(CNN) — The parents of a 6-year-old girl in Hawaii have been arrested and charged with her murder two months after they reported her missing — and three months after she was killed, police say.
Isaac and Lehua Kalua were arrested Wednesday on second-degree murder charges in the death of Isabella, who was also known as Ariel, the Honolulu Police Department said Wednesday during a news conference.
The couple, who are the girl’s adoptive parents, reported her missing September 13 and said they had last seen her the previous day. But police said Wednesday their investigation revealed Ariel was killed in mid-August.
Although police early on had suspicions that it was a murder, the case was technically only reclassified late last week, homicide Lt. Deena Thoemmes told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The parents had told police that the girl left the house in the middle of the night, but multiple surveillance cameras in the area showed that statement to be false, Thoemmes said.
The Kaluas were cooperative with police — until they weren’t, Thoemmes said: “They did open their home initially to us, provided us statements. But then as the weeks passed, there was no call back to us.”
Interim Chief Rade Vanic said at the news conference that investigators believe the evidence points to the adoptive parents “and no one else.” Police didn’t provide details on their evidence against the couple, adding the investigation is ongoing.
Ariel’s cause of death has not been determined, and her remains have not been found, authorities said.
Authorities searched the couple’s property and Isaac Kalua’s workplace at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
The girl was adopted in January, when she was 6, and her name was legally changed from Ariel Sellers. She would have turned 7 on Nov. 6.
A state Department of Education spokesperson said the girl attended kindergarten at Waimanalo Elementary last school year via distance learning. In June, the adoptive parents filed paperwork to withdraw her to home-school her.
The girl’s grandmother told the Star-Advertiser that she was the guardian of Ariel and her sisters for several years, because their birth mother had drug abuse problems. She said the girls were taken into the custody of the state’s child welfare system because of concerns that the grandmother was “overwhelmed” after her partner was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident.
The sisters were also placed in the Kalua home; they were removed on Sept. 13.
The-CNN-Wire
& © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
0 comments:
Post a Comment