the bulletin says, and urges anyone with information to call 911 or CrimeStoppers.
Police said the child may have had three siblings in their 50s in 2014, their biological mother was deceased and their biological father lived in another state.
“When interviewed, family members recalled having a sibling, approximately 2 to 3 years old, who had been given to an ‘Aunty.’”
Police said “paperwork was obtained, which provided a possible identification for the decedent as Mary Sue Fink,” born April 29, 1959.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command took control of the remains July 1, 2014. Its findings were provided Nov. 25, 2014, to the Department of the Medical Examiner. JPAC concluded the child, between 2 and 3 years of age, sustained fractures consistent with blunt force trauma that occurred just before death, and found signs of earlier traumatic injuries in various stages of healing.
The case was then reclassified to second-degree murder from a miscellaneous public case.
In 2019, one of the three siblings submitted a DNA sample to HPD’s DNA lab. In 2020, the DNA was extracted from the sample and shared with the Department of the Medical Examiner, which worked with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) to obtain DNA from the skeletal remains, police said.
In 2024, the DNA from the sibling was sent to Othram Inc. for comparison, and was positively identified as belonging to Mary Sue Fink, police said.
After her birth, Baby Mary Fink, which is how she is referred to by staff at the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office, lived in the home where her remains were found, a staff member said.
On June 29, 2014, the homeowners discovered a box of human bones while clearing out the Waikiki apartment they had inherited from their deceased parents, and turned it over to police, the staff person at the Medical Examiner’s Office said.
The father died in 1973, and the mother in 2006.
The apartment had been rented out by relatives, and at the time of the discovery, had recently been vacated.
A birth announcement published May 8, 1959, in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reveals Baby Mary Fink’s address and who her parents were: “Mr. and Mrs. Lee R. Fink, 1849-A Kaioo Drive, daughter, April 29.”
A 1958 birth announcement in the Star-Bulletin shows the couple had another daughter in the previous year.
The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office said the identification was not new information. It had received confirmation June 11, 2020, via the FBI that the DNA sample of another family member it had submitted in 2014 matched a person’s DNA in a national database of missing persons.
In August, the Medical Examiner’s Office submitted a DNA sample of a second family member, a female, to Othram. The results came back Dec. 17.
What remains a mystery is who killed Mary Sue Fink.
It is unclear whether police ever opened an investigation into the disappearance or death of the child back in the 1960s.
The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office identified the mother of Baby Mary Fink as Josephine S. Vanic, who died at age 67 on Oct. 5, 2006, from a heart attack due to natural causes.
Vanic, previously Josephine Pagud, a well-known Hawaii TV personality in the 1970s, was driving her Mazda van on Farrington Highway when it somehow got onto the Kapolei Golf Course, traveled 200 yards before plunging into a pond next to the first hole, the Honolulu Advertiser reported.
Vanic, “who gained fame in the early 1970s as the rotund marshal who pitched appliances and furniture for the old Consumer City store,” appeared in TV and newspaper ads wearing a cowboy hat and gun belt. She appeared in TV shows including “Hawaii Five-O.”
She later worked in the investigation office for the state Department of Human Services and retired in 2003.
Her last residence was in Kapolei.
It’s unclear who lived in unit A of 1849 Kaioo Drive, a two-story Waikiki walk-up in 2014 at the time of the discovery of the can of bones. The owners, who inherited the property from their parents, were cleaning it out and the tenants were relatives.
Honolulu property tax information shows the entire apartment building is now owned by a company.
Vanic’s obituary identifies one of her survivors as son Rade Vanic, now HPD deputy chief. She is also survived by two daughters.
The child’s father died in 1973.
The couple divorced five months after Mary Sue Fink’s birth.
An Oct. 7, 1959, announcement in the Honolulu Star- Bulletin says Josephine S. Fink was granted a divorce from Leroy Fink Jr. “for mental suffering.”
Deputy Chief Vanic has not returned a call to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for a request for an interview.
Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm declined to comment on the case.
