The 76-year-old woman who awoke early Thursday morning to find a burglar in her Ala Wai-area condominium said she felt shock, but also relief, to learn that he had plunged to his death.
In an apparent attempt to escape out the window, he fell dozens of stories to the parking lot below.
She suspects the man had burglarized her apartment before, accounting for a missing laptop.
“I feel relieved because I know he’s not coming back,” she said. “But I feel bad for the parents. … It’s a tragedy for them, too.”
The woman, who asked not to be identified, said the man’s parents are upstairs neighbors in the University condominium and were out of town at the time.
The Medical Examiner’s Office identified the intruder as 37-year-old Richard Hong.
Hong had climbed down to her apartment using a rope ladder.
“The rope was not only for my apartment,” she said. “I’m sure he used it for other places, too.”
Police classified the case as a burglary and an unattended death.
Hong’s body was found in the guest parking lot.
A lei and sign saying, “Rest in Peace … We Care” with a heart symbol marked the spot Friday. Another note from a building security guard says in part, “You were a cool guy. … Rest in love Dawg!”
The woman said she awoke at about 5 a.m. Thursday and was heading to the bathroom when she was startled by the sight of a man in her living room.
“He was dressed completely in black,” she said. “I couldn’t see his face. It was 5 o’clock in the morning. It was dark.
“When I saw him, he must have panicked,” she said, adding, “He must have slipped.”
But the woman went into survival mode.
“My instincts took over,” she said. “I wanted to defend myself.”
She returned to her bedroom, grabbed her hiking stick and went back out.
When she didn’t see him, she “frantically opened the front door,” which has three locks, then went out in the hallway and called 911 using her cordless phone.
But before police arrived, she sneaked back into her living room and checked the other rooms, the last being the kitchen. She surmised he got out through the kitchen window, as the condo’s windows have no screens.
It was an hour before she learned that he had died.
“I was more or less in shock,” she said. “It didn’t dawn on me that he fell down.”
The woman insists that Hong is the same person who burglarized her home before and stole her laptop computer.
She recalls sending out an email on it at night, but in the morning it was gone, so she figured someone had been in her apartment. She filed a police report, and changed all her credit cards and email accounts.
The woman would typically leave her lanai door and windows open.
“I don’t expect anybody to come in here,” she said. “You really think you’re safe” on an upper floor. “Unfortunately there are some people who would try everything for a computer.”
She now locks her windows and doors.
Hong’s twin brother told KHON2 News that his brother indulged in drugs and had burglarized other apartments, but he didn’t do it for the money since his parents took care of him. The family thought Hong was doing well, so his parents took a trip to South Korea, but returned home Friday, his brother said.
He declined an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
An employee of Hawaiiana Management, the property management company for the building, declined comment, saying only lawyers were allowed to speak about the incident.
A 70-year-old longtime resident, who declined to give her name, said she was not aware of what happened.
“Nobody talk,” she said. “Maybe they don’t want people to know.”
April Black, 27, who lives on the 35th floor, said she saw about 15 police cars Thursday morning, and learned from maintenance that the burglar used a rope ladder.
“Our balcony is open,” she said. “I don’t really worry, and leave the windows open.”
A 30-year-old said the method Hong used seems “very unusual and not likely to be copied.”
Komina Charles, 37, was working out early Thursday morning and saw police and the covered body.
Charles, who lives in a nearby high-rise, said, “I always close my windows. You have to be careful.”
