April 26, 1998

Life has been a struggle from the beginning for 6-year-old child-abuse victim Peter Kema Jr.

Details of his years, as revealed by anxious relatives and recounted by Family Court documents obtained by The Advertiser, tell a tale of abuse shortly after Peter Boy was born and parental complacency that has now left him missing.

The documents include reports filed with the court by Child Protective Services social workers from the time that allegations of abuse in Peter Boy’s family first arose in 1991.

And the details in the reports go further: They tell of a child protection system that failed to act quickly when reports of Peter Boy’s disappearance first surfaced.

Even after Child Protective Services received a report charging horrendous mistreatment of the boy, it was weeks before a social worker attempted to check it out. Seven months passed, police said, before they were first told by CPS that Peter Boy was missing.

Peter Boy’s father said he left the child with a woman at Aala Park last August. No one has been able to locate the woman or the boy.

Shortly after he was born on May 1, 1991, Peter Boy was sent to Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children with breathing troubles, according to confidential Family Court records.

He was the third child of Jaylin Acol Kema, who had two other children in an earlier relationship. She and Peter Kema Sr. would have one other child after Peter Boy.

Within days of Peter Boy’s birth, social workers with the state Department of Human Services received a report that the two older half-siblings had been abused. Both bore bruises on their faces.

“The physical abuse appeared to be ‘over discipline’ which occurred while mother, Jaylin Acol (Kema), was hospitalized with the birth of her third child, Peter Jr.,” the court record states. Social workers described the Kemas as young, relatively inexperienced parents. They were under considerable stress with all three children then under the age of 5, the report noted. Since Peter Boy was sick, the pressure was even greater.

Peter Kema Sr., a stocky, unemployed painter, denied in the reports that he hurt the children, but social workers concluded he was the abuser.

The children were taken from the home and placed in the care of Jaylin Kema’s parents, Yolanda and James Acol of Kona. But by June, in keeping with the state’s policy to reunite families, the children were back with their parents under supervision of social workers.

Peter’s parents were required to attend parenting classes, undergo psychological evaluations and attend counseling.

In August 1991, social workers received another report, this time that Peter Boy, then 3 months old, had suffered a spiral fracture of his left leg. There also was evidence of older fractures. His only caretakers were his parents and neither could explain to a social worker how Peter had been injured, the court report states.

While the social worker did not conclude the parents were to blame, the state took the children out of the home and placed them first with a foster parent and then with their grandparents, the Acols.

The social worker said Yolanda Acol reported that during the first two years while the children were with her, Jaylin and Peter Kema never asked to visit.

Returned to parents

Yet by July 1994, social workers had returned Peter Boy to his parents and a month later allowed visitations with the two older children. The goal was still the reunification of the family.

In a December report that year, a psychologist who had treated the Kemas said the couple appeared to be maturing. But he said some of their decisions “have not been thoughtful or very empathic of the needs of the children.”

They did not allow Peter Boy to see his grandparents, the Acols, and they had not visited with the older children. Even telephone calls were infrequent, he said.

The Kemas wanted the children returned immediately from the Acols, with whom relations were strained. But the psychologist said he believed the reunion shouldn’t occur until the children had a “stronger sense of security and comfort” about moving back home.

In an interview with The Advertiser, Bill Collier, the father of Peter Boy’s older half-siblings, said he and the Acols opposed the state’s move to return the children to the Kemas.

But he said the state felt because Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr. had completed their required classes in stress management, anger management and family issues, they were ready to take the children again.

“So it was a happy day for DHS that finally they got a family going, and I went along with it,” he said.

He said he had trusted the Kemas to do the right thing. Now, in the wake of Peter Boy’s disappearance, he said he has “no trust.”

In June 1995, the children were returned to the Kemas by order of Family Judge Ben Gaddis. And on Oct. 31, 1995, the state officially closed the case.

Two years later, on April 4, 1997, social workers received a call from a therapist that a relative of the Kemas — said to be a 15-year-old — alleged that Peter Boy had been abused and his arm had been broken. According to court documents, the relative told the therapist that Peter was always dressed in long-sleeved shirts.

She made other charges. The therapist was told that Peter Boy has been seen “to eat puppy shit and is made to sit on the floor,” which the relative described as degrading for the boy, the Family Court report said.

Human Services Director Susan Chandler said last week that because the report of Peter’s possible broken arm came from a 15-year-old girl, social workers decided the report was not credible. There were no collaborating reports from a doctor or a teacher.

Empty home

The Family Court report states, however, that based on the relative’s story, a visit was made to the Kema home on Niihau Street in Nanawale, but not until 11 weeks later — on June 18, 1997. The home appeared empty. The next day, the social worker found out the family had moved to Puhili Street in the Kaumana area and six days later she paid a visit.

Peter Kema Sr. was the only one home, so the social worker asked that the family appear with all of the children at a 9 a.m. appointment the next day.

But the Kemas canceled the appointment, and they canceled one the following day as well, the report states. Finally, on July 7, 1997, the family arrived at the department’s offices with three of the children. Peter Boy was not among them.

Jaylin Kema said Peter Boy was “on vacation” with an aunt and uncle of Peter Kema Sr.’s, but she would not give the name of the relatives or any information about them.

When asked about the report that Peter Boy had a broken arm, she said that the boy had been hurt when he jumped from a tree stump in November 1996. When he got up, he complained that his arm “was sore,” she said.

She told the social worker that she took Peter Jr. to a doctor at Pahoa Family Health Center. According to the report, Jaylin said the doctor did not take an X-ray of the child’s arm, but nonetheless determined it was not broken. His advice, she said, was to “wrap it up.”

Jaylin Kema agreed to bring Peter Boy to the department’s office on Aug. 15, 1997. The social worker had not remembered that it was a holiday — Admission Day. There was nothing in the reports to indicate that the social worker attempted to reschedule the appointment.

No record of incident

On July 17, 1997, the social worker received a call from the Pahoa Family Health Center that raised questions about Jaylin Kema’s story. Peter Boy was last seen for a physical examination on Dec. 15, 1995. Contrary to what Jaylin Kema had said, the center had no record of Peter Boy being treated at the center for his injured arm.

As July drew to a close, social workers again heard from the therapist who had first reported the 15-year-old relative’s story of Peter Boy and his arm. This time the relative told the therapist that Peter Boy “had to wear his underwear on his head at age 3 or 4, which was humiliating to the child.” The relative also said Peter had to sit on the ground and eat, rather than in a chair.

Precious time passed, and the following month, the social worker spoke with Yolanda Acol and asked her where she thought Peter Jr. might be. The grandmother said that Jaylin Kema had told her that the boy was with her brother, Reed Acol, who lived in Honolulu. But Yolanda Acol said this turned out not to be true.

“We don’t know who Peter Jr. is staying with,” Yolanda Acol told the social worker.

In mid-August, the social worker visited the Kema home again. There were two cars in the garage and the sound of a running clothes dryer could be heard, but no one came to the door when she knocked. When she tried to call, no one answered the phone, so she left a message.

The following month, Jaylin Kema’s brother, Reed Acol, passed on to the social worker that his sister had told him another story of Peter Boy’s whereabouts. She said Peter Boy was living with his father’s aunt in Honolulu, “learning Hawaiian stuff.” But no one knew the aunt’s name.

Grandmother’s concern

Throughout 1997, Yolanda Acol said she had called Child Protective Services voicing concern about Peter Boy and she did so again on Oct. 1, 1997, according to the Family Court report.

“Nobody in our family has seen Peter Jr. in a while,” she said. She and her husband had last seen Peter Boy at the funeral of a relative on Nov. 30, 1996.

The day after Yolanda Acol’s call, the social worker interviewed Peter’s older siblings at school. The girl last remembered seeing Peter Boy in September. She said Peter Jr. was living with an aunt in Kona, which was not the case.

When the children were asked why their parents didn’t bring Peter Boy back to Hilo to live with the family, they could not give a reason. The oldest boy said their parents had told them that they want Peter Boy “to learn something,” but the boy said he did not know what that was.

Two days before Christmas, a DHS income maintenance worker left a message for the social worker. She said Jaylin Kema reported that Peter Boy had moved out of the house in June and had left the Big Island in October.

The social worker called Yolanda Acol that same day and asked her if she had heard any word about Peter Boy, but there was no news. “All the family is asking, ‘Where is he?’” she said.

On Dec. 26, 1997, James Acol called the social worker and told her he was worried about his grandson. He said when he last saw Peter Boy at the relative’s funeral, he had “a black eye and one arm was sprained.”

On a suggestion from a family member, the social worker called a private school in Keaau to see if Peter Boy had been registered there, but the school had no record on him.

Sometime in June 1997, according to Chandler, Child Protective Services called police to report Peter Boy was missing. No mention of that communication surfaces in the Family Court report.

If anything, the report appears to back up the police version of events, that they were not informed that the boy had disappeared until Jan. 8, when they accompanied a social worker to the Kema home.

When no one answered the door, the social worker and police returned the next day. This time, Jaylin Kema came to the door and stepped out.

There in the garage, the social worker and police did what relatives had wanted them to do for months. They pushed a weeping Jaylin Kema to explain what had happened to Peter Boy. Finally she agreed to make a missing-person report. It had been nine months since social workers first received a report that Peter Boy may have been abused again.

Big Island Detective Glenn Nojiri interviewed Jaylin Kema at the police department on Jan. 21. According to her, she had learned only the day before that her husband had handed their son “to a lady in Aala Park” and had given up all rights to him. And, no, she did not know the woman, who her husband identified as Auntie Rose Makuakane.

She said she last saw Peter Boy on Aug. 16, when her husband took the boy to Oahu and “didn’t bring the child back.” She acknowledged that she had no idea what had been happened to her child for five months.

Peter Kema Sr. was in the department waiting room but refused to be interviewed by Nojiri. Jaylin Kema said her husband had chest pains and had an emergency doctor’s appointment that he had to keep.

Father’s account

A version of what he said happened to Peter Boy emerges in the Family Court report as the social worker recounts a March 9 interview with him. According to the report, Peter Kema Sr. described how as the hanai son of Moses Makuakane, he had come to meet Rose Makuakane, a “cousin” of Moses.

She lived with them for about two weeks, he said, and did not see her again until September 1997, 15 years later.

Kema said he had gone to Oahu with Peter Boy and that they lived in Aala Park in a tent meant for 18 people. But he said that it was not a place for Peter Boy. “I ran out of food stamps; I ran out of money,” he said.

He decided to give Peter Boy away to Auntie Rose, he said. He wrote a letter that he handed to her giving up his parental rights. He told the social worker that he thought Rose was living on the beach in Florida, where she could make her lauhala hats and “everything costs less,” the report stated.

Police have been unable to establish that a person named Rose Makuakane exists.

Summing up her impressions of the Kemas’ story, the social worker said: “They may have fabricated stories to make it appear that what they say happened to Peter Jr. happened. In reality, the boy’s whereabouts and lack of anyone identified who has seen this child, renders a lack of optimism that this child will appear without serious injury.”

Children’s return advised

Despite such concerns and as late as March when the Family Court report was prepared, the social worker was still recommending that the three other children remain with the Kemas — although under supervision. And if Peter Boy was found, the social worker’s report said, he should be placed in foster custody.

Last Sunday, The Advertiser published an article that described the disappearance of Peter Boy, based on case details released by Judge Gaddis at the request of the newspaper.

On Tuesday, Child Protective Services, in an apparent reassessment of the case, filed a petition in Family Court to remove the remaining three children from the Kema home. They were taken into protective custody on Wednesday and placed in foster care.

Human Services Director Chandler has refused to answer further questions about her agency’s handling of Peter Boy’s case, saying the focus should now be on finding the child.

Relatives are waiting and hoping that Peter Boy is safe and will one day return home. The odds against that seem to stack higher with the passing of each day.

Bill Collier, meanwhile, is seeking custody of his two children while he and other family members worry themselves sick about the missing boy who called him Daddy Bill.

“I considered him like my son,” Collier said. “My whole family accepted Pepe (Peter Boy) as one of the family, so this is very strong.”

Collier stopped a while to hold back tears and continued. “I fear the worse. I know he’s not here already.”

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