Transcript
Hi, American Justice listeners. I'm Alice Lacour. And before we get into this week's episode, I just want to remind you that episodes of American Justice as well as the A and E classic podcasts, I Survived, Cold Case Files, and City Confidential are all available ad free on the new A and E crime and investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just 4.99 a month or 39.99 a year. And now, onto the show. This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. She was smart, athletic, and stunning. Beautiful hair, gorgeous blue eyes. She's a natural beauty. Who loved Hawaii with all her heart until her life was stolen there. It's the day that we realized bad things can happen here. A man confesses and implicates 2 others. The confession was a very important piece of evidence. But the DNA doesn't match. Now the prisoners' pleas of innocence fall on deaf ears. It's like the start of Boy Who Cried Wolf. Once you start to tell the truth, nobody gonna listen. Behind every investigation lies a story. Behind every trial lies truth. This is American justice. For tourists, the big island of Hawaii is tropical heaven. Miles of spectacular coastline, white sand beaches and lush rainforests. But on Christmas Eve 1991, the island's tranquility was shattered by a horrific crime. A beautiful young woman on holiday was run over, raped, and left to die in the jungle. The legal drama that played out in the years that followed was unlike any the island had seen. One that raised questions about forensic analysis, confessions, and ultimately whether the state got the right men. December 24, 1991. Just before dusk on the big island of Hawaii. From a quiet stretch of road, police got a call about an apparent hit and run. There's a bicycle bicycle completely crushed there. The girl's shoes out the street. Some of her hair ripped off her from the impact. I can't see her body. 1 minute later, another call came in. This one from a vacation home near the accident site. On the line was 67 year old John Ireland who was visiting the island with his family and saw his daughter's bike in the road. He feared she'd been hurt. She is 23 years old and there was pieces of her hair, a shoe, and no sign of her. Somebody has taken her somewhere. There's been nobody there. All that we've seen is a bike in the road. 5 miles north, a woman named Ida Smith was in her home preparing her Christmas Eve dinner when she heard the faint cries of a woman. They seemed to be coming from a nearby fishing trail that led to the ocean. She kept following the cries until she heard help me, help me. Then she saw this battered, bloody woman lying in the bushes. Reporter and author Chris Lohs lived in the area and knew it well. It's very remote. There's no telephone service. There's no electricity. There's no piped water. And at that time, most people didn't have a cell phone. So I did try to help her, but she was in pain. She was incoherent, and she begged her to stay. The young woman was barely conscious. She was bleeding from her head. Her shorts were pulled down. Her shirt was raised above her breasts. It appeared she had been raped. After a while, Ida Smith heard a car coming. She ran up to the road and flagged down a car, and she asked the person to call the police. Beach department. There was a woman in the beach road, and she came running out yelling, help, help, help. It was 5:47 PM, 22 minutes after the first call to 911. The woman had been raped there. She said she was in very bad shape. Okay. She didn't say anybody was in the area yet, No. Okay, ma'am. We'll have flight check this out. It didn't take long for authorities to connect the suspected hit and run incident to the injured woman found in the brush. But paramedics had trouble getting to her. It took over an hour just to find her location and more time to stabilize her before they could finally make the 30 mile trip to the hospital. More than 3 hours had gone by since she was found before Dana Ireland was brought to the emergency room. Doctor struggled into the night to save her life. At 12:01 Christmas morning, however, she died on the operating table. She died of internal bleeding and they said that she might have been able to make it if they've gotten to her sooner. That Christmas morning, detective Steve Guillermo was looking forward to a relaxing holiday when he got a call from a colleague. He calls and he says, hey, we gotta go out and work today. I was like, yeah, right. You know, it's Christmas morning. But after hearing the details of a badly mangled bike and a young woman who died of severe injuries, Galermo knew there was no waiting. We knew we had 2 crime scenes that we're gonna look at. And then we separated the unit into 2 different groups. 1 would take care of the actual scene where she was run down, and the second group would take care of the scene where she was eventually found. At the fishing trail where Ireland was found, crime scene technicians recovered evidence, including a bloody men's large t shirt. It was a brand of t shirt known as Jimmy Z. Detective Guillermo took American Justice to the scene. With the Jimmy z t shirt that was, located next to her, the shoe was right nearly in the middle of this roadway. The victim was found partially covered by bushes as if her attackers were trying to conceal her. They actually push pulled her off farther enough into the road, hoping that she wouldn't be discovered so soon. At the scene of the bike crash, Guillermo surmised that Dana's attackers must have cut across the road before hitting her. They were traveling down this road and you could see the acceleration marks veer off towards the right side of roadway. Guillermo retraced Dana Ireland's movements in the hours leading up to the attack. At around 3 PM Christmas Eve, Dana left her parents vacation home to visit a friend about 7 miles away. She decided to take a ride on her bike, past ocean scenery that was nothing short of spectacular. Dana invited her friend to Christmas Eve dinner. They talked about what he could bring. And in about 45 minutes, she decided, okay, she's gonna start hitting me back. After leaving her friend's house, Dana stopped at a nearby surf spot known as Shacks. According to witnesses, she watched the surfers for a few minutes. She then pedaled on along the rocky coast and into a tidy subdivision called Vacationland. She was very, very close to getting home. Less than half a mile from her parents rental home, tire tracks indicated Dana Ireland was hit by a car. Police believed she was then kidnapped and driven to an ocean side cliff where she was beaten, raped, and left to die. Her grieving parents hoped police could quickly find whoever was responsible for such a vicious attack. They wanted bad guys put away, and I I don't blame them for it. Not one bit. They they wanted it done. In the days after the attack, detective Steve Gallermo began to find out more about the victim and how she came to the island. Dana Ireland was born in 1968 in Springfield, Virginia outside Washington DC. She was the youngest of 2 daughters born to John Ireland, a career army man, and his wife Louise, a homemaker. Described as sweet and shy, Dana never had a shortage of invitations for dates and dances like her high school prom. But Dana also had an athletic side. She loved the outdoors, especially biking and hiking. Heather Priest was Dana's best friend. She was a free spirit. She wasn't really bound by, you know, your latest fashion, your latest style. She was very natural. The family liked to travel. So when Dana's older sister, Sandy, went to Hawaii for college, the Irelands often made trips there. Dana fell in love with the island's beauty. She loved everything about Hawaii. She's preparing herself, I think, to go there and and live there for a while. Dana's sister ended up settling on the big island. By 1991, she was married and invited her parents and Dana to visit for the Christmas holidays. The family had been there for 2 weeks when John Ireland saw his daughter's twisted bike on the road. Losing their youngest daughter on Christmas overwhelmed the Irelands. They could not believe what had happened, especially, you know, for some place like Hawaii. And especially an island like ours. From the autopsy, detective Guillermo learned that Dana Ireland had suffered extensive internal injuries. A bite mark was found on her left breast. She had been struck on the head. A vaginal swab turned up semen, which detective Guillermo hoped might reveal her killer's DNA. After the attack, Guillermo canvassed the area hoping for leads and witnesses. Early on, there was a tip about a pickup truck seen near the crash site. I spent somewhere near the 1st month and a half stopping trucks and talking to people and taking a look at their trucks. Tips to police poured in from all over the island. Police questioned dozens of people, took blood samples, teeth impressions, and still nothing. The weeks turned into months. In December 1992, a full year after the murder of Dana Ireland, the Big Island community held prayer vigils as a remembrance. Her parents returned to the island still grieving and frustrated over the lack of progress in the case. At times I break down and don't we neither of us sleep very well at night. Detective Guillermo, meanwhile, continued to follow-up on potential leads. It was very frustrating, and the difficulty was trying to sift through the information that was coming in from witnesses, whether or not we could tie it into an actual crime. Finally, in May 1994, two and a half years after the death of Dana Ireland, detective Guillermo got a phone call from a man named John Gonsalves, who was facing a drug charge. Gonsalves said his half brother Frank wanted to talk to the detective about the Ireland case. He asked me if I'd be willing to talk to Frank regarding this case in particular and that Frank had some good information. Frank, it turned out, was 21 year old Frank Pauline Junior, also known as Frankie Boy. To police, he was a well known troublemaker who'd recently landed in an Oahu prison for rape. Guillermo flew to the neighboring island to interview him in person. In their first meeting, Pauline admitted he'd been present when Ireland was attacked. He also said he'd be willing to provide more details if police would look kindly on his brother John's drug case. He did mention that that John was, about to stand trial for a drug case that he had, and he had hoped that maybe him providing some information may help John in the case. Without making any promises, Guillermo encouraged Pauline to tell him more. Pauline explained how he'd been driving around smoking cocaine with his friends, brothers Ian and Sean Schweitzer, when they saw a, quote, girl on a bike. So Frank says that Ian yelled something at her, and she either yelled something back or or gestured something that angered Ian. So Ian ends up turning the vehicle around and starts chasing her down, eventually runs her over. In an interview with American Justice, Frank Pauline recalled what happened after that. He got out, him and his brother, and they carried the body, went to the Volkswagen, then we just we drove back to Kapolei. Once at the fishing trail, Pauline explained Ian Schweitzer stopped the car, dragged the girl out, and had sex with her. I said, oh, I saw Ian raping her. You seen him having sex, Pauline? I said, yeah. I seen him pull off her clothes and he was having sex with him. Toward the end of Pauline's interview, detective Guillermo noticed that the prisoner's statement had shifted in at least one major way. At first, Pauline had claimed he was just a passenger in the car and played no part in Dana Ireland's murder. Now, however, he was saying that on Ian Schweitzer's orders, he had gotten a tire iron out of the car and struck the victim on the head. And he said it was a very, very hard blow. But Pauline also said he couldn't clearly remember all the details because the cocaine made his recollections hazy. To refresh his memory, investigators took him back to the area for a drive through. While we're driving to that, they would they would stop at certain spots. And he would tell me, this place not look familiar to you. And I would look around, I would tell him, well, I'm not too sure. He was sure, however, when police drove him past the Schweitzer's house and he identified the purple 1957 Volkswagen he'd said was used in the attack. Well, from the street fronting, Schweitzer's home, we could clearly see the car. And that's the car that he pointed out is the car that they were in. Except that now, over 2 years later, the car was yellow. Pauline said it must have been repainted after the attack. 1 week later, police seized the car. When questioned by detectives, Ian Schweitzer admitted the Volkswagen was his. He also admitted that he'd indeed repainted it sometime after Christmas 1991, after Dana was attacked. When it came to Frank Pauline though, both Schweitzers claimed they'd never hung out with him. Detective Guillermo took dental impressions and DNA samples from all three men and sent them off for testing. At this point, the criminal investigation's going in the right direction here. It's just a matter of putting this case together. In July 1994, more than two and a half years after the murder of Dana Ireland, detective Steve Galermo felt he'd finally collected enough evidence to make a case. Above all, he'd secured a confession from Frank Pauline, a local who'd said he and 2 brothers, Ian and Sean Schweitzer, had carried out the attack. We had his statement, which which was just compelling. It was unbelievable that, you know, he opened that door for us. But in the months after his original confession, Pauline changed his story yet again. He now went back to his original claim, saying that he hadn't actually participated in Ireland's attack. He just watched the Schweitzer's carry it out. To make matters worse for police, the bite marks on Ireland's body failed to match any of the suspects. And the semen from Ireland's vaginal swab proved too degraded to profile. The, semen sample that was found, it didn't come back to either one of the the 3 people that were, suspected. Problematic? Initially, yes. Faced now with a lack of forensic evidence and a shifting confession, Guillermo continued to focus on his investigation. For starters, he sought to prove that Pauline and the Schweitzers were indeed friends, despite the Schweitzers' claims to the contrary. We talked to many people and they've placed the Schweitzer boys and Frank together numerous times, including parties at the Pauline's home. Next, Guillermo found witnesses who said they either heard Pauline talk about the attack or they'd seen Pauline and the Schweitzers at the beach the day it happened. They remember Frank coming by there in the Volkswagen with Ian and Sean. And from there, we talked to a number of witnesses that all placed them together in that car at about that time that that day night went by. At that point, I had no doubts that they were involved. Detective Guillermo also turned up witnesses willing to say the bloody t shirt found at the crime scene looked like a shirt owned by Frank Pauline. And finally, Guillermo was able to draw a link between Ian Schwitzer's Volkswagen and damage done to Dana Ireland's bike. There's a split in the rim. There was a 4 inch separation, which was similar to the to the size of the bumper that we recovered from the Volkswagen. And there's a bent frame, which I understand that it takes a lot of force to go ahead and bend that bicycle frame. 1 of the pedals on the bicycle was also bent, and that that's also required a lot of force to go ahead and cause that damage. In January 1996, 4 years after Ireland's murder, police sent what they had to prosecutors. Within weeks, Pauline changed his story once again. This time, saying he hadn't been there at all. Hawaii County prosecutor, Lincoln Ishida, however, didn't buy it. He thought the case was still strong. The strengths of this case, I think, were many. They had no alibi. It's a t shirt owned by Frank Pauline that it was soaked with Dana Ireland's blood. The Volkswagen was identified as the, vehicle involved in this murder. The confession of Frank Pauline, obviously, that was a very, very, important piece of evidence. I think his attempt to recant later simply by any stretch of the imagination does not make sense. On July 29, 1997, a grand jury indicted Frank Pauline on charges of kidnapping, 1st degree sexual assault, and second degree murder. 10 weeks later, the Schweitzer brothers were indicted on the same charges. But when Pauline's attorney, Brian De Lima, looked at the case, he thought the state's position looked weak. The most reliable evidence seemed to be the state's forensic tests, and none of those tests implicated his client. In my mind, there was tremendous amount of reasonable doubt. Bite marks, supposedly committed by those who were involved in the rape did not match any of the alleged defendants. DNA that was collected did not match any of the defendants. To be safe, Pauline's defense team called in San Francisco based DNA expert, doctor Edward Blake, to review the state's findings. What Blake found first was this. That most of the material from the vaginal swabs had been consumed in these prior examinations. But Blake was able to glean enough of a sample from a swab to get a profile. Plus, he was able to find another corroborating source for DNA. There was a sheet, that that was used, placed under Dana Ilerin's body, and that sheet had been saved and never previously been examined. Blake collected a sperm sample from deposits on the sheet. Now the question was, was that one male Frank Pauline or either the Schweitzer brothers? As it turned out, the DNA collected from the sheet did not match any of the accused. To Blake, this meant the forensics left prosecutors with no evidence to tie the defendants to the crime scene. I assumed that the case would be dismissed, that it would never go to trial. I just thought that it was crazy. You couldn't possibly, under this set of circumstances, go to trial. How wrong I was. Based on doctor Blake's findings, the state did drop the charges against the Schweitzer brothers. But Frank, the state did drop the charges against the Schweitzer brothers, but Frank Paulien was not off the hook. Prosecutors thought they still had a strong case and decided to pursue a conviction. It is a trial anticipated for nearly 8 years. Prosecutors say Frank Pauline junior confessed but then recanted. Along with changing his story, Pauline had changed his look. Reporter Chris Loes recalls Pauline's dramatic transformation. He was clean shaven and he looked good. He cleaned up very well. He looked like he could be a Harvard student. State prosecutor Charlene Aboshe opened by describing what happened to Ireland after she was run over on her bike. She was beaten, sexually penetrated, struck, disabled, and just thrown away into the bushes left to die. In 1994, the state then claimed Pauline gave a confession that include details only Ireland's attackers would know. What was critical for the prosecution was the amount of detail that Pauline was able to, provide, which was not in the media anywhere. It wasn't common knowledge. It wasn't public knowledge. Things about, where to find certain pieces of evidence. The fact that there was a bite mark on Dana Ireland. In his opening statement, defense attorney Cliff Hunt said Pauline made up his confession to help win a deal for his half brother who was facing drug charges. He argued that the state had no good forensic proof, not a single bite mark, DNA sample, or hair that matched Frank Pauline. The results showed that the DNA there was sperm, but the sperm DNA did not match Frank Pauline Junior's known DNA because he provided a sample. That afternoon, the prosecution began presenting its case. Ireland's mangled bike was put on display. Ida Smith, who'd found Ireland in the bushes barely alive, explained what she looked like. She had cut off jeans and they were down on her ankle. And her shirt looked like it's someone had had grabbed it and tore it off her like that. And she was all bloody and and I I didn't know what to do. Prosecutors showed the bloody t shirt found nearby and called witnesses like Pauline's ex girlfriend, Sharla Figueroa, to link the t shirt to the defendant. According to Figueroa, she'd seen Pauline wearing a similar looking shirt just before Ireland's death. And then on TV, when news reports first linked Pauline to the case. I was in shock. And why were you in shock? Because that's the first time I found out that he was a suspect for this case. Other witnesses said they'd heard Pauline talk about his role in the attack. Figueroa's grandmother, for example, said Pauline called her from prison and asked her to pass a message to his girlfriend. He wanted me to tell her that he was involved with the Ireland case, that he had hit her with the tire iron. And he didn't know how to tell her, and he was crying on the phone. Later, the judge let jurors examine the Volkswagen allegedly used in the attack. There was a dent on the fender in the exact same place where our expert, confirmed that Dana would have, impacted or hit the Volkswagen. Witnesses said the car was later repaired and repainted. Witnesses also said they'd seen Pauline at the surfing spot where Ireland stopped before her death. For 2 weeks, the defendant sat quietly as all these witnesses spoke against him. But on August 3rd, as he listened to his cousin, Dimitrio, testify for the state, Pauline's calm facade suddenly collapsed. If if Esa was my daughter, you know, then I I would take things on my own hands. I wouldn't let it get things Tell him who feels. I know what you mean. Tell him the truth. Pauline's outburst had an effect on juror Lisa Konnichiro. It was the first time that we had seen the real Frank, because up to that point, he looked like a very handsome young man who was there as part of the legal team, rather than a defendant. It was shocking. The next day, August 4th, 1999, the state called its key witness, John Gonsalves, Frank Pauline's half brother. Gonsalves said he'd urged Pauline to confess after hearing him talk of the attack. He told me that Ian was biting her breast and all kinds of sick stuff. He said that Ian was like he was possessed or something and that they were scared. When Ian was raping the girl and beating her up, she was begging them not to, you know, to stop already. Please, and I'm not gonna say nothing. Gonzales said nothing about encouraging his half brother to lie and take credit for Ireland's murder so that he, Gonzales, might win a deal in a pending drug case. I believe it was a powerful, piece of testimony for the reason that, he was Frank Pauline's brother. For a family member to provide this type of testimony, I think was very, very compelling. But on cross examination, the defense noted Gonzales had indeed secured a deal on his drug case. A fact the defense hoped would add weight to Pauline's false confession claims. The state's last witness was detective Steve Galermo. For 3 days, he testified about his 7 year investigation, including Frank Pauline's initial confession. Frank had admitted being in the company of Ian and Sean Schwitzer and that Sean and that Frank Pauline had witnessed everything that had happened. 2 weeks into the trial, defense attorney Cliff Hunt began presenting his case. His most anticipated witness, the defendant, Frank Pauline. Did you murder or rape Dana Ireland? No. I didn't. Pauline repeated his story that he made up the confession to help his brother beat a drug charge. In exchange, Pauline said, his brother had offered to help him pay a large prison debt. Make us start it up, help him, help myself before I end up getting killed. I love my brother, you know what I mean? But yet, I was kinda, you know what I mean? Kinda scared, but I told him I I told him I whatever, you know what I mean? What what you like me do? He said, just keep watching the news whenever they talk about the case. You weren't there? Nope. So you don't know for a fact? Nope. You just heard stories? I was young and stupid, but that's how I was thinking. Reading newspapers, watching the news, whatever. When, like, when I call my friends and stuff, like, whatever information they get, I've been putting things together. On cross examination, the state attempted to discredit Pauline's claims. In order for jurors to believe he was telling the truth now, the prosecutor argued they would also have to believe he was lying before. Isn't it true the bottom line is that you need this jury to believe that you're just a liar? I don't care if anybody believes me. That you are a murderer. I don't care if anybody believes me. The main thing is speaking the truth. That's all I care about. The defense also called on DNA expert, doctor Edward Blake. Blake's job, to outline the true lack of physical DNA evidence at the time of the trial. The only demonstrable physical evidence that relates to the assailant in this case is the sperm evidence, and that sperm does not come from Frank Paulien. The state sought to counter Blake's findings by suggesting that there could have been an unknown 4th attacker never named by Pauline or the Schweitzers. To doctor Blake, that sounded like a stretch. In order to believe the state's theory of this case, one has to believe that while Frank Pauline is pointing his finger at the Schweitzer brothers, and while the Schweitzer brothers are pointing their finger at Frank Pauline, they just happened to forget about the one individual that they were allegedly at the crime scene with who raped Dana Ireland. That scenario on its face is preposterous. After 5 weeks, the case went to the jury. 4 woman Lisa Konnichiro says that even though the forensic evidence favored the defense, she and her fellow jurors decided to look beyond it. Even though these three young men had been involved in this incident with Dana, didn't necessarily mean that they had left DNA. All the really compelling evidence like the bloody t shirt, the Volkswagen that was repainted, the testimony of Frank Pauline himself, lieutenant Guillermo's testimony, all these people, all these pieces of evidence together finally overpowered any indecision we might have about the DNA. After 2 days, the jury returned with its verdict. We, the jury in this case, find the defendant guilty of the offense of murder in the second degree. I looked at the Irelands and John made this sort of sound that was half a gasp and half a sob. And then a few minutes later, I saw Sandy and Louise with tears in their eyes. It's been 8 years for us looking for justice for Dina and something really positive finally happened. In October of 1999, Frank Pauline was sentenced to a 180 years in prison, but the story was still not over. 6 months earlier, a jail house informant had come forward with new information about the Schweitzer brothers, enough to allow prosecutors to reindict them for their involvement in the murder of Dana Ireland. With Frank Pauline already convicted for the 1991 murder of Dana Ireland, prosecutors were now going after brothers Ian and Sean Schweitzer for their roles in the same crime. 28 year old Ian Schweitzer would stand trial first. To make their case, prosecutors plan to rely on a witness who had only recently come forward, a convict named Michael Ortiz. He said he and Schweitzer had been cellmates in prison when Schweitzer confessed to him in 1998. He confided in Michael Ortiz, and he spoke about his involvement in the kidnap, rape, and murder of Dana Ireland. On February 3, 2000, the state's star witness took the stand to explain what Schweitzer had told him about Ireland's attack. First, Ortiz said Schweitzer described running Ireland down on her bike. He Said he was driving the Volkswagen. He turned around just to scare him, but the Volkswagen slid in the gravel and hit the back of her tire, and she flew off the bike. Ortiz claimed Schweitzer told him it was Frank Pauline who grabbed Dana Ireland by the hair and dragged her into the car, and that Pauline bit her on the breasts as she struggled to get away. Ortiz testified that after the attack, Schweitzer said he'd had the car cleaned out and repainted. He had to take out everything inside, the seats, the door panels, all that, and scrubbed it down with Ajax, so there's no evidence. According to Ortiz, it was Schweitzer who told the other 2 to keep quiet. I told Frank, stay we have to stay away from each other for a while so nobody knows. On cross examination, defense attorney James Bivin described Ortiz as a jailhouse snitch, hoping to win an early release in exchange for his testimony. In closing, Bivin also said the evidence presented did not support the state's claims. These accusations are not corroborated by the scientific evidence, I'm not supported by the evidence on the ground. The case went to the jury on Valentine's Day 2000. One day later, jury 4 woman Maria Penderid returned a verdict. We looked at every piece of the evidence. The pieces of the bicycle, the pieces of the yellow Volkswagen. We studied the evidence and it was just clear. We, the jury in this case, find the defendant guilty of the offense of murder in the second degree. Before Ian Schweitzer was sentenced, the lawyer for his younger brother, Sean, called prosecutors. He wanted to negotiate a plea agreement. Defense attorney Keith Shigatomi says Sean wanted to avoid his brother's fate. The handwriting's on the wall. I mean, the freight train's coming. I can see it coming. And if I don't if we don't get off the track, we're just gonna get run over. But before cutting Sean Schweitzer a deal, prosecutors wanted a full confession. In an audio taped copy of his statement, Sean admits to being present during Ireland's attack, but he says it was Frank Pauline, not his brother, Ian, who attacked Dana. Frank would pick her up, and he put her in the front seat in a passenger seat where he was riding. He goes on to say that the 3 men drove Ireland to the secluded fishing trail. Frank started doing she's stopped to her. She started taking off her clothes and trying to rape her, I guess. Schweitzer said he did not see if Frank struck Ireland. He said he told his older brother, Ian, to take him home. When Frank started doing that to her, then I guess Ian was kinda chirping out too. Like, I was pretty sick for doing something like that, I guess. And I Started yelling at him. Get me out of there. After his confession, Sean Schweitzer plead guilty to kidnapping and manslaughter. He received 5 years probation and returned home to his family. His older brother, Ian, was sentenced to a 130 years. In the years after the trial, Frank Pauline maintained his innocence. Wasn't me. Wasn't these guys. It's like the start of boy who cried wolf. Once you stop once you start crying, crying, crying, time to tell the truth, nobody gonna listen. Nobody wanted for listening to me. According to DNA expert Edward Blake, who testified for the defense, the real attacker is still out there. The person that raped Dana Ireland is unidentified. This case will not be solved, and there will never be closure in this case until that person is identified. In 2023, citing new DNA evidence, judge Peter Kubota cleared both Sean and Ian Schweitzer of their convictions. The evidence demonstrated that neither the Schweitzer's nor Pauline wore the bloody t shirt that was found at the scene. The new tests show the DNA on the shirt belonged to another unidentified male. DNA technology has caught up in this case to clearly exonerate the 3 boys from the commission of the crime, Kubota said of the Schweitzers and Pauline. Frank Pauline was killed by another inmate in a New Mexico prison in 2015. After Dana Ireland's death, the state of Hawaii installed emergency phones in remote areas of the Big Island. It was the direct result of the community's anguish over the belief that Dana may have survived if only help could have gotten to her sooner.
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