GEORGE F. LEE / glee@staradvertiser.com
Gerald Austin, center, was found guilty Wednesday in the 1989 murder of Edith Skinner.
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It took police and prosecutors more than 24 years to identify and take to trial the person responsible for strangling 81-year-old Edith Skinner.
It took a state jury less than a day of deliberation to find him guilty.
The jury found Gerald L. Austin, 54, guilty Wednesday of Skinner’s July 1989 murder. The mandatory penalty for second-degree murder is life in prison with the opportunity for parole. But because Skinner was at least 60 years old at the time of her murder, Austin may qualify for life in prison without the opportunity for parole, the state’s harshest penalty.
In addition to rendering the guilty verdict, the jurors found that Austin knew or should have known that Skinner was at least 60 years old. They will return to court next month to determine whether Austin deserves the higher penalty.
Even if the jury finds Austin eligible for the higher penalty, it will be up to Circuit Judge Colette Garibaldi to decide the sentence.
Austin was 29 years old at the time of Skinner’s murder and had access to her apartment in a secured elderly housing building in the Kaheka area because his grandmother lived in the building. The building manager and a maintenance worker found Skinner’s body in her apartment after her neighbors reported that they had not seen her since the day before.
Honolulu police investigated the case as a rape and murder, and collected DNA from Skinner’s body. It wasn’t until 2011 when police matched that DNA to Austin’s DNA, which they had collected sometime after the murder because of a 2005 law that requires all convicted felons to submit a sample to the Honolulu Police Department. Austin was convicted in 1984 of burglary.
By the time police matched Austin’s DNA the statute of limitations for sexual assault had expired. There is no statute of limitations for murder.
Austin testified that he had consensual sex with a woman who lived in the same building as his grandmother but that he cannot say whether it was Skinner. He also denied killing Skinner.
Prosecutor Scott Bell called Austin’s claim of consensual sex "reprehensible" but said he expected it because Austin needed to explain to the jurors why his DNA was collected from Skinner’s body.
