By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Underworld hit man Ronald K. Ching — who in 1984 confessed to killing four men including a state senator and the son of the then-Honolulu prosecutor — died in his Halawa Correctional Facility cell yesterday morning, according to the Department of Public Safety.
The department's statement said Ching, 56, was pronounced dead by the Honolulu Medical Examiner at 3:25 a.m. and that a routine investigation would be conducted by the department.
"Ching had been battling Hepatitis C for a number of years, the statement said. "Ching was serving a life sentence for three counts of Murder 1 and one count of Murder 2."
City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle described Ching as the most notorious of Hawai'i's hit men.
"This is a person that needed to die in prison," said Carlisle, who was deputy city prosecutor in 1985 when he prosecuted Ching.
"We don't know how many people he killed. We know he pled (guilty) to four, but he'd given us information on eight to 10. There's lots of belief that there were a number of other killings he was involved in."
Ching was sentenced to life in prison on Aug. 24, 1985, for:
Ching pleaded guilty to the murders in July 1984 as part of a plea agreement. At the time he had served three years of a 21-year federal sentence for narcotics and firearms convictions.
He gave no motive for the killings at the time he pleaded guilty. Ching later provided authorities with information as a prosecution witness, but the deal and the cooperation was dissolved by mutual agreement in August 1985.
Carlisle said Ching's motive for being a prosecution witness in the first place was to mitigate some of the offenses against him.
Ching had said on the stand that his life of crime began with burglaries and escalated into pimping, drugs and professional murders as the years went by.
According to Carlisle, in the end Ching wound up where he belonged.
"He was getting an automatic life sentence, so there wasn't a lot of drama to the sentencing other than the roll call of the dead."
The murder of Kuriyama on Oct. 23, 1970 shocked the state. Kuriyama had been at a political rally attended by hundreds of people, including Gov. John Burns. He arrived home at around 11 p.m. and was gunned down by someone who shot him several times using a gun with a silencer.
Kuriyama's family said they heard Kuriyama drive up and get out of the car. Then they heard several cracking sounds and the screams of the dying senator.
Ching pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the Kuriyama killing, saying that he "agreed with others" to kill the senator. But he added that, "Larry Kuriyama was shot by another in my presence with my aid and support."
Ching came from a broken home and dropped out of Kaimuki High School in the 10th grade. He once told Donald Carstensen, head of Marsland's Organized Crime Unit, that he was 16 when he did his first killing. He was 21 when Kuriyama was murdered.
By that time he reputedly was an underworld killer for hire. Few familiar with his criminal history think he killed only four people.
Carlisle said that while visiting the prison a while back, he happened to see Ching in his cell. He said the two had a brief, amicable conversation.
Carlisle said Ching, who was obviously extremely ill at the time, had not forgotten that after he had gone to prison and Carlisle had become prosecutor, Carlisle refused to show him some kind of consideration in exchange for the information Ching had given as a prosecuting witness.
"It was clear to me that he did not want to die in prison," Carlisle said. "At the end of the conversation he said, 'I guess there are some things that you can't be forgiven for.'
"And I said, 'You're right.'"
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
