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Dana Ireland’s parents were understandably desperate for justice for their 23-year-old daughter, cruelly murdered on the Big Island on Christmas Eve 1991, 33 years ago.

But it’s an unfortunate irony that their perseverance in demanding a perpetrator be identified and convicted may have resulted in injustice to others.

Ireland’s tragic death flared into the news last month, when Hawaii County police admitted that a man’s DNA had at last been conclusively identified from the crime scene as the attacker. The suspect was not placed in custody and he killed himself. The man was subsequently identified in a fisherman who had frequented the area where the murder occurred.

This followed the revelation last year that one of the three men previously convicted in association with the crime had been released because of new evidence brought by the that convinced the court that law enforcement officials had arrested and prosecuted the wrong people. It now appears that artful liars may have given false testimony that resulted in these prosecutions and that exculpatory evidence was ignored.

Albert Ian Schweitzer was freed in January 2023 after 25 years of wrongful incarceration. Frank Pauline Jr., convicted of the same crime, and also another unrelated rape, was killed by another inmate in prison in 2015. Schweitzer’s brother, Shawn, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and manslaughter in exchange for time served and to avoid a longer prison sentence, but has lived under a cloud of public suspicion ever since.

Ultimately the police, prosecutors and courts are culpable for what happened to the three men. In the months and years ahead, Ian Schweitzer’s lawyers will no doubt examine all the prosecutorial and police errors that come to light as they seek compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

But the Dana Ireland case also highlights the risks of political hysteria around a rush to judgment.

It’s a cautionary tale for families of crime victims as well.

Too High Profile?

The Ireland family had great cause of grievance and many reasons for feeling little confidence in Hawaii authorities. Their daughter’s death set off a woeful parade of unforgivable government errors.

Ireland was a newcomer to the islands. She died after she was intentionally hit by a vehicle while she was riding a bicycle in Puna, and then left badly injured, bleeding and with a broken pelvis. Her attacker dragged her away to an unpaved and remote fishing trail several miles away, raped her and abandoned her to die.

A nurse who happened to be nearby heard Ireland’s pitiful cries for help. But the area where Ireland was found lacked electricity and telephone service, and the woman who discovered the young bicyclist lost time while she sought to flag down a passing motorist for help.

From there, almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, according to news accounts and official reports released at the time. The 911 system was not fully implemented and was overloaded with calls that evening. Public safety dispatchers didn’t know the area and gave confusing directions as to where rescue workers should go. Initially police were called but not an ambulance. The island had too few well-equipped ambulances available nearby.

Ireland arrived at the Hilo hospital almost two hours after she was found. She died soon after midnight, on Christmas Day.

Some of these facts only came to light because media organizations sued in 1992 to get access to the information after county officials initiated a news blackout.

The case proved difficult to solve. There was plenty of blood evidence but DNA testing was in its infancy and it typically took up to six months to get results back from FBI agents who had been trained in that kind of analysis.

The only informants who came forward gave unreliable testimony. Pauline, for example, the man who died in prison in 2015, told police, prosecutors and news reporters that the Schweitzer brothers were the murderers, and that he had witnessed their crime. He later recanted his story. But his story continued to circulate, complicating the investigation.

The police and prosecutors pursued leads, fruitlessly.

Months and then years passed without the police identifying who might have committed such a horrible crime, leaving the Ireland family to agonize over whether enough was being done to catch the criminals who were responsible for their daughter’s death.

And so Ireland’s grieving parents, Virginia residents who have both since died, consequently may have inadvertently played a role in facilitating the injustice to the Schweitzers and Pauline.

An Anxious Family

At first they were supportive of the police’s efforts but as time wore on, the family came to believe that Hawaii County police were dragging their feet, possibly because local residents on the Big Island were refusing to provide information that could implicate their friends and neighbors.

Ireland’s father, John, a retired computer analyst, and his wife, Louise, began a public pressure campaign to force officials to act. They gave dozens of interviews to news reporters demanding the police arrest suspects in the case. They spoke to groups of concerned citizens about police failures. They met with local officials, police and prosecutors. They became vocal victims’ rights advocates.

The Irelands offered a $22,200 reward to entice informants to come forward — about $49,700 today. At the time, in 1991, according to the Hawaii County Data Book, per capita income on the island was $17,168.

They moved next into public shaming. They blamed Big Island residents they believed were complicit. In a letter to the editor to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald in July 1992, they accused Big Island residents “who are responsible for this atrocity” of remaining silent because of “a bond with the murderers.”

They suggested they knew who was responsible. Ireland told reporters later that month that “two, possibly three, possibly four” people were involved in their daughter’s murders. Over and over, they called for indictments.

Their niece went further in a letter to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “Even though the police and my aunt and uncle know the perpetrators of this vicious crime the Hawaii County prosecutor is reluctant to ask for an indictment,” she wrote, in a letter published in April 1994.

In May 1994, John Ireland accused prosecutors of “an old fashioned case of timidness,” saying that they were too fearful of losing at trial to seek an indictment.

Jay Kimura, then the Hawaii County prosecuting attorney, defended himself in print, saying that he was not guilty of “foot-dragging,” and that it was necessary for prosecutors to follow the “standard of proof” before taking a case to a jury.

In 1994, the Irelands moved to Puna for some months to pressure local authorities to make an arrest in the case. They were back again in 1996, this time armed with a petition with several thousand signatures, urging action on the case, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Meanwhile, the Irelands had filed a civil lawsuit for wrongful death, pointing to the “extensive traumatic injuries of head, pelvis and abdomen” that their daughter had suffered, injuries that were exacerbated by the rescue delays. They ultimately received $452,500, a settlement that put the case in the news once again.

John Ireland was always available for a news interview whenever things went wrong.

Bringing The Case To A Close

When Hawaii County officials at last took the case to a grand jury in 1996, authorities and witnesses showed up at the Hilo courthouse but the grand jury had not been told they were needed and they did not appear.

“It’s worse than Murphy’s law at work; everything over there is screwed up because they don’t give a damn,” Ireland told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in June 1996.

In 1997, a group called Citizens for Justice that was allied with the Irelands weighed in demanding speedy action because the six-year statute of limitation on kidnap and sexual assault was soon approaching.

Pauline’s allegations about the Schweitzers began recirculating anew. The Schweitzers said they were innocent.

Pauline was indicted in July 1997. The Schweitzer brothers were charged in October.

The Irelands, reached by the press at their home in Springfield, Va., were jubilant.

“It’s just wonderful; it’s just wonderful,” Louise Ireland said. “Now to get them convicted.”

The Schweitzers’ sister Monique, however, wrote to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on March 19, 1998, saying that she believed her brothers had been charged because, with the statute of limitations approaching, the prosecutors had “become desperate,” and found what she called a “magical witness.”

“I strongly believe the Ireland family doesn’t want to convict two innocent young men,” she wrote. “I do however feel their anguish in all of the mishandling of their beloved daughter’s case. I have the utmost belief in my heart of my two youngest brothers innocence, please do not allow them to fall victim to the desperate acts of the Prosecutors Office.”

Other observers at the time also expressed some concerns about the gaps in evidence and garbled witness testimony and noted that there was no DNA evidence connecting the people being charged to the crime scene, but the Irelands were unfazed. They attended the trial of Ian Schweitzer and were said to be very happy when he was convicted in February 2000.

“I hope he will never see daylight again,” Louise said.

John’s death was reported in the Honolulu Star Bulletin on Nov. 1, 2000, noting his long fight for conviction of the Schweitzers.

“John Ireland pushed police relentlessly,” wrote reporter Rod Thompson.