Authorities Believe They Finally Figured Out Who Murdered Dana Ireland 30 Years Ago. Then He Killed Himself
Attorneys for two brothers wrongly convicted in the case say Big Island police mishandled the recent investigation into the new suspect.
A Puna man recently identified as a new suspect in the 1991 murder of Dana Ireland on the Big Island killed himself last week, just days after Hawaii County police took a cheek swab for DNA testing purposes, attorneys in the case say.
The new information was filed in court documents late Sunday by Innocence Project lawyers who represent two men who were previous suspects in the case.
The two brothers along with a third man were convicted of Ireland’s murder in 2000 but were exonerated last year after new DNA analysis excluded them as sources of semen found on the young woman’s body. One of the brothers, Albert Ian Schweitzer, had spent 26 years in prison but always maintained his innocence.
But the DNA analysis never turned up a new suspect until recently, the new court filing says.
The document refers to him only as “Unknown Male #1” and does not reveal a name.
Now, the attorneys say, Hawaii County police failed to take him into custody after they collected his DNA, even though they already had probable cause to arrest him.
Hawaii County police declined to talk about the new filing Sunday night but said in an email the department planned to hold a press conference on the case on Monday.
Ireland, a 23-year-old from Virginia who was visiting the Big Island, was hit on her bicycle, sexually assaulted, beaten and left on a fishing trail in Puna on Christmas Eve. She died the following day at Hilo Medical Center.
Earlier this year, a private company, Indago Solutions, working with the Innocence Project tracked down a man living about 2 miles from where Ireland was found and identified him as a likely match to the DNA found on Ireland’s body, according to a motion filed Sunday by the New York and Hawaii Innocence Projects, which are representing the Schweitzer brothers.
Investigators later covertly collected DNA from a fork he’d used and found it matched the DNA recovered from the crime scene, according to the court document.
The lawyers passed the information on to Hawaii County police. But they say in the court filing that the department mishandled the investigation by not arresting him at that point, giving him the chance to flee, destroy evidence or commit suicide.
The motion asks the court to compel the Hawaii County Police Department and prosecuting attorney’s office to turn over all evidence obtained relating to the investigation of the new suspect.
A hearing has been set for Tuesday in Hilo court.
New Suspect
The motion lays out the Innocence Project’s summary of what has happened in recent months:
Using the DNA evidence obtained at the murder scene, Indago Solutions, a private investigation and software company that works to identify people using DNA and public records, identified the suspect on Feb. 26, based on his ancestry, age, genetics and address history.
Besides the fact that he lived near where Ireland was found on the Wa’a Wa’a fishing trail in Puna, his social media content suggested he was an avid shore fisherman who was likely familiar with the trail.
His Facebook page also showed he owned or had access to a pickup truck in the early 1990s. At the time of Ireland鈥檚 murder, witnesses reported seeing a pickup truck at the site of Ireland鈥檚 bicycle collision and also at the fishing trail.
At the time of Ian Schweitzer鈥檚 conviction, the state argued his Volkswagen Beetle had left tire tread marks at the scene, but further analysis later showed the marks did not belong to the Volkswagen and likely came from a truck or van.
The DNA collected from the semen on Ireland’s body also indicated the suspect had 80% Filipino ancestry. The man Indago Solutions identified had three Filipino grandparents.
Additionally, he would have been in his mid-20s at the time of the killing and was small in stature, meaning it was likely he could have fit into a Jimmy-Z’s T-shirt that was found at the fishing trail covered in Ireland’s blood.
The FBI’s genetic genealogy team later confirmed Indago’s results and worked with the Hawaii County Police Department to collect an abandoned DNA sample from a fork. Abandoned DNA can be collected without a warrant and is often extracted from items left in public places.
On July 1, a crime lab retained by the Innocence Project to do post-conviction DNA testing, confirmed that the DNA taken from the fork matched the DNA collected from the Ireland crime scene.
As the investigation proceeded, attorneys for the Schweitzer brothers asked the Hilo judge to order that the Hawaii County Police Department and prosecuting attorneys office video record any interrogation of the man or search of his property. They also asked that the FBI assist in the investigation.
“We specifically emphasized that we thought the HCPD had a conflict of interest and that in addition to the assistance of the Hawai鈥榠 FBI agent the Attorney General鈥檚 office should be involved to assure the fairness and independence of the final stage of the investigation of Unknown Male #1,” the motion says.
The Innocence Project asked Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez to get involved in the investigation, but she declined.
On July 19, Hawaii County police collected a cheek swab sample from the suspect and on Tuesday submitted it for testing. The forensic analytics lab confirmed the following day that it matched the prior sample taken from the fork and the samples recovered from the crime scene.
On Tuesday, just four days after police had been to see him, the man committed suicide, the medical examiner confirmed.
The motion says Innocence Project attorneys found out about the death of the suspect from the medical examiner who attorneys contacted because they didn’t see any notice of the man’s arrest in police databases.
They were “deeply disturbed” when they learned that the suspect had not been in police custody when he was swabbed, the motion says. His house had also not been searched.
Hawaii Innocence Project co-director Ken Lawson contacted the medical examiner in Hilo on Friday and the ME confirmed the suicide.
Lawson questioned why the police needed to swab the suspect when they already had probable cause to arrest him based on the DNA collected from the fork.
“You already know it鈥檚 him, you don鈥檛 need more DNA,鈥 he said. “It made no sense to go there and then not arrest and charge him.”
Wrongful Convictions
The Schweitzer brothers and a man named Frank Pauline were indicted for Ireland’s murder in 1997 after Pauline told officials the Schweitzers had attacked Ireland. Pauline was serving a sentence for an unrelated sex assault and theft at the time.
The charges were dismissed at one point after all three men were excluded as the source of semen found on Ireland, but they were re-indicted after an informant said Ian Schweitzer confessed to him in jail that Pauline had raped and killed the young woman.
After juries convicted Pauline and Ian Schweitzer, Shawn Schweitzer decided to take a plea deal that would give him credit for time served and not expose him to a potentially lengthy prison sentence. He later said he regretted agreeing to confess.
Pauline later said he gave police information about Ireland’s murder in an attempt to help get drug charges against his brother dropped.
Ian Schweitzer was released from prison on Jan. 24, 2023, and his brother’s conviction was overturned on Oct. 23 of that year.
Pauline was killed by another inmate in a New Mexico prison in 2015. A for him was delayed earlier this year because attorneys were waiting for an official copy of his death certificate, according to Hawaii News Now.
The death of the new suspect in Ireland’s case will now hamper investigators’ ability to further uncover the facts of the case, Innocence Project attorneys say in the motion.
The motion asks the police to hand over any tapes, emails or communications regarding the cheek swab of the suspect and any information about what he said during the swabbing, where it took place and any surveillance of him that occurred before or after. It also asks for other details about the police action including who made the decision not to arrest the man and whether his home was ever searched.
Lawson said the man was likely the only person who knew what truly happened to Ireland. Now, her family will not be able to get closure.
“What happened? Why’d you do it?” Lawson said. “What were her last moments like? We’ll never know the answers to these questions.”
