The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office positively identified the second set of remains found in a Diamond Head house on Hibiscus Drive that burned on Jan. 19 as
suspected killer Jerry J. “Jarda” Hanel, 69.
The announcement by the city Wednesday was expected and came after the Medical Examiner’s
Office notified Hanel’s next of kin, officials said.
An official with the Medical Examiner’s Office said no determination has been made on the cause and manner of death of either Hanel or his landlord, Lois Cain, 77, whose remains were also found in the rubble of the fire.
Police say Hanel shot and killed two Honolulu police officers, Tiffany
Enriquez and Kaulike Kalama, stabbed a neighbor with a garden tool, and beat Cain, whose remains were previously identified.
Hanel, the downstairs tenant and handyman, was presumed dead inside the home, one of five in the area that was destroyed in the ensuing conflagration.
Two neighbors heard screams and witnessed Hanel beating tenant Gisela Ricardi King with
a garden tool that Sunday morning, and intervened.
Hanel then retreated into the house, and the neighbors said they heard him beating Cain.
She was trying to evict Hanel by mid-December, but he refused to leave, a court document showed. She had been staying in an upstairs bedroom, while preparing a permanent move back to Hawaii. The other two upstairs bedrooms were occupied by Janice Morrow, her house guest, and King and her family.
Initially, Cain, Morrow and Hanel were unaccounted for after the fire, but Morrow was found later that day.
The search for remains did not begin immediately because the ruins were too hot for investigators to enter, police said.
Morrow alleged Hanel had threatened to burn down Cain’s house. She described Hanel as a
“raging, alcoholic schizophrenic threatening everybody, thinking they’re spies.”
Hanel’s attorney and court records reveal he had mental health problems and at least three neighbors had filed
restraining orders against him.
One woman said Hanel’s temperament changed about a year ago after his dog died and Cain refused to allow him to get another.
Click here for our full coverage of the Hibiscus Drive shootings.