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Hawaii island police Chief Ben Moszkowicz said police didn’t have probable cause to arrest a new suspect in the 1991 Dana Ireland murder case before he killed himself last week. 

The suspect, 57-year-old Albert Lauro Jr., of Hawaiian Paradise Park, was recently confirmed to be the source of semen and other DNA retrieved from Ireland’s body and a T-shirt soaked with Ireland’s blood found near the crime scene. 

Ireland, a 23-year-old visitor from Virginia, was hit on her bicycle, raped, beaten and left on a fishing trail in Puna on Christmas Eve 1991. She died the next day at Hilo Medical Center. 

The DNA evidence that identified Lauro was enough to show that he sexually assaulted Ireland, but the statute of limitations had expired to charge him with rape, Moszkowicz said. Police lacked probable cause to bring him in on a murder charge. 

“We felt then and we continue to feel that the presence of Lauro’s DNA at the crime scene was in and of itself not sufficient to prove that Lauro intentionally or knowingly caused her death,” he said. 

Lauro agreed to meet with detectives at the Hilo police station on July 19 and spoke with them for an hour, Moszkowicz said. Officers took a court-ordered cheek swab of Lauro before letting him go. 

Moszkowicz would not share what was discussed at the police station but said, “Nothing from that conversation gave us any additional evidence that we could use to arrest Lauro at the end of the day … 

“He did give us some information about what he did or did not remember. At the same time, he did not disclose anything that we felt added to that probable cause threshold.”

Lauro killed himself on Tuesday, four days after meeting with police. His body was found at his home. Moszkowicz declined to say how he killed himself or whether he left a note. 

In a motion filed Sunday, Hawaii and New York Innocence Project attorneys said police mishandled the investigation by not arresting Lauro the same day they collected his cheek swab. 

A DNA identification software company, Indago Solutions, traced Lauro using the crime scene samples, public records and other information like ancestry, age, genetics and address history. For example, DNA analysis showed the suspect had 80% Filipino ancestry, and Lauro had three Filipino grandparents. He also lived about two miles from where Ireland was found.

Officers later conducted surveillance on Lauro to collect an abandoned DNA sample — a sample discarded in a public place that police can retrieve without alerting a suspect.

They followed him to a restaurant where they saw him eating a plate lunch before putting his fork in a box and throwing it in the trash, Moszkowicz said. Police collected the fork from the trash and compared the DNA to the crime scene samples. They matched. 

Moszkowicz said if police had arrested Lauro on July 19 without probable cause, they would have risked that any evidence gleaned following his arrest, including a confession, would be excluded from an eventual prosecution. 

He said after Lauro left the station, police hoped he would continue to cooperate. Any future decision to indict Lauro would have been made by the prosecutor’s office based on evidence provided by the police department. 

But Innocence Project attorneys say the department did have probable cause to arrest Lauro, and his suicide has now left investigators with few avenues to find out what really happened to Ireland. 

Hawaii Innocence Project co-director Ken Lawson said Lauro had a wife, children and grandchildren, and police should have known he would be a suicide risk after finding out he was a suspect. 

Lauro’s Facebook page is filled almost exclusively with pictures of him fishing with family and friends and showing off his catches. 

He had almost no criminal history, according to court records. Moszkowicz said he was arrested on a shoplifting charge in 1987 but has an otherwise clean criminal record. 

A message left at a phone number listed for Lauro’s home was not returned Monday evening. 

Moszkowicz said police were searching Lauro’s cellphone and interviewing other witnesses, including family members and friends. He asked anyone with information about the case to contact the department. 

“We remain committed as we have since day one to solving this case,” he said. “Ultimately, it is our responsibility to provide justice for the victim.” 

But in its filing, Innocence Project attorneys accuse the department of having a conflict of interest because of its earlier arrest of suspects later exonerated. The attorneys represent Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer, two brothers who were convicted of Ireland’s murder in 2000 and exonerated last year. 

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning in Hilo Circuit Court on the motion, which asks the court to compel the police department and prosecutor’s office to release all documentation and evidence related to its investigation of Lauro. 

Ian Schweitzer was released from prison on Jan. 24, 2023, after spending 26 years behind bars for Ireland’s murder. His brother Shawn had his conviction overturned on Oct. 23 of that year. A third man who was convicted of Ireland’s murder, Frank Pauline, was killed by another inmate in a New Mexico prison in 2015. A for him has been delayed.