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An alleged North Shore gang leader was overheard just weeks after Johnathan Fraser’s disappearance bragging about taking part in his kidnapping and killing, according to a 2017 affidavit of an FBI agent recounting information provided by a confidential FBI source.

The disappearance and presumed death of Fraser in 2016 was a key theme in the government’s racketeering case against former Honolulu business owner Michael Miske, who was convicted by a federal jury in July after a six-month trial.

According to the affidavit, which was only recently made public, Kelii Young, now known as Kelii Foster, was allegedly heard talking about the murder during a casual conversation at a Windward Oahu cockfight less than two weeks after Fraser disappeared.

It is the first time his name has been publicly linked to the Fraser’s disappearance, but he is by no means the first suggested to have participated or necessarily considered the most likely. Confidential witnesses previously have suggested several other Miske associates may have been responsible.

Although such law enforcement affidavits filed in support of search warrants contain information believed to be accurate at the time, such details are unconfirmed and sometimes conflicting.

Federal prosecutors obtained Miske’s conviction for Fraser’s kidnapping and murder without presenting a theory of exactly how, when, or by whom Fraser was killed. Fraser was last seen on July 30, 2016, and his body was never found.

The truth thus remains unknown, and this latest disclosure simply adds another layer of mystery and speculation to the already complex case.

The new allegations are also unlikely to have any impact on Miske, who was convicted on 13 counts, including murder, kidnapping and conspiracy, related to Fraser’s disappearance. Three of those counts carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison. Miske is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26.

Young, 34, and five co-defendants were indicted in November 2022 on drug charges apparently unrelated to the Miske case. He pleaded guilty last September as part of a deal with prosecutors, who dropped several additional charges in exchange for Young’s agreement to cooperate by testifying truthfully against his former co-defendants or any others charged later in the investigation.

Although he was indicted under the name of Keliikoa (“Kelii”) Kaimana Foster Young, he corrected the record during a plea change hearing in September 2023, telling Judge Jill Otake his full legal name is Kelii Kaimana Foster. That name is used throughout the rest of this story, except in direct quotes from court records.

Foster, who worked for a construction company as a heavy equipment operator, faces a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence for drug conspiracy. He is free on $50,000 bond pending sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 3.

Attempts to reach Foster’s attorney by phone and email were unsuccessful.

Documents Unsealed

The allegation regarding Foster’s participation in Fraser’s kidnapping appears in a previously secret search warrant application, one of two warrants unsealed by Judge Derrick Watson one day after the jury returned its guilty verdicts in the Miske case.

These affidavits were among the last of 70 search warrants and hundreds of related documents accumulated during the FBI’s investigation between 2015 and 2020 to have remained sealed from public view.

Nearly all of the documents in the 70 warrant cases had been unsealed by Judge Derrick Watson in 2022 in response to a legal challenge to their continued secrecy by the Public First Law Center, formerly known as the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest.

Then, following a second review last year, Watson ordered all but four search warrant applications to be made public without redactions. The remaining documents were allowed to remain sealed because the government said they were part of ongoing criminal investigations.

However, prosecutors said in a July 16 status report that they no longer believe two affidavits and related documents need to remain sealed “because those matters no longer relate to pre-indictment, ongoing investigations.” They were promptly made public.

Only two other warrants, both related to searches executed on the Gmail account and home of a former FBI surveillance specialist, remain sealed.

Probable Cause

In August 2017, the FBI applied for and obtained a warrant to search Miske’s 37-foot Boston Whaler, Painkiller, which investigators suspected had been used in Fraser’s murder. Although a year had passed since Fraser’s disappearance, the FBI hoped a thorough search would still turn up relevant forensic evidence.

The search warrant application was accompanied by a 44-page affidavit by a lead agent in the FBI’s investigation of Miske which began in 2014. Magistrate Judge Kevin Chang approved the warrant after finding sufficient “probable cause” to believe it would yield evidence of a crime.

According to the affidavit, filed in Honolulu’s Federal District Court on Aug. 9, 2017, the search of the Painkiller related in part to Miske “allegedly hiring associates” to murder Fraser.

For background, the affidavit summarized information from several confidential sources about the November 2015 accident that critically injured Fraser and Miske’s son, Caleb. Miske mistakenly believed Fraser had been driving and, as a result, blamed him when Caleb died several months later of complications from his injuries.

One confidential witness, identified only as CW2, told the FBI “that during hospital visits, Miske openly blamed Fraser for the vehicle accident that caused Caleb’s death. CW2 stated that Miske and his family forbid Fraser from attending Caleb’s funeral services because of Miske’s belief that Fraser was the reason for his son’s death,” providing the motive for Fraser’s murder.

Overheard At The Cockfight

In March 2017, the FBI had interviewed a confidential source identified simply as “CHS1,” according to the affidavit.

CHS1 described overhearing Foster bragging about being involved in the murder of a young man.

The source said they had attended a cockfighting derby in Kahaluu attended by approximately 100 people on Aug. 13 or possibly a week later. The source had arrived about noon, paid an admission fee and entered.

The source then walked toward a tent where items were being sold and overheard Foster speaking to the vendor, who was referred in the affidavit as “CW3.”

“CHS1 overheard Young tell CW3 that he (Young) ‘snatched’ a young male from the male’s apartment and took him out onto a yacht. Young stated that cement blocks were tied to the male’s feet, and he was thrown into the water. Young said that the male struggled at the surface and tried to tread water before drowning. Young did not state who else was involved with the murder but used the term ‘we’ when describing his actions. CHS1 advised that Young appeared to be bragging … by implying he (Young) was involved in the murder.”

CHS1 had been providing information to investigators for about six months that had “been corroborated in the past by information by a review of records, to include telephone records, a confidential witness, social media, surveillance, public records, and Department of Motor Vehicle records,” according to the affidavit.

To determine whether the allegation was plausible on its face, the FBI reviewed detailed call records for a phone number Young was believed to use, which “indicated that Young was present near the cellular phone tower servicing Kahaluu, Hawaii, on August 13, 2016,” which was described as being in the area where the cockfight took place.

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That phone “first pinged off a tower servicing the Kahaluu area at approximately 9:55 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time, and continued to ping in the area until his last ping off the tower at approximately 2:08 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time.”

According to the FBI affidavit, Young, now known as Foster, previously had “expressed a willingness to be hired to inflict physical harm on others.”

The allegation was supported by two telephone calls intercepted in 2016 via a federal wiretap authorized by federal Judge J. Michael Seabright.

In the first call on March 31, a Waimanalo man asked Foster “to ‘roll up’ an individual who had cheated him, later that night or the following day when no one was around.” Foster replied that he was in Kahaluu and could “take care of it right now,” but the caller said it was too crowded and wanted the assault to take place “when no one else was around.”

During a second call several weeks later, the Waimanalo man explained he “had been cheated out of $13,000 at a chicken fight that took place in Kahaluu,” and “wanted Young to ‘open hand slap’ the individual who had cheated him.”

Foster, reportedly replied he was “down” for whatever the caller wanted.

North Shore-East Side Alliance

Foster’s alleged social ties to Miske and his associates, along with his direct involvement in several crimes attributed to Miske’s network, could be seen as making his potential involvement in Fraser’s disappearance more plausible, although still an unconfirmed allegation.

Documents filed in court, as well as witness testimony during Miske’s trial, identified Foster as , a gang active in the communities from Waialua to Pupukea on Oahu’s north coast. His own Instagram posts over several years show him in a leadership role.

Other social media posts featured Foster attending cockfights or pictured with one of his fighting chickens. In one case, he posed proudly with a cache of weapons during firearms practice.

In August 2015, Foster posted a photo to one of his Instagram accounts captioned “no caption needed.” The photo shows 10 men partying and gesturing at the camera. The group included Miske and several of his eventual co-defendants, John Stancil, Mike Buntenbah and Kaulana Freitas.

The hashtag #M suggests the group were partying at Miske’s M Nightclub near downtown Honolulu. Additional hashtags, #northeastconnect and #northsouthconnect, suggest an association or alliance was forming between Miske’s group from East Honolulu and Young’s North Shore Boys, nearly a year before Fraser’s disappearance.

Evidence presented at trial also showed Foster took part in at least two robberies with other Miske associates, the October 2015 armed robbery of the BVNK clothing store in Kalihi in October 2015, and the May 2016 assault and robbery of a Waimanalo drug dealer at the Hawaii Kai boat ramp at Maunalua Bay.

Court records also show Victor “Dusky” Toledo, a relative and associate of Foster’s, had been recommended to Miske for the “contract” to kill Fraser. Toledo was introduced to Miske by Wayne Miller, who at the time was considered Miske’s top lieutenant, and whom Miske had directed to develop a plan for Fraser’s killing.