From: HonoluluAdvertiser.com
Posted on: Friday, October 17, 2008
Suspect in 1999 Hawaii murder tagged as threat in ’96 memo
Specialist had sought ‘intensive supervision’ for convicted murderer
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Darnell Griffin, now awaiting trial for the 1999 rape and murder of Evelyn Luka, was identified three years before the crime as a dangerous sexual predator whose movements after leaving prison should be restricted by parole authorities, according to court records.
The warning, issued in January 1996 by state sex-offender specialist Barry Coyne, virtually predicted the way in which prosecutors now say Griffin met and attacked Luka on Sept. 6, 1999.
Griffin had been convicted in 1980 of murdering another woman. Before Griffin was paroled on March 5, 1996, Coyne recommended that he be subjected to “more intense supervision” than normal, including a 9 p.m. curfew and a warning that if he visited nightclubs in central Honolulu or Waikiki, his parole could be revoked.
Coyne also recommended that Griffin be required to regularly take and pass polygraph tests to make sure he was not violating the terms of his release from prison.
According to records filed in the Luka case, the victim was last seen leaving Venus Nite Club on Kapi’olani Boulevard around midnight with a man matching Griffin’s description in a vehicle matching the one that Griffin drove at the time.
Luka, 20, was found barely alive early the next morning on the side of H-2 Freeway. Sexually assaulted and strangled, she died the following month of brain injuries when her family removed her from life support.
Coyne would not comment last week on his memo.
Hawai’i Paroling Authority administrator Max Otani said that, despite Coyne’s concerns about Griffin, the parolee remained under “intensive supervision” only through December 1996.
That program imposed a 9 p.m. curfew and Griffin was subjected once to a polygraph examination, in November 1996, Otani said.
As of 1997, Griffin was transferred to general parole status, which included an 11 p.m. curfew and instructions not to consume alcohol or visit premises where alcohol is served, Otani said.
There is no indication in court files that parole officials or Honolulu police detectives identified Griffin as a possible suspect in the Luka murder until a DNA sample he provided in 2006 was later matched with evidence collected in 1999.
Griffin was required to supply the DNA under a 2005 state law requiring collection of such samples from all convicted murderers.
guilty in 1980 killing
Griffin was convicted in 1980 of murdering Lynn Gheradi, a 28-year-old X-ray technician who was found strangled to death in her Makiki apartment.
Friends told police that Gheradi had met Griffin, then an Army soldier, at a disco and that he had become obsessed with her. After she rejected his advances, he became angry, her friends testified at Griffin’s trial.
Police found a rattan chair belonging to Gheradi in Griffin’s apartment.
Court records show that authorities believed Griffin had sexually assaulted Gheradi before he killed her, but they lacked evidence to support that belief, and he was charged and convicted of one count of second-degree murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, and served 16 years before he was granted parole in March 1996.
Before the parole, Coyne wrote his warning memo to then-Hawai’i Paroling Authority chairman Claudio Suyat.
“Mr. Griffin was called to my attention as a potential sex offender by parole officer Edwin Uyehara,” Coyne wrote.
“I share Mr. Uyehara’s concern,” Coyne wrote.
“Mr. Griffin was convicted of murder, based upon his prior stalking the victim and her belongings found in his possession,” the memo continued.
“Although evidence was clear that the victim had engaged in sexual intercourse the day she was murdered, no direct sexual evidence (his semen or pubic hair) could establish that Mr. Griffin raped the victim before killing her,” Coyne wrote.
“Six months prior to his arrest for murder, Mr. Griffin raped a tourist, but the prosecutor declined to prosecute. Mr. Griffin had that case expunged from official records. However, his modus operandi in the rape case duplicates his behavior in the murder: He meets an attractive woman in a Waikiki nightclub. He stalks her to her home or hotel room. He gains entry. He rapes her,” Coyne wrote.
He noted that his office could not require or recommend Griffin for sex offender treatment because he had no record as a sex offender and denied being a rapist.
“Given everyone’s shared concerns, I would like to recommend that HPA impose more intense supervision on Mr. Griffin than might be normal in such cases,” Coyne wrote.
“Because he meets female tourists in nightclubs, I recommend that he not be allowed access to Waikiki, Kaka’ako, Ke’eaumoku, Downtown or other areas where nightclubs operate,” Coyne said.
“A 9 p.m. curfew should further limit his access to new victims. And polygraphs will help maintain and verify his compliance to the parole contact,” the memo concluded.
no red flags raised
Griffin was required to participate in a sex-offender treatment program when he was first paroled, but that requirement was ended in November 1996 “because he was not a convicted sex offender,” Otani said.
On Sept. 9, 1999, three days after Luka was attacked, police asked for the public’s help in finding the man last seen with her at the Venus Nite Club. The physical description of the man generally matched Griffin as well as the fact that the man was driving a “late-model green Nissan Pathfinder.” A police sketch of the man was also issued.
Parole authorities knew that Griffin was driving a 1996 Pathfinder because he reported leasing the vehicle to them in December 1996, records show.
That information, coupled with Coyne’s earlier warning about Griffin, still did not raise any flags at the Paroling Authority, Otani acknowledged.
“There’s nothing in the file to indicate that,” he said.
Griffin and his wife were married in 1997 and have two children. He has helped raise a third child born to his wife from a previous relationship.
Griffin, 50, came to Hawai’i as a soldier in 1978 and was honorably discharged from the service in 1982.
According to his parole files, he is a highly trained computer technician and engineer, with two bachelor’s degrees. He has worked as an information systems specialist at Tripler Army Medical Center and for private companies.
At the time of the Luka assault, Griffin was working for a private company providing computer services at Wheeler Army Air Field, according to court files.
trial starts in april
Griffin has pleaded not guilty to the rape and murder charges, and has been in custody since his arrest in April 2007, unable to post $5 million bail.
In April of this year, Griffin’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender E. Edward Aquino, told prosecutor Kevin Takata that Griffin “will admit to having sex with victim Evelyn Luka, but will deny that he murdered her and will claim that he was not present when Evelyn Luka was killed.”
Trial in the case is set to begin April 13, 2009.
Besides the DNA evidence, prosecutor Takata has said he intends to introduce other incriminating evidence collected against Griffin.
Luka’s husband, Kevin, told police that she called him from Venus Nite Club the evening she was attacked, saying she was catching a ride home with a friend who lived in the Salt Lake area. That’s where Griffin was living with his wife and children in 1999.
Witnesses at the nightclub said they saw her leave with a man driving a green Nissan Pathfinder SUV with a military base decal on the windshield. Griffin was leasing a 1996 Pathfinder with just that sort of decal on the windshield in 1999.
Takata also said he plans to introduce the rape complaint filed against Griffin in October 1979 by a 26-year-old tourist who said that she met and danced with Griffin at the Spats discotheque in Waikiki.
The woman told police that she and Griffin left the nightclub separately that evening, but he appeared at her hotel room the following day, threatened to kill her and raped her. Prosecutors would not pursue the case, citing discrepancies in the victim’s statement.
The incident occurred a year before Griffin murdered Gheradi, whom he also met at Spats.
Takata also intends to use a statement from a 26-year-old woman who told police she encountered Griffin on Dec. 6, 2006, in a Waipahu parking lot. The defendant was allegedly masturbating in his car and offered the woman marijuana and methamphetamines if she agreed to have sex with him. She declined the offer but wrote down the telephone number the man gave her. It allegedly matched Griffin’s cell phone.
Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.
DARNELL GRIFFIN TIMELINE
Oct. 23, 1978: Army transfers Darnell Griffin to Hawai’i.
Oct. 17, 1979: He’s accused of rape by 26-year-old female tourist; case dismissed.
Oct. 11, 1980: Murders Lynn Gheradi.
Feb. 14, 1983: Sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for murdering Gheradi.
Jan. 12, 1996: State official Barry Coyne writes warning memo, advises close supervision of Griffin as parolee.
March 5, 1996: Griffin paroled under “intensive supervision.”
Dec. 30, 1996: Intensive supervision of Griffin lifted by Hawai’i Paroling Authority.
Sept. 6, 1999: Evelyn Luka raped and strangled.
Sept. 6, 2004: DNA evidence from Luka case entered in national database.
Nov. 24, 2006: DNA sample obtained from Griffin by parole officer.
Dec. 9, 2006: Griffin allegedly exposes himself, solicits sex from 26-year-old woman.
Feb. 26, 2007: Griffin DNA sample matched to DNA from Luka case.
March 28, 2007: Griffin arrested and charged with rape and murder of Evelyn Luka.
