The Mutilated Musician - Kawaihae, Hawaii

Summary

Small Town Murder Podcast

Episode: The Mutilated Musician – Kawaihae, Hawaii

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Air Date: June 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode takes listeners to the small, rarely-visited harbor town of Kawaihae on the Big Island of Hawaii, where local color, history, and music culture set the backdrop for a grim tale: the murder of beloved local musician Robert “Lapaka” Ryder. As always, the hosts blend detailed crime narrative with comedic banter, discussing the pressures of island life, the realities of the local drug trade, and the fallibility of small-town law enforcement.

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Main Topics and Key Discussion Points

1. Setting the Scene: Kawaihae, Hawaii (04:01–09:30)

• Town Overview:
  • Remote, dry-side harbor town with ~742 population; not a tourist hotspot.
  • High local median income ($97K), but low property values by Hawaii standards.
  • Steeped in history (King Kamehameha, Waterworld filming site).
• Local Culture:
  • Heavy music scene with an array of quirky band names and all-local flavor.
  • Hawaiian bars = never any Bad Company or Jimmy Buffett covers.
  • “It’s goddamn paradise. Smoke a fatty, grab a snorkel, and shut the fuck up. Five stars.” – James (08:49)

2. Victim Spotlight: Robert "Lapaka" Ryder (10:30–22:00)

• Personal Background:
  • Born in Honolulu, raised in "real" Hawaii (the jungle side).
  • Large, musically talented family; aunt (Lei’ohu Ryder) is a beloved Maui singer and healer.
• Community Figure:
  • Renowned ukulele player, fixture at local gigs, tide pool concerts, even Ironman triathlons.
  • "He’s the perfect complement for the scenery. That’s who Lapaka is. If you have Hawaii and that whole thing, you could just place him in there and he just blends." – James (19:17)
  • Also a coconut-weaver, embodying local crafts and lifestyle.
• Run-ins with the Law:
  • Order of protection and probation violation; arrested in early 2013—ends up serving a year after a second violation (21:13).
  • Signs on as a confidential informant for the Vice Division in exchange for leniency (23:42).

3. The Bad Guy: Martin Frank Blake Booth (24:21–32:14)

• Booth’s Profile:
  • Long criminal history: meth trafficking, gun charges, local reputation for violence.
  • “He is the scum of the island, basically. Not a good guy, but also a very dangerous guy.” – James (25:43)
• Police Investigations:
  • Booth’s house raided multiple times; meth, guns, and paraphernalia found repeatedly (December 2013–January 2014).
  • Arrested after a dramatic escape and car chase; eventually jailed on 24 counts (39:04).

4. Lapaka Goes Missing (42:43–46:10)

• Last seen by family at Thanksgiving (Nov 28, 2013). No contact for over a month—not unusual at first, given his free-spirited, gigging lifestyle, but family reports him missing in mid-January 2014.

5. Discovery and Investigation (46:10–52:41)

• Body Found:
  • A man walks into the station claiming he assisted in disposing of a body after Booth coerced him; leads police to human remains (March 10, 2014).
  • Lapaka identified by dental records; cause of death: gunshots and blunt force trauma (likely a hammer) (49:09).
  • "They wanted to keep the quote up: Lapaka’s melodies were the perfect complement for the scenery." – James (49:45)

6. Theories and Motives (52:41–56:36)

• Official Story:
  • Booth and two others allege Lapaka was killed as vigilante justice for (allegedly) sexually assaulting a woman living on Booth’s property.
  • Lapaka’s family calls this “bullshit”—they think Booth realized Lapaka was an informant and killed him for it.
  • "He decided to sexually assault some woman the month he’s working for the police? Doesn’t make a lot of sense." – James (53:52)
• Police & Community Failures:
  • The house where he was killed was searched after the murder but no evidence found—implied incompetence or cover-up.

7. Trial, Plea Deals, and Sentencing (66:33–76:01)

• Booth pleads guilty to the drugs/guns/violence charges for a stacked sentence (totaling up to 25 years).
• For murder, he pleads guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a dropped sentence enhancement (no life without parole).
• Booth’s story (the “vigilante” angle) is treated as the official narrative in court despite skepticism from all sides.
• Sentenced to life with possibility of parole; transferred to Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona—a “for-profit prison in the middle of the fucking desert.” (76:38)
• Victim’s family believes the state and police leaked Lapaka’s informant status and then spun the story to cover up their failure.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Hawaiian Bar Music:
  • “They’re playing Hawaiian shit every time... You never hear—‘here’s some Foghat, everybody!’ Who’s ready for some Huey Lewis and the News?” – James (15:36)
• Lapaka as Emblem of Hawaii:
  • “If you took him out of here and said you have to live in Omaha now, he would die in three days. Like, he’d just drop dead…like if you poured salt on a bug.” – James (20:55)
• Booth’s Criminal Resume:
  • “He has a huge felony convictions. He is the scum of the island, basically, this guy.” – James (25:43)
• On the Official Motive:
  • “Did you kill a police informant, or did you kill someone as retaliation for sexually assaulting a friend? Way different sentencing.” – James (54:22)
• Victim’s Family at Sentencing:
  • “You are inhumane to take someone’s life like you did my son. He was a kind and loving person. You will have nightmares and you will have flashbacks for murdering my son.” – Debbie Ryder (70:55)
• The Judge’s Words:
  • “What the law hopes, I think, is that at some point a seed of conscience will germinate from your dark heart, and you will grow a full appreciation of the harm you have caused.” – Judge at sentencing (74:11)

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Critical Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------|------------| | Introduction, Kawaihae background | 04:01–09:30 | | Lapaka’s biography & musical life | 10:30–22:00 | | Lapaka’s informant deal, meet Martin Booth | 23:42–32:14 | | Police raids and Booth’s arrest | 34:17–40:36 | | Lapaka goes missing, family concern | 42:43–46:10 | | Body discovered, initial investigation | 46:30–52:41 | | Motives, the murder setup, prosecution’s story | 52:41–66:36 | | Trial, deals, and sentencing | 66:33–76:01 | | Family’s belief: state negligence and coverup | 77:28–80:08 |

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Tone & Language

• The hosts use irreverent, sharp humor throughout, finding laughs in the setting, the cast of characters, and the absurdity of some circumstances—without mocking the tragedy of Lapaka’s fate.
• Local flavor is highlighted in dialogue: “Smoke a fatty, grab a snorkel, and shut the fuck up.”
• Recurrent theme: the stress-free, idyllic life of true locals vs. the almost-comic incompetence and corruption of law enforcement and criminals.
• When necessary, the hosts balance irreverence with appropriate gravity, especially when reading family statements or discussing the systemic failures around informant protection.

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Takeaways

• Lapaka Ryder was loved and respected; his murder shocked the close-knit island music community.
• Martin Booth was a well-known, genuinely dangerous criminal, and the official story of “vigilante justice” is deeply suspect—likely a convenient cover for what was really a retaliatory killing of a police informant.
• The police and local officials are portrayed as playing fast and loose with procedure and safety, likely leading to the murder and a subsequent probable hush-up settlement.
• The episode highlights the unique quirks of small-town justice, especially in isolated communities, where corruption, close relationships, and the imperative to “protect the image” can have deadly consequences.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode stands out for its deep dive into the fabric of small-town Hawaiian life, the thin line between idyllic community and insular danger, and for its darkly hilarious yet poignant dissection of a tragic local crime. Whether for the wild cast of local musicians, the bureaucratic blunders, or the eventual (unsatisfying) resolution, this is Small Town Murder at its sharpest and most sardonic.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wissman]

Because when it comes to groceries, the details matter. Instacart get groceries just how you like.

[James Petregallo]

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And choo choo.

[James Petregallo]

Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy wild small town Murder Express edition. As you know, 10 pounds of murder in a two pound bag. We got an hour and we're gonna slam a big murder into there. So let's get into it real quickly. Before we do, though, definitely head over to shutupandgivemerder.com get your tickets for live shows. Oh, we've been having such a blast. Buffalo and Detroit were incredible. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, those people, amazing shows. Thank you so much for that. We just, we had a blast. Couldn't have had a better time doing comedy. So it was great. Can't wait to see you guys at the small Town Murder live shows, including Sept. 18 at the Pabst in Milwaukee, Sept. 19 at the State Theater in Minneapol. Get those tickets now. Pabst, you're almost sold out. But Minneapolis, there, you got to get in there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's get in.

[James Petregallo]

Don't let Milwaukee punk you. And then also we have Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown, Boston in October and November. So get in there, get your tickets right now. Shut up and give me murder.com patreon.com crimeinsports that's where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get every damn thing we put out, including, as soon as you subscribe, you're gonna get a massive back catalog of bonus episodes you've never heard before. Almost 400 of them on there. So tons of them. And then new ones every other week. It keeps growing and growing. This week you're gonna. Well, every week, every other Week you get one crime in sports, one small town murder. This week which you're gonna get for crime and sports it is back to theme park disasters.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

We're gonna center around the Disney properties too this time. So that'll be a lot of fun

[Jimmy Wissman]

how many the timing we have because every time I know a new accident happens.

[James Petregallo]

Every damn time we have a new viral one. Big something big. And then for small town murder the poll is up still I believe the crash or it might be closed by now. But it's either the crash, that documentary, the Mackenzie Scurrilla thing and all the stuff around it or Corey Richards part three, the sentencing where we hear her kids statements about basically she lied about everything that she said happened that night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That Corey Richins the gift that keeps on giving.

[James Petregallo]

It keeps on giving. So that's patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. And even bigger than that, you get everything we put out. Crime and sports, small town murder. Your stupid opinions all ad free with that Patreon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get the fuck out of here.

[James Petregallo]

Ad free, damn it. No, no, you're taking it, just take it. We're crazy. Doesn't matter. So do that. Get yourself Patreon. And that said, I think it's time to sit back everybody. What do you say here, let's all clear the lungs here. You know, arms to the sky. Let's all shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Okay, let's go on a trip, shall we?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where are we going?

[James Petregallo]

Someplace nice. Yeah, we are going to. Oh man. Kauaihe, Hawaii. Hello Hawaii. Hello Hawaii. Yeah, we've been in different places but we're going to Hawaii. It's been a long time. God, I'm butchering that pronunciation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I'll never understand how to do that language.

[James Petregallo]

That's one of those where I'll say how do you pronounce this? Someone will say it to me and then I can't repeat it back to them. It's the craziest thing in the world that my mouth does not make the noise correctly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's like native American, like Tahoda, Odom or some shit like that. It's hard.

[James Petregallo]

It's hard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's so hard.

[James Petregallo]

This is K A W A I H A E Kawahai. I don't know. I've heard it pronounced 12 times and that's the best I can come out with. I don't know. It's on the north side of the big Island, Hawaii. Hawaii is the big island. It's the southernmost of the islands. And this is on the north side of the island. So this is the dry side of the island. There's a dry side and a wet side. Not sure. I think because one side has mountains. Because there's like there's volcanoes there. I know there's lava fields and all that. And then on the other side. Yeah, so it's lower.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So the weather with the volcanic shit cuts down the humidity.

[James Petregallo]

I have no idea. You're asking the wrong guy. Now I wouldn't knew that I got to know about murders and comedy and legal shit. Meteorology is really not my patterns involved. Yeah, I don't know anything about it. But on the north side of the island, the dry side. Now I tried to do like the time we do drive times. Hawaii is a totally different thing. So bets are off to our last episode, which by the way was so long ago. Episode 474. This is 706. It's been 300 shows over two years since we've done an episode in Hawaii. That was in Hana, Hawaii. That was twin powered craziness. Remember the twins that did like yoga stuff? The twin blonde ladies. That was crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. We've only done like three here.

[James Petregallo]

We've done like four or five episodes I think. Yeah. So this is to hana. It's a 40 minute flight to another island followed by a 3 and a half hour drive from the airport to Hana. So that's how to get there. This is in Hawaii county area code 808 population. That's all of Hawaii is 808 population here 742. Not many. This is not a real tourist spot. This is kind of a local spot. Well, it's not tropical.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cause it's dry.

[James Petregallo]

I mean it's still Hawaii and nice but it's not constantly raining. That's the thing. Cause some of Hawaii is like a rainforest kind of. It rains all the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do they have desert? They can't have desert. Right.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know if it's like desert, but it's dry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Close enough, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Median household income here about 97,500, which is well above the national average. But 6. Yeah. Well here the median home cost $444,700, which for Hawaii is low. That's not bad. This is not a real hugely desirable area. You know what I mean? It's not like Maui or something. It's not that kind of place.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But it's very nice in fucking Lincoln, Nebraska.

[James Petregallo]

It's Very nice. Exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Awesome.

[James Petregallo]

So, history of this town. Little bit here of history, basically. Well, there's the King Kamehameha stuff here, where his rival cousin arrived here, and then his cousin's many followers were killed and sacrificed to fulfill the prophecy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His cousins were.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, to fulfill the prophecy and gain spiritual power. That's the king. This event somehow paved the way for a bunch of Kamehameha's conquests, leading to the unification of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1810. So I guess any rival leader, including his cousins, he's gonna cut that off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds like something you would do. Anybody that comes to visit you, you just sacrifice.

[James Petregallo]

Sacrifice? Like Vlad the Impaler? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't come to my house while sacrifice sacrificing for you.

[James Petregallo]

I wouldn't invite you to be sacrificed. That's the thing. If you show up unannounced, that's a whole other issue.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what it feels like happened here.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. If Vlad the Impaler did all that because all those people showed up for dinner unannounced, I'd go, I understand what he's doing. Yeah, fucking call before you come. What are you doing, bro? Send a messenger. Do something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His cousin showed up with his family. He's like, throw them in the volcano.

[James Petregallo]

I love my cousins, but call first. That's all I'm saying. You know what I mean? That's it. This was also a filming location for Waterworld, which is the famous Kevin Costner bomb. So there are no reviews for this town of any kind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They are not telling a soul.

[James Petregallo]

Couldn't find them. So let me try one. Okay. Here. It's going to be hard. All right. Um. It's goddamn paradise. Smoke a fatty, grab a snorkel and shut the fuck up. Five stars. There you go. There's a review of the town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's probably still fucking amazing.

[James Petregallo]

It's great things to do here. Well, it's Hawaii. Do I seriously need to tell you about some, you know, festival that's going on? It's all a festival.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Hasn't somebody given you a fucking postcard?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, no shit. But I did find a place where some music happens around here. The Blue Drago Tavern and Cosmic musicquarium, The bands that we'll be playing there. The New Salts, Funky Jams, which seems like someone would have taken that by now. In the seventies. Regular old funky. Yeah. I feel like someone in 1973 took that. Right. Blaine Aising A S I N G Kingside. We also have the Johnny Ness Band. Jesus, Tomi Esobe, the Savory brothers. Not savory. Like a taste with an E. Savory Tavana. It's Johnny Shot. Who? What? Yeah, Johnny Shitt.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I would have gotten that one by now.

[James Petregallo]

Bald head, looks like Bill Goldberg with a guitar, which is an odd thing. DJ Overflow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And let's see, Pete Sawyer and the Left Hand Monkey Wrench. Monkey Wrench Gang. What their logo is a. Basically, like. It looks like a Grateful Dead logo, but there's a wrench in there instead of a skull.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a lot of words.

[James Petregallo]

A lot of words to put on a marquee of a small place. And then Brother Noland, who looks like a very old man with white hair and a white beard standing in the street.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I feel like this is all locals, right?

[James Petregallo]

A lot of locals. Yeah. This is a long flight into. Do a bar and get paid $180. Musicquarium. That said, let's talk about some murder. What do you say here? All right, we have. Let's talk about a young man first here. Or a man, I should say. Robert Kiawe Ryder. R Y D E R. He goes by Lopaka. L O P, A K A Lapaka. Everybody calls him that. That's his name.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's probably his Hawaiian name.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, well, it means something, as we'll get into later. And as this family all calls him that now. He's born in Honolulu, but he didn't grow up there. I feel like Honolulu is where the Good hospital is in 1976. So that's where you go. But he grew up on the other side of the Big island, on the wet side, you know, where it rains in the Puna District here, which basically is a lot of jungle and lava, a lot of volcanoes and jungle. It's real Hawaii. Like, that's real Hawaii, where you'd, like, grow weed and, you know, set up traps that'll kill people if they try to fuck with them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It didn't really expand to, like, mainlanders living there until later. Right. Like around 70s and 80s. Is that about when people started moving there?

[James Petregallo]

No, it was after World War II. Was it Pearl Harbor? It was after Pearl Harbor. And then that's when, if you look at, like, in the 50s and 60s, there was a million, like, tiki bars and like this. That's Southeast Southwest or Southeast Pacific? South Pacific became real popular. And then Hawaii became a state, and then it was. Yeah, because we were vacationing there a lot. So. Okay, now, his mother's name is Deborah or Debbie. His father is Roy Ryder Jr. Oh, Roy Rider Jr. So he's got brother named Weilau W A I L A U and Kawai K a W A I. But he goes by Buddy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Perfect. I would too.

[James Petregallo]

Okay? He's like, I'm tired of people fucking my name up. That's enough. So Lapaka and his brother Wailu, of course, the one who has a not called Buddy that I have to try to pronounce his name is the one that is gonna be involved in. They were very musical, both of them. Oh, they're both musical guys. Lapaka is all music, all the time. He's got his ukulele and he plays.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that what he's playing?

[James Petregallo]

That's what he's playing. And he plays all sorts of shit. He is Mr. Hawaii. So their aunt is a. Oh, Jesus. Leohu leahu L E I apostrophe O H U Rider. That's their aunt. And she's a very famous Hawaiian singer from Maui. She was singing for 30 years. She's known as a spiritual leader and a healer and a singer, songwriter and all that shit. She's big deal, huh? Miss? Yeah, Everything on the island, so she included. This is. She got the Gandhi King Peace Hero Award, the United Nations Peace Educator Award, and she teaches healing and chant to audiences in Miami and Amsterdam and at the United Nations.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, it's not just here locally.

[James Petregallo]

She's traveling. No, she's big. She's big. And she's known as, quote, an emissary of aloha. So they loved her and they took the musical stuff and really ran with it. The kids, especially lapaka here. In 2007, both boys here, they're about 30 years old at this point, or at least Lapaca is. They appeared on a Palm Records compilation called N Mele Hula, which was a hula album here. And it produced. It was basically features the. What they called the heavy hitters of Hawaiian music.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And they're on it too. It had Sonny Lim, who was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music album, which I didn't know was a category. They don't show that one on tv.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They got a whole category that shit

[James Petregallo]

that's in like a basement ceremony that they have. There's like that. Some technical awards.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They do that one real early.

[James Petregallo]

Best Wyoming Cowboy album. Things like that go on down there. The same record as Randy Lorenzo, who has a bunch of awards and Hawaiian Grammys. Oh, I think it's a Hawaiian Grammy. That's what it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Are they just to it in Hawaii Only maybe.

[James Petregallo]

And then the brothers are also on this. And they said in the liner notes that they were heavily influenced by their aunt and everything like that. So they are. Lapaka is really a kind of a staple in the Hawaiian music scene. By the mid-2000s, okay, everybody knows who he is. He's apparently very talented, and I've seen videos of him playing. This guy's great. I mean, well, I've never. He looks like he's living a dream.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Coverage of a bar or any sort of photography of a bar in Hawaii without a live. And they don't play fucking.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're playing Hawaiian shit every time.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. No, they're not. Like, okay, here's fucking shooting star from Bad Company. Like, they don't ever do that. Like, it's never. Never that at all. It's always, here's some fog hat, everybody. You never hear that shit. Who's ready for some.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You can eat a pineapple, too.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Who's ready for some Huey Lewis in the News 5, folks. You ever hear that shit?

[Jimmy Wissman]

They might cover some of that Parrot Head guy shit, but no Jimmy Buffett.

[James Petregallo]

I think they would probably fucking put him on a stake if they could. I would assume real beach people who are from that environment probably hate him. Like all the islands Jimmy Buffett goes to. All those people want to murder him in his sleep if he wasn't paying for everything. Think about it. They're like, ah, that motherfucker. He tips well. But God damn it, do I want to stab him in the throat.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm a Cheeseburger song again.

[James Petregallo]

God damn it. I don't know what that is, and I'm so thankful I don't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cheeseburger in Paradise. You know that song.

[James Petregallo]

I do not know that song.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I bet you've heard it.

[James Petregallo]

I bet you I haven't. Not more than four seconds of it anyway, before I got ready.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's all you got to know is Cheeseburger in Paradise.

[James Petregallo]

That's not enough to get that out, I don't think, because Jimmy Buffett sings slow off. I fucking hate that shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think that's the only song of his that I can recognize. I mean, I know the one that he.

[James Petregallo]

Margaritaville.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is it?

[James Petregallo]

Isn't he Margaritaville?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, there's that one, too.

[James Petregallo]

That's the song that everyone knows, and it's covered in every goddamn shitty bar in America.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Lapaka here, big into music. Singer, composer, entertainer, likes to fish. Everything I've seen of him, he's like just a pair of board shorts just sitting there, curls coming out of his hat, just fucking playing the ukulele just singing. Looks like he's just loving life completely.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How could you not? That sounds great.

[James Petregallo]

When you watch him, you go, that guy's gonna live to be 130. He has no stress at all. Like none.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what it is. That kills us, right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. One day of making these shows is equal to 20 years of this guy's stress. 20 fucking years. And that's including. If he got bit by a sh. I would put in there too. He has no stress. He's also a coconut weaver. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you weave?

[James Petregallo]

I was like, how do you make a coconut? How does that work?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He takes the strings from it.

[James Petregallo]

Takes the strings and they make shit out of it. All the stuff from that. It's a very well known Hawaiian craft. In Hawaii, they make tons of shit out of the coconut.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

But yeah, think about it. Back in the day, there's not a lot of resources on the island. So you use what you have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Rope and shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And then things also on the ground, there's not a lot of room to grow, like, you know, cotton to make outfits and shit or even to sew things. So they make hats and they make platters and they make little figures that go like on traditional festivals and things like that. So by his 30s, Lapaka is huge in the island scene for the music here. And he does basically all these things. He'll play on my cruise ships when they dock. He'll do tide pool concerts. He even played at the Ironman triathlon tidepool concert.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds like the best Sunday ever.

[James Petregallo]

It doesn't sound bad at all. That's what I mean. Wow. How do you have stress? What's the stress?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, the words tide pool. Just alone seems like the best place.

[James Petregallo]

Some guy with a ukulele singing, fucking. You're all stoned and drunk, sitting there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pineapple.

[James Petregallo]

What are we talking about?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds great.

[James Petregallo]

How is the life expectancy not 111 there? I don't understand it sounds amazing. Sounds awesome.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's probably the spam maybe.

[James Petregallo]

I think it's all that spam and salt and. Yeah. So they even. There's Big island video news. Okay. And they have a bunch of clips of him sitting on the rocks above the surf with a ukulele. And they have one clip of him doing that and he's playing and the narrator over it says, he's, quote, he's the perfect complement for the scenery. That's who Lapaka is. If you have Hawaii in that whole thing, you could just place him in there and he just blends and goes with the. It's him. And Spam And a fucking. And a lei. And by the way, in Hawaii, the goddamn newscasters wear leis on tv. On goddamn tv like they just got off a plane. It's wild. I was watching.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How do you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Hey, aloha, bitch. What do you want? I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, because fucking Aloha.

[James Petregallo]

Because why not?

[Jimmy Wissman]

And their leis are like, these fucking party city leis are just like a bunch of flowers and shit. They put like, they weave green into it. They have like, vines and stuff. Their leis are.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they don't have those on the news. They're just the nice, flatter ones. Yeah, they don't have the ones that look like you got caught in the jungle. Yeah. Looks like you were trying to get out of some thick brush or anything. But still.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's like when you get married, you look like. Like a landscaper just emptied his fucking bag.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it's everywhere. Yeah. You're covered in stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So much shit.

[James Petregallo]

Covered in stuff. So, yeah, he's the perfect complement for the scenery. That's. He is Hawaii. Like, if you took him out of here and said you have to live in Omaha now, he would die in three days. Like, he'd just drop dead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My flowers don't grow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he would. Like, if you poured salt on a bug, like, he'd shrivel up and just die with a ukulele next to him. Another clip they have of him from June 2010, he's playing at the ukulele and Farm fest, which I didn't know those things went together, but Farm Fest, why not?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I guess there, though. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Why not? Yeah. Now, there is a little problem, and we don't know what it really stems from or how the details of this really work out, but at some point, there's a woman who has an order of protection against him. We don't know for what or for why. I had no idea.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ukulele on her made her listen.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Listen to me, damn it. Yeah. Maliki licky vodka is the right way to say Merry Christmas to you, motherfucker. Listen to me. So this. So later on, though, in 2013, he is charged with a violation of that order of protection, which is not good here. So he is sentenced to probation for that in early 2013, I believe. So that's the only real run in with the law that I can find for him at all. In October 2013, he is sentenced to a year in prison for violating his probation. So he did something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Violated the parole.

[James Petregallo]

You can't tell Apocalypse? No, apparently not. Well, you know what? He just goes where the. Where he feels. You know what I mean? Where the draw of the rock and the lava and the waves take him. Really? It's the ukulele that chooses. I don't choose where I go. I follow the ukulele like a divining rod.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's sparrow's fucking compass.

[James Petregallo]

I just go where it says where it tells me. So he's sentenced to a year in prison for violating this probation here. Now they take him in and a year in prison for a guy like this, not good. That's tough. I mean, they're gonna make him wear shoes and stuff. Like it's gonna be bad for him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No ukes, babe.

[James Petregallo]

Well, you might be able to get a UK in there, I bet. In a Hawaiian prison. I think that's like a harmonica in the old West. I think they. You're allowed to have that, at least.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You can't hit somebody with a harmonica, though.

[James Petregallo]

No, but if you hit another prisoner with a ukulele, they're gonna kill you. They're gonna go, the fuck did you just do to me?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, that'll piss you off.

[James Petregallo]

That's just gonna piss somebody off. So they get him in the room here, and they're talking about how he's gonna do a year in prison.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shit.

[James Petregallo]

So the police bring him in, and he obviously doesn't want to have a year in prison, as you can imagine. And they basically say to them, I mean, a year in prison, it's rough. And prison's not great here, and it's tough to go in, and not a lot of beaches and not a lot of ukuleles and luaus and shit. And they said. But there's also an alternative.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's that?

[James Petregallo]

That is, maybe you could help us out a little bit, and maybe we can make it so you don't have to go to prison for a year. Maybe we can get it. So your probation's reinstated. As a matter of fact, maybe we can get you out of all this trouble. Well, you're just gonna need to do some stuff for us. Oh, boy. And that is, he agrees and signs an agreement to serve as a confidential informant for the Vice division of the Hawaii Police Department. He is going to be an informant to get himself out of trouble. Here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I thought, you guys are gonna make me do sexual things much easier.

[James Petregallo]

This is. Yeah, except I don't think it's as dangerous, probably.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, I'm sure it's not as dangerous because Hawaiian gangsters, I've heard, I don't

[James Petregallo]

know, they don't fuck around.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're dangerous.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, there's a lot of places to put you out there. Yeah, it's rough. So it's like being in, like, the West Virginia hills or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they'll drop you on a pineapple patch.

[James Petregallo]

You never know. So basically, that's what's going on. They want him to concentrate on cases involving the possession and sale of narcotics. Now, if you think about it, he'd be a perfect guy to put into the scene because, I mean, guy with board shorts and a ukulele and no one's gonna suspect that guy's working with the cops. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like tide pools.

[James Petregallo]

There's drugs there and he's doing them, you know what I mean? He's smoking a fatty before you fucking come out and play ukulele music at a tide pool, don't you?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's probably what he got caught for then. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I smoke weed before this. Can you imagine if I was just strumming.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where's the tide pool, man?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I thought there was a tide pool here, man. What the fuck?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We gotta make more money, man.

[James Petregallo]

Thought I heard water. I guess not. So anyway, that's what he starts doing. And they turn him toward a particular target. A guy named Martin Frank Blake. Booth here, he's 55 years old at this time. He's born in 1958. And he has got. This guy is not a good guy,

[Jimmy Wissman]

and the cops know it.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, he's bad. They've arrested him. He has a huge felony convictions. He has history of drug possession, history of distribution of methamphetamine, firearms charges. He is the scum of the island, basically, this guy. Not a good guy, but also a very dangerous guy. Yeah, a guy who has tons of guns in meth is not the guy you want to cross, usually.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A guy that has tons of illegal guns in Hawaii, that's gotta be the hardest place in America to get an illegal gun.

[James Petregallo]

It's gotta float all the way the hell over there. Yeah, so he lives on Hanakoa street in Kauaihe. Kauaihe. Whatever the hell ever the hell you pronounce. This town, which is just a small unincorporated harbor town. It's by the water, right on the harbor there. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the. To tell you how to get a better night's sleep every night with Casper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

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[James Petregallo]

oh, my goodness. These mattresses are what it is all about. I'm telling you there's a few things in your life you should never cheap out on. Toilet paper, toothpaste. And here's the other one. The thing. You spend eight hours a night on your mattress. Do not cheap out on that. That is a third of your life that you're spending there and you need it. It's very important. This podcast is sponsored by Casper. Casper makes reliable, high quality mattresses designed to deliver consistent, comfortable sleep night after night. Casper's mattresses. They're highly rated by Consumer reports out of 99 mattresses. Consumer Reports named Casper's The1 Mattress as their top rated all foam mattress of 2026. And if you're looking for an upgrade to your Mattress, head to Casper.com and save 20% on the mattress you deserve. Casper's mattresses are built to be durable and long lasting. And they are. They're great. So you don't want to replace it every three years. That's ridiculous. And you don't have to with Casper. Their products are designed to withstand the test of time, maintaining support and comfort over the long haul. And Casper has their 100 night risk free trial. There's nothing to lose here. You can give Casper's mattress a try risk free. Although with the 110,000 plus 5 star reviews, we think you're going to be just fine and comfortable and way too sleepy to bring it back anywhere. It's going to be great. There's a wide range of mattresses there. Whether you like it firm, soft, somewhere in between. Casper.com is the place to go. And now they have kids mattresses too. Get them in there too and get them having a nice comfortable night. You can't beat it. I love the Casper mattress that I have. It's awesome. We got it. It's great. I have it in my room and we put it in our guest rooms as well. So all of everybody that comes over and visits, they all have Casper mattresses and nobody complains. And you have to wake everybody up right now. Save up to 20% on mattresses when you go to Casper.com one last time. That is Casper C-A S P E R.com and save up to 20% on the mattress you deserve.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you how to get the best personalized cool gifts for everyone and your family and friends and everyone that you love with Zazzle. Zazzle.com Z A Z Z L E is what that is. And I'm telling you, sometimes it's Hard to find gifts for people. You don't know what to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sometimes you just want to personalize something.

[James Petregallo]

You want it personal. Yeah. You don't want to give them a gift card. You don't want to give them something they might not want. So you've got to figure out something and Zazzle is the way to do it. That's how you solve this problem here. That's how you don't. If you know that someone's birthday is coming up, oh, no, what am I going to do? Zazzle will fix your problems here. It's a custom marketplace where you can take basically any product, a mug, a tote bag, a card, a phone case and make it mean something. You can put whatever you want on it. It's really cool. You're not buying a gift, you're making a gift. It's even better. You can browse from millions of designs or start from scratch and build something completely that's your own, which is awesome. Either way, you are the designer here. Everything's made on demand, so nothing's out of stock or anything like that too, which is great. You pick it, you customize it. Done. That's the way to do it. There's over 30 million customers that have trusted Zazzle with their most important gifts. Yours can be next, and it should be next. I did this. I checked this all out. It's very cool. What I did is make a series of mugs with people I know that love their dogs and they put their dogs faces on it. So now they have unique mug with their dog on it and they love it. And that's their new mug and you are going to love it, too. Who doesn't want something with their dog on it? It's cute, it's excellent. So get in there and get to Zazzle. You can do anything, though. Shirt with someone's face on it. You can name stuff. It's really neat. And right now, save 25% on your first [e-mail]. that's 25% savings on your first [e-mail] Go make something zamazing zazzle.com. now back to the show on the northwest coast of the Big Island. Basically now it's past. There's in Kahala, Kohala, there's resorts. This is past that. This is the area where if you were at the resort, they'd say, there's nothing up there. You don't need to go up there. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's where resort developers are like, I think we've gone far enough.

[James Petregallo]

Pretty much there. So it has a harbor, a fuel depot, a shipping terminal, a small military landing pad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Doesn't sound like Hawaii to me.

[James Petregallo]

No, they use this shit like a Midwestern, like the military uses a Midwestern state in America. So it's got a couple of restaurants, mainly just locals. Not a lot of foot traffic. Not a lot of people coming from the mainland to wander around and go, oh, isn't that pretty? Like, none of that shit, really. I'd be shocked that it's all. Yeah. That it's all, like, that exists there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can go to any of these tropical islands and they have areas like that that, you know, people don't really.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's some place that doesn't exist just for locals. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, he's very well known in the narcotics distribution circles in this area here. And by 2013, they were an active target of the Vice squad. They were building a meth trafficking case against him, and they were doing it with the help of confidential informants. And that main one they were trying to use is Lapaka. They wanna use him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Does Lapaka. Does he know him?

[James Petregallo]

He knows him. Everybody. They all know each other in this area. Anybody who's local pretty much knows each other. There's 742 people. And on the music scene, they know each other, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It would be very weird to be like, james, we caught you speeding, and you're on probation. We're gonna put you in jail. But if you go down to the city and go talk to Joey Montana.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like, who the fuck's that? Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know who you are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know. You're Italian.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. You can talk to him about stuff. Go in there, talk to him about pasta or something, and you'll figure it out. I don't know. Tell him the sauce is good. He'll like that. Ask him where good sandwiches are. You want to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they're going to offer you a job.

[James Petregallo]

If you ever want an Italian to talk to you in New York or New Jersey, just all you need to do. I'm telling you, every other thing. People might be rude to you, whatever. If you say, where do I get a good sandwich? 400 people will swarm to you. They'll fight each other and argue, but by the end of it, they'll come up with a consensus of where you can get a really good prosciutto and fucking fresh.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You'll be in the cars there by the afternoon.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. That's how it works. That's how Henry Hill got started. So sometime here after December 18, 2013, this is what I. There's different differing things here. The government will have one set of what they think will happen, and then reality here, like the prosecution and the state will have an idea of when this happened. And then in reality we kind of have to put it after that though, because it's interesting. So anyway, sometime in December, what we know is that Martin Booth, the guy who's the bad guy here in this story for right now, during a 23 day period, he has more police interactions than the two of us have ever had put together. Why? And probably half of our listeners do here is one. December 18th. Well, half of them are probably, I assume, felons. You know, we draw a certain crab Jimmy, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

We have people that have never seen cops and then the other half. All the time.

[James Petregallo]

Well, all the time, yeah. They're listening from prison right now. That's how it works. So this is the date number one of these. There's four different occurrences. December 18, 2013. The vice section executes a search warrant on a home in Hanakoa street, which is where he lives. That's Martin's house. The cops find 8.1 grams of what they describe as a crystalline substance, which they find out will be meth later on. And 128 grams of weed. Okay. And a rifle and various other items of drug paraphernalia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh oh.

[James Petregallo]

Now the thing is, he's not home when they raid though. He's not home. So there's other people at the property there. Russell, Kong, Keone, Kong and Growl. That's a cool ass name. How do you not name your kid? King? What the fuck, man?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Keone's one of the coolest names I've ever heard.

[James Petregallo]

Kong is a great last name. Yeah, Keone's fine. But your last name is Kong. That's fucking Keoni.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Might mean king in Hawaiian, maybe, who knows.

[James Petregallo]

So there's another Grayley Vas Konelos also there. So three guys hanging out there, but he's not home. But it's his house, which makes it seem like they're running something out of here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Basically in case these people come by, you guys distribute?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So those guys are arrested and released because they're not the target of the warrant. Which is Martin. That's the one they want. They said that Martin lived in the house but was not in attendance that day. So his house is raided. They get some meth and weed and a rifle, which he's not Allowed to have also.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And those together are very bad.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Not only can he not have a rifle, but you mix the drugs and a rifle together, it's bad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So bad.

[James Petregallo]

So then, December 29, 2013. Eleven days later, Kona patrol officers respond to a residence here on Kinui Road in Captain Cook, which is on the South Kona side. A woman calls in and reports that an unknown man has just threatened her with a firearm and then fled in a sedan. Oh, so threatened to shoot or took off. So the cops find the sedan and chase it onto Highway 11 in Captain Cook. It's weird that Hawaii even has highways. It doesn't. Feels like it's just ruining the scenery. Why are you putting that there? So the sedan is being driven by a woman named Regina Patrick. Now, there's also a male occupant. As the cops close in on this car, the male occupant bails. He takes off there. Okay. Now, Regina Patrick is arrested on a $250 bench warrant for contempt of court that she had. So they take her in, and then they get a. But the guy ran away. Now they get a warrant to search the sedan. Inside the sedan, they find a loaded pistol, an unloaded shotgun, but numerous rounds of ammunition. For the shotgun? Yeah. 18.7 grams of meth. Little less than a gram of weed. So nothing much there. Enough for a joint or something. 40 prescription pills, brass knuckles, several large knives, and paraphernalia for the use and sale of crystal methamphetamine. So we're talking scales, baggies, things of that nature, and maybe even cutting agents. So that's just in one car?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just in the car. That's like his ice cream truck?

[James Petregallo]

Pretty much, yeah. Ring the bell, everybody. Ding, ding, ding. Come get some. So the investigation on this now, I don't know if Regina gave it up or what, but the investigation determines. They say that Martin Booth was the guy in the car who ran away. He's the sprinter, and that everything in the car is his.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is his.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, basically so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he doesn't seem to have a

[James Petregallo]

whole lot of shit, I mean, to travel with. He does. That's a no. No, I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, combined with what's back at the house as, like, a kingpin, that's not that much.

[James Petregallo]

We don't know if that's his only place. Who knows how many places he had. You know, that's what I mean. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's probably what the cops think, too, is that we're not getting that much out of this guy. But he seems to be a Big deal.

[James Petregallo]

Either way, he's selling meth, that's the problem here. And meth a lot of times gets sold with a quarter gram and shit. So, you know, that's a little drop, so it can be plenty. So they are looking for him, obviously. Now they also find out that through the witnesses and everything that Martin Booth was the guy who pointed the gun at a woman to begin with. That started this chase here. So now he's got guns and he's pointing guns at people and he's got meth and he's already a felon. He's a convicted felon.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Then on January 9, 2014, at 7:30 in the morning, police find him. Finally. They've been looking for him since the Warrant and another 11 days, the traffic stop here. They locate him at a residence on Luau Drive in Hawaiian Ocean View Estates. Sounds beautiful, but it's not. It's shit. It's not great. It's called a sprawling subdivision of cheap lots on a sloping lava flow at the south end of the island. Yeah, basically there's a lot of generators and this isn't a great place, but he's arrested there on a $200,000 grand jury bench warrant for second degree assault, which is. That's the pointing the gun. So he's hauled in and they hold him there for a minute now. So he's still in jail. The next day, January 10th, 2014. This is 5:15 in the afternoon. They charge him with 23 additional offenses based on their investigation. Methamphetamine trafficking, eight counts of promoting dangerous drugs, promoting controlled substances near a school, uh, oh, three counts of promoting detrimental drugs, three counts of possessing drug paraphernalia, six firearm offenses, terroristic threatening, plus second degree assault, which he was the original thing. So it's 24 charges. Bail is set at $266,000.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Very specific. You can tell that was added up?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Interesting number. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he doesn't have $266,000 or $26,600, even on a. He doesn't have it. So he is going to sit in a jail cell for a while. Now, the issue here, his house that was raided, remember the original house that was raided on the first one? I assume they went through it with a fine tooth comb because they're looking for drug stuff so you can have a little baggie this big so you can tear the whole place apart doing that. Now also, he has another property that has a trailer on it. Okay. So he has a couple of properties here. He's got a Property with a trailer, with people who live in the trailer. Now, their names are never really released publicly, so we don't know their names. We're going to call them the lord and lady of the trailer here. It's a 28 year old woman and her boyfriend and her lord of the manor. So the boyfriend apparently has some kind of relationship with Martin, some kind of tenant help around the handyman type of thing. You let us live in the trailer, I'll trim the bushes or whatever the fuck an agreement arrangement is. We don't know if there's anything that has to do with drugs involved in that or what. We don't know. Okay. Now one thing we do know here, so that's all Martin's thing. Now let's go back to Thanksgiving 2013, before all of his legal trouble started and catch back up with Lapaka. He apparently at least saw or contacted his family on Thanksgiving November 28, 2013. His family spoke to him. We're not sure if he came over or just it was a phone call or what, but they contacted him that day and then basically don't hear from him for a while. Now, this is not abnormal. So the whole month of December, he's 37 years old, he's got his own place, doesn't live with his family, and he's a real free spirit. He goes and travels to do music gigs. They don't hear from him. He doesn't check in a couple times a week. Sometimes he'll go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a father or a husband or anything.

[James Petregallo]

No, he's got no responsibility. Like there's no job. If he doesn't show up for, they're gonna call. It's what I mean. No stress. No stress. Good Lord. The other day I was sitting and I was relaxing for a little while and I got like eight minutes into it and then I realized, oh, I have a ton of shit I have to do and I have to do all this work. And I had to, you better get to work. And I literally looked, I said, obviously I can't. If I'm relaxing, it means I know I'm missing something because I work.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're putting off.

[James Petregallo]

I'm putting something terrible that I need to do off. So I can't imagine just having a month where no one's heard from me. And they're like, he's doing something, he's all right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Something terrible.

[James Petregallo]

Something terrible, yeah. And I consider, you know, constant research terrible for me. It's not exactly playing a ukulele on a lava rock, you know, What I'm saying, it's so casual. Because it is casual. I do it. That's all I do with my life. I know if I built it up more, I'd snap. You know what I mean? I have to just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's just so familiar and constant in your life that you're like, I'm probably putting something terrible on.

[James Petregallo]

That's exactly it. And I said to Sarah, that's what it is. If I'm relaxing for five minutes, that means I have to do a inventory of what I should be doing because there's something I need to be doing. Because there's no way I'm allowed to relax for five fucking minutes. It's not possible anyway. So the whole month of December, Lapaka is not heard from at all. No one hears from him. And they assume he's playing gigs. And, you know, maybe it's. A lot of people go to Hawaii for the holidays. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And that's also the cheap season to go there.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And they go for New Year's Eve. A lot of people sort of go for that holiday. So they probably think there's some tourist shit going on. He's probably got some gigs, you know. But by January, they start to be a little. Hey, who's. Have you heard from your father?

[Jimmy Wissman]

He didn't come by for Christmas?

[James Petregallo]

No. That's what I mean. No Merry Christmas, no anything. I don't know how much they celebrate Christmas if they're that kind of. Whatever their family's into. I'm not sure. But by the second week of January, they haven't heard from him for about 45 days. They start to get everyone. They start asking each other. They're like, something's wrong. This isn't a. Yeah, he's not doing a world European tour right now. I mean, he would have checked in. So they actually report him officially missing to the Hawaii county police department. On January 22, the police department puts out a press release that he's missing. He's five'10, £150, green eyes, short brown hair, probably carrying a ukulele. Likely ukulele. Now at this time, they declare him officially missing on January 17th. At this point, Martin Booth has been sitting in the Hawaii Community Correctional center for about eight days. Okay. Now, January to early March 2014, nobody hears from Lapaka. He's gone really missing posters are spread around all the gigs he plays. Four months, no sign of him anywhere. No one's seen him. And he's a guy that you'd see him and you'd know that he was there? Yeah, yeah, he was here. Singing songs, playing music, compliments, everything. Yeah, it was great. He's a perfect compliment. He's like furniture. Like, that's weird. They treat the poor guy like furniture.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A nice corner desk.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, exactly. Early March 2014. So, I mean, months have gone by, his family's very worried, and a man walks into a police station, uh, oh, random man we've not heard about in the story yet. And he tells the police he needs to speak to a detective.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right?

[James Petregallo]

And they're like, I mean, sure, what the hell? You know what I mean? So go sit in the corner there. And he says, listen, he said that I was coerced by someone into helping that someone corner a person. Okay? And what I witnessed was the person who coerced me into helping shoot that

[Jimmy Wissman]

other person, I am an accessory.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. And he says, I help that person dispose of the body.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

So I know where this body is and I can take you to it right now. And the cop said, I mean, they don't know if this guy's crazy or what, but they go, I mean, we'll take a ride wherever you want to go, I guess. Sure. What the hell. Let's take a look here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Certainly worth looking at.

[James Petregallo]

So. Monday, March 10, 2014. The Hawaii county detectives here are led by this person into a brushland between the Queen Kaahumanu highway and the Poaco Beach Drive in South Kohala. Oh my God.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Neither of us have visited this place.

[James Petregallo]

My brain is broken, guys, this is hard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Neither of us can afford to go to Hawaii.

[James Petregallo]

No, ever. Are you kidding me? A plane over ocean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We could lax.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So they recover human remains there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

And they've been out there, these remains, for a long time. This is about 5:30pm the land is described as vacant land and brush. Land about halfway between Poaco Beach Drive and the Queen K Highway. Let's call her Queen K. So it sounds like you just sell a lot of fucking ketamine. All that is the girl that killed Matthew Parry? Yeah, that's the one. I know exactly where you're going there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Murdering bitch.

[James Petregallo]

March 12, 2014. Okay, they run the autopsy and because there is so much decomposition here, as you can imagine, the medical examiner is only able to determine the cause of death. And that's pretty much it. Not really.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You can confirm that?

[James Petregallo]

Well, they're obvious. That's why there is the fact that he's been shot. So that's interesting. And also blunt force trauma to the head. Probably a hammer crushed his skull Too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lord.

[James Petregallo]

So he's been shot and beaten with a hammer. This corpse, it's a male person. So, Thursday, March 13th. The dental records confirm that it's Lapaka's body.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Poor guys out there. Crushed skull and everything else. And it's a big deal in the community over there. For the musical community is what I mean. The Big Island Video News. That said, he's the perfect complement to the scenery. They pulled that clip and redid the voiceover to say Lapaka's melodies were the perfect compliment for the scenery.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, not r. The perfect past tense. The old interview.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. That's so, so sad. Because they wanted to keep it up. Cause it's great. Great shot. So June 9, 2014, they return an indictment on Martin Booth for one count of second degree murder for killing him. The court issues the bench warrant. It's funny, too. Cause what they do is they pull him out like it's a routine court appearance related to his drug case. And they walk him into a courthouse in cuffs. And then they go, oh, by the way, you're under arrest for murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This one's murder.

[James Petregallo]

This one's murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So that guy tied him to it,

[James Petregallo]

said, that's what came out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Martin Booth coerced me. And it was in. And the thing is, he said this happened in Martin Booth's garage, The same garage that was thoroughly searched on December 18th.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they found nothing.

[James Petregallo]

And the medical examiner puts the cause of death, or not the cause of death, the time of death before December 18th.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

So either the cops, okay, either the medical examiner's wrong, which is possible with that much decomposition, or these cops are so fucking inept that a person had their skull bashed in, shot, and then removed. And then they searched the house very soon after and didn't find one fucking sign of that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No drops of blood. Nothing that absolutely was leaking everywhere. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So I'm sorry, but either that's complete incompetence or the medical examiner's wrong. Either way, something. Somebody didn't do their job correctly there. Although I know the medical examiners could

[Jimmy Wissman]

be upped a little bit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, maybe. If you're a homicide detective, a doctor, or anyone doing an autopsy, we'd like you to have some stress. No one else. So they say that Booth is also being looked at for a string of unsolved robberies in West Hawaii. Right around the time that Lopaka disappeared as well. So he's got all sorts of shit going on. Now this is where it gets interesting. Okay, Remember the trailer people? The Lord and Lady of the trailer there. Well, they go to the police and says that. Okay, the woman says she told her boyfriend that Lapaka sexually assaulted her. Oh, that's the story that we'll get later on. So the boyfriend. Her story is the boyfriend then told Martin Booth about it. And Booth went back to the woman and confronts her, saying, is this true? And she said it was. Several days passed, and then Booth approached the woman and tells her, quote, that he shot and killed Lapaka for what he had done to her. Oh, okay. So that's the official story that these two people from the trailer are now telling. And Martin is telling the police, yeah, I did it, but I did it because he sexually assaulted a woman.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They must have got word that he was in prison about this. Right. Or in jail about it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he lives on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They were like, we gotta get out ahead of this.

[James Petregallo]

And he's known as a dangerous guy around here also. So this is. For him to say, go tell them this. And them to actually do it would be not out of the realm of possibility at all. It just seems, like, probable, honestly. So that's what they tell the grand jury as well. The lord and lady of the trailer. So they say that Martin was basically being his protector. And they also said Booth told numerous people that he killed Ryder because Ryder had sexually assaulted a young woman who lives on Booth's property. The only three people on earth that are saying that are her, her boyfriend and Martin Booth also. Okay, Now, Lapaka's family does not believe this at all. Yeah, they think it's bullshit. They think Booth figured out that Lapaca was probably wearing a fucking wire and working with the vice squad. Yeah. And if this Martin Booth's been around a long time and he's 55, he might know a cop or two also. That might tip him off to shit. So they're like. They're saying this is bullshit. Literally, he signed up to be a fucking informant against this guy less than a month before this guy kills him. But he didn't kill him. Cause he'. Informant. He killed him because that was the time when he's working with police. He decided to sexually assault some woman. Doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes more sense that he found out he's working for the cops and he killed him. That's the obvious thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hawaii's pretty far removed. But is vigilante justice there legal? Is that what it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I'm sure. No, it's not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, it can't be.

[James Petregallo]

But it would definitely be justification to

[Jimmy Wissman]

try to minimize it.

[James Petregallo]

If you're sitting before a judge. Yeah. And it's, did you kill a police informant? Cause you knew they were a police informant, or did you kill someone as retaliation for sexually assaulting a friend of yours? Is a way different sentencing thing completely. So the family's version, Lapaka's family said it's bullshit. They're trying to cover up their own incompetency, and that's why they're doing this. Essentially. That's why they're taking that story. Now, what they do, there's the one man who said he helped dispose of the body. There's also a second guy who helped dispose of the body.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

They bring him in and talk to him, and he has the same story as the first guy that he was coerced into going over there, basically. And they make a deal to give these two immunity to testify against Martin. The helpers here, it wasn't their idea. Okay, now the official story. They talk to Martin, they talk to the two helpers, and they build. This is the police official narrative of what's going on, the prosecution's narrative. Okay, here we go. Sometime between November 30 and December 17, 2013. So before the first raid, which would mean the cops are completely incompetent. They say that, but that's what's in the indictment. They say that between. That Martin arranged to meet Lapaka. We don't know why or how or what the pretext of it was, but basically they figure that it was some kind of drug buy meeting or something like that that he was working with the cops on. So they don't know if it's. They don't understand what it is or if it was a social call. They're not sure. But either way, it gets him to the house. Lapaka shows up at Martin Booth's house, walks into the garage. And we know for a fact that Lapaka had his ukulele on him, was holding it. Okay. The ukulele will find out why. Now there's a confrontation where Booth confronts Lapaka in the garage. And there's some verbal altercation. Like I said, this is the official narrative. Per Martin's telling, Lapaka here basically starts getting angry and aggressive toward Martin Booth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he's an aggressor.

[James Petregallo]

And tried to swing his ukulele at Martin. Booth tried to hit him with the ukulele again, like we discussed. Might not be the greatest weapon for that one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This guy's got rifles.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. So he went over to a major meth distributor's garage to confront him and then attack him with a ukulele. Doesn't sound like a likely story. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you how to get the home repairs you need at the lowest possible cost with home serve.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Homeserve.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

I remember a time I lived in Arizona and my air conditioning broke and I've never, I've never felt worse in my life. And how it was the summer and 110 degrees outside and my air conditioning broke and it was so expensive and I didn't have money. And it's a horrible, horrible feeling to be trapped in that way. And the thing is, home disasters like that, they sneak up on you, they bite you, they're tough. And most of them, they cost way more than a car repair, too. Sure, you get a whole new car for what it costs to fix some of these things. So HomeServe is the way to go. They offer plans starting at just 499amonth. That's incredible. With home servers, HomeServe, when something goes wrong, you're not scrambling, you're just making one call. That's what's amazing. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. Regular homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day to day wear and tear. Plumbing, H vac, I know they don't. Electrical issues, things like that. So home serve, super simple. They give you the breakdown. You just choose a plan for your needs and budget. And when something on your plan goes wrong, you just call their 24.7hotline to start the repair process and they get you cranking. With nearly 4.5 million customers and a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot and an A plus from the Better Business Bureau. They're the real deal. Yeah, they're. They're big stuff. I mean, let's be honest, it's summertime. Your cooling system, it's not going to warn you. It's just going to stop. And that's. It's when it's going to happen, too. When it's the hottest because it's moving. That's what's going to happen. Trust me, when that happened, I Wish I had HomeServe at that time. Now it's all covered, though, because now HomeServe is here to come to the rescue for us and we're excited. Your next costly home repair is already coming. Act now and get protected with a plan through HomeServe for 50% less your first year. Go to HomeServe.com server Small Town Murder to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com smalltown murder for 50% less savings compared to renewal price void in Florida.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody, Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about the best security you could possibly have. SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

SimpliSafe.com S I M P L I Safe.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. In the United States there's a break in every 26 seconds. That means over the course of this ad like 3, 4 break ins will happen. That's a lot of break ins. And if you've listened to this show that you're listening to right now, Small Town Murder. You know what can happen when a break in happens? Bad things. So the problem here is most security systems only alert you after the break ins already started. Which you know by this show is way too late.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Way too late.

[James Petregallo]

Way too half your family could be murdered by then. That's why we chose Simplisafe to secure our homes and businesses and everything else. Simply Safe makes us feel good and secure and have peace of mind. Using safe. That's the thing. Using the outdoor camera series 2 and advanced AI alerts, simply safes US based live agents identify threats on your property and help deter them. Stopping crime before it starts. That's peace of mind. Literally they come up and they're like, get out of here. We're calling the cops. Cops will be there in two minutes. People run away. It's what it is. Telling you, it's so good. We use it for everything that we have. Homes, offices. If I had anything else to put it on, I would. It's so good. I bought it as gifts for people that want home security. It's so good. Simplisafe has been a real game changer for us and we love it, I'm telling you. And there's no long term contracts. That's a huge thing. It's so important that you're not locked in. You don't want to be locked in in case your life needs change. Maybe you, you know, whatever Simplisafe gets it, it means Simplisafe has to earn your business every day and they don't mind doing that. And also, you know, you think about this and I see so many shows we do where I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad we have Simplisafe because this is, this could happen to us. You know what I mean. And it's so inexpensive too. The monitoring and deterrence plans start at around a dollar a day. A dollar a day to secure your family, your home, your things, your pets, everything. It's ridiculous. And setting it up is so easy. I can't put together Ikea furniture and I can install a SimpliSafe system. It's excellent. And we want you to do it too. We want you to experience the same peace of mind we do, which is why we've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com small that's half [e-mail] small there's no safe like simply safe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you how to dress your best with quints.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Quince.com q U-I-N c e.com oh, you know it.

[James Petregallo]

Summer's coming up. In summer, it's going to change the, the way you dress changes the way I dress. You don't want to be hot and things like that. You want, you want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable, things that are easy but you still want to look put together. Sure, you don't look like you're at the beach if you're not at the beach. That's why both of us, we keep going back to quints. Quints is where you find everything. It is my first and last shop stop for clothes. Shopping for everything. They have what I need and I love it. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Like breathable linen, soft organic cotton, well made basics. But without the luxury markup. That's the thing. It's luxury items without the luxury markup. It's a rare balance that everything feels elevated but effortless. It's good stuff. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Starting at just $34. Jimmy loves his linen pants that he got in there. Their tees are soft and easy to to wear and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Everything at Quint is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. It's incredible the way they do it and it's so simple how they do it. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. That's where all your, that's where all your money's going to the middleman. Instead you're just Paying for quality. That's all you're paying for. Not some brand markup or advertising campaign or whatever. Quints go way beyond clothing. Custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. And that's what we do. And not just when we're doing an ad on our show. In real life, I tell people, you got to go to Quint's. It's amazing. See this shirt? It's really nice. Quint's. Great price. It's awesome. You gotta go. Honestly, there's no reason to not. Check this out. You're gonna love it. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.comsmalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com Smalltown Murder for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

But that's what happened. So Martin said he then he had a hammer and he had a 9 millimeter handgun that was loaded on him. So he had two weapons on him. So that's the guy you're going to try to hit with a ukulele, right? Yeah. So at that point he said, Martin said that he hit him with the hammer when Lapaka tried to hit him with the ukulele and then he shot him twice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Because you know, obviously he was still a huge threat after he's been hit with a hammer and he's holding the ukulele, you know. Yeah, that's the guy you're afraid of. So then they said that at that point, we don't know the order here. He died on the floor. Now Martin goes back and forth of whether he shot him first or hit him with the hammer first. Seems like the hammer would probably be the thing that would come first.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You should. In response to swung at you. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You build. If you shoot somebody twice, you don't really need any other weapons at that point. Probably. That's probably it there. So he's got a fractured skull and two gunshot wounds. After the killing, basically he calls these other guys are there and he tells them to help him. They wrap Lapaka's body in plastic and they help Martin Booth take the body to the lava field. One of them does. The other stays in the garage and cleans up the scene.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And evidently is amazing.

[James Petregallo]

According to the prosecution, this fucking guy is Mr. Clean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I need him to come over.

[James Petregallo]

He's magical. And he comes up with a bald head and makes everything disappear.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Come clean my house, sir, please.

[James Petregallo]

So basically they said that that's what happened there. And they said that one of the men who claimed he was coerced into the killing was then forced to help dump the body. And then the other one was the cleaner. So that's the official story that the prosecution's gonna take into the. And this was all predicated on Martin Booth being angry at him over a sexual assault allegation to one of his friends.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what's the prosecutor is gonna do, huh?

[James Petregallo]

Which is crazy. But that's the only people they have basically a bunch of people who are, quote there. And that's all of their story, because I'm sure Martin told them what to say. And that's what we do now. July 2014, he pleads to all the other charges against him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The 24.

[James Petregallo]

He pleads guilty to second degree assault, first degree terroristic threatening, third degree, promoting a dangerous drug, possession of drug paraphernalia, failure to have a place to keep a pistol or revolver, possessing a firearm when ownership or possession is prohibited, first degree methamphetamine trafficking and first degree bail jumping. That's a lot. October 2014, he sentenced for those charges. You, sir, they fuck off. Five years for second degree assault, then concurrently to that. So at the same time, five years for the terroristic threatening, the dangerous drug, the paraphernalia. 10 years for firearms charges, then 20 years with a mandatory of eight for the meth trafficking, plus $36,000 in fees, plus a separate consecutive five year term for bail jumping.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So he's got 25 years. He's facing.

[James Petregallo]

He is facing a shitload of. And he's 55 years old.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, his life is over. Well, I mean, with the lack of stress, maybe not. He could live to be 120. 115. You never know. So the murder trial is now set for November.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

So now he's got a murder trial on top of all of that shit. This guy is a bad guy. So at that point he decides, I gotta fuck it. I'll plead guilty. What's the difference at this point? I'm never getting out anyway. I'm gonna be 70 something when I get out, maybe from all this shit. And he's got a huge criminal record, so there's no guarantee they're gonna parole him. Yeah, yeah. So the prosecutors agree to let him plead guilty to second degree murder, and in exchange they drop the enhanced sentencing measure. That would have denied him parole forever. So only thing is, they can't sentence him to life without parole. That's part of the deal. So they do that and at the same time, the prosecutor as well agrees to, quote, remain silent before the parole board on how much time he must serve. So when he goes up, because the Hawaii, basically the Hawaii parole people, they decide when you're gonna be eligible for parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We got aloha in our government too, in our penalty phase.

[James Petregallo]

So that's part of it is they. What they do. They make this deal all the time. Basically, we won't. Part of their. Yeah, you can negotiate anything. If you're negotiating a deal, stay out

[Jimmy Wissman]

of it and let us manage whether or not he gets in.

[James Petregallo]

You won't come to my parole hearings and bring your folder and tell him what a bad guy I am. Basically. Now the family can still do that, but not the prosecutor. So that's the idea. Later on, by the way, this prosecutor, I believe, will end up dying of cancer. Well before that anyway, at a young age. She had a rare form of cancer and died at like 44, I believe. So that's brutal. So basically, in the plea booth does not contest the prosecution's factual basis because. Because it's advantageous to him. It's his story that's also part of the deal, is that his story is the narrative that goes before the judge of what happened, which is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

Crazy. Yeah. That they didn't say, fuck that he's a scumbag drug dealer who killed a guy because he's an informant. Rather than this attempt at Noble murder that he's trying to 700 shows.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I've never heard this as a thing that happens.

[James Petregallo]

I'm telling you, Hawaii's different. You're not kidding me. They're different, man. They're very chill, a little more laid back. So he gets put in for sentencing now. And Debbie Ryder. And here comes the hammers here. Debbie Ryder, who is Lapaka's mom. She comes in and says, quote, you are inhumane to take someone's life like you did my son. He was a kind and loving person. He was God's child. Lapaka believed in him. And he tried his best throughout his 37 years to apply what the Lord guided him to do. You will have nightmares and you will have flashbacks for murdering my son. Thing is, I don't think this guy will.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't think so either.

[James Petregallo]

This motherfucker's cold blooded. I don't think he cares. You need to put God in your heart. So he can help you live the rest of your life behind bars. And my family will make sure of that. And in the end, only God will judge you according to your actions and the way you choose to live your life. So good luck in prison. It's between you and your God now. We'll show up at every parole hearing and make sure you ain't ever getting out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See you in so many years.

[James Petregallo]

See you there. Now, the defense attorney says, okay, consider he has a history of abuse in his past when he was a kid. He's 55 years old at this point. He has a history of abuse, but he can change. Lots of people turn a complete new leaf when they're, what, 63? It's just completely different people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right, that's past midlife crisis, right?

[James Petregallo]

A little bit, yeah. I would say you only get more. So whatever you are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, whatever that is, you're just digging your heels in.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He says, quote, I would ask that this court, in any sentencing of Mr. Booth. Remember, he's a man who has made mistakes, but who is redeemable based on. What the fuck? I don't know what he's talking about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, he shot a man, bludgeoned him and threw him off a cliff.

[James Petregallo]

But he knows how to make a real good batch of meth, Jimmy. I mean, that's a skill.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's something.

[James Petregallo]

Damn good, Chef. He's redeemable and has expressed his knowledge that what he did is wrong, and therefore he's able to change. So he's not a psychopath. They're saying he's not someone who should be discarded, but should be looked at as someone who may change and redeem his life. If you're 55, killing people, you know what? We'll put you on a shelf until you're dead. I don't care. Yeah, we don't need you anymore. Then he gets up and speaks himself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Awesome.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He said Lapaka was a very talented and loving person. He was a friend of mine. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do to change that and what I've done. And for that, I am sorry. And there's no excuse, which is exactly what you should say. Yeah, he should have said sorry. I also tried to say he was a rapist on top of that, but we'll leave it at that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a person, and I shouldn't have done that.

[James Petregallo]

I shouldn't have done that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You accused him of rape.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, but the way you're supposed. The judge wants to hear I'm sorry. And there's no excuse. So that party got out correctly, even though the rest of it was hedging like a motherfucker. So the judge has words herself for him. Quote, Mr. Booth, you ruthlessly murdered Robert Koei Lapaka Ryder. He was a son, a grandson, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, and he positively touched the lives of countless others. By your account, you assumed the role of judge, jury, and executioner for a crime that Mr. Ryder did not admit to have committed or for which he had not been found guilty by a jury of his peers. In other words, you just took somebody's word for it, and that's the official. In reality, he probably didn't even do that. Right. That's the thing that's so annoying, is rather than saying you're a scumbag meth dealer who heard someone was trying to get you busted for dealing meth and you killed him, they make it sound like it was some kind of misguided attempt at nobility, which is insanity, stupid.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is very similar sounding to. I mean. And it's only because the judge can't go another direction, because that's the official. The narrative the prosecutor presented to this is what would happen if this is what it sounds like would have happened in that case where they was at Alaska where they went and murdered a man because they said he was a rapist.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, it was. Yeah, get out of the mainland.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But thankfully, that prosecutor was like, I don't know anything about that. You murdered a person.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I don't know. That's not proven, so fuck off. They just took his word and said, well, if he pleads guilty, whatever, we'll take whatever narrative he wants to give because we get a guilty plea. She then continued, today, you are held accountable to a society for your cruel and senseless actions. And ironically, it will test the fabric of this community. You are extended the benefit of the rule of law. Of the rule of law that rules that even if your life. What is this? Oh, it's hard to see here. Okay, yeah. That even if your life is precious, it does so without expectation that you will change or have remorse for your crime. What the law hopes, I think, is that at some point a seed of conscience will germinate from your dark heart, and you will grow a full appreciation of the harm that you have caused. And through that appreciation, you may find a meaningful life in prison. You, sir, may fuck off. Life in prison with the possibility of parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See if we can grow some remorse in you. Like a fucking petri dish.

[James Petregallo]

Germinate like A peach seed you put in a wet paper towel and put on the fucking windowsill for a week. From your dark heart.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

That is not good. So life with the possibility of parole. Now that runs concurrently with the rest of it. So basically it just wipes out all the rest of it. That shit doesn't count anymore. He's credited with some time served. And the Hawaii Paroling Authority will determine when he's eligible for parole. Now the state of Hawaii does not have long term prison facilities. There's not a lot of happening that's going to happen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

James.

[James Petregallo]

He gets sent. This is amazing. For a guy who lived in Hawaii and probably liked that lifestyle. This is the most punishment you could give him. Because this would kill me. I can't imagine how it would do to him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Leavenworth.

[James Petregallo]

Worse. The Saguaro Correctional Center. Civic Core. So it's a private prison. It's a for profit prison in Arizona. Eloy. Oh no way. Profit prison in the middle of the fucking desert.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A horrible one.

[James Petregallo]

That's the worst place you could put someone is there. His food will suckle of shit. Medical care even worse than the state of Arizona provides. Which is, I mean one of the worst in the country. But can you imagine how bad that is?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. I guarantee the dry side of Hawaii doesn't have shit. To the dry side of Hawaii.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. You will not see a raindrop. Nevermind. Oh, nevermind the rainy season. You won't see anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The storm is dust, man. Yep.

[James Petregallo]

Now the family gets real pissed off. Lapaka's family and publicly comes out saying that they think the department leaked that their son was an informant. That's why the murder happened. And they covered it up by this horseshit sexual assault narrative. So basically they claim that someone in the department let it slip either directly or indirectly to persons being investigated. Like hey, we have a guy. We have an informant. So we know what happened. That guy put two and two together that the only guy he talked to was Lapaka. And then spread the word and then Martin takes care. Exactly. So they said that possibly they might have said it to another police officer not involved in the investigation. And they might have let it slip.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shit.

[James Petregallo]

So who knows? That's the thing about these informants. Remember the wire in the wire, people going back and forth and you never know who's leaking or who's on the outside or can't trust these fucking people. They claim that the constitution violation is under the 14th Amendment due process clause. Specifically that the state created danger theory. And even more specifically the danger creation Exception for the general rule that the government has no obligation to protect. Protect citizens from third parties. That's a law, by the way. The government has no obligation to protect you. None. None. The police have no obligation to protect you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why does it say protect on the side of that fucking car?

[James Petregallo]

That is not an official thing. That is just a sticker they put on a car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's for good feelsies.

[James Petregallo]

That's for good feelsies. This was taken to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said they have zero, zero fucking obligation to protect you at all from anything. Nothing. So yeah, that's what you pay for, everybody. So basically they alleged that they knew what was going on. Basically they knew of Boots criminal history, they knew he was dangerous, they knew he was pointing guns at people, had access to guns, sold meth, did not want to go back to prison for selling meth and would probably do whatever it took to make that happen. So they sue for failure to protect the informant's identity. Disclosure of his identity to someone else. The problem is now they have to prove that. They have to prove it. So you have to find who the hell it was told to or anything like that. They also say that the county and the police department initially hid the nature and circumstances of Lapaka's death in an attempt to conceal their complicity and responsibility for the murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's an allegation.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Well, I mean, think about it. They said, oh shit, this guy's an informant two months ago and he was just murdered by our target who we told him to fucking look at.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How'd he find out? That's what you gotta go with every time.

[James Petregallo]

Not good. Yeah. So basically, by the way, that Supreme Court case is called Deshany vs Winnebago County. Now there is a narrow exception to that that the police don't have to protect you if a government official affirmatively places you in danger you wouldn't have otherwise faced. If that danger is known or obvious and if the official acts with deliberate indifference to it, then the state has a duty. And breaching that duty can be a civil rights violation. Which sounds like exactly what happened here in my opinion. Now it's the danger creation. It's from another case called Kennedy vs City of Ridgefield in 2006. Go ahead and check that out. If you are real law fucking dork here. So the lawsuit attempts says that they fraudulently covered everything up and did everything like that. So they said, we understand the public information disseminated by the state as motive for the murder. We do not believe that Information to be correct. That's the state's position. That's not what happened. Basically, they said, we're still in the process of investigating all matters. All matters concerning this. In other words, if we let it go long enough, they'll forget about it. Hopefully. The state wants it dismissed and says it's all bullshit. So here's what happens. They grant the. Basically, they dismiss some parts of it and keep some other parts of it. They dismiss the claim. A bunch of different claims about negligence that caused him to be attacked and murdered. Individual plaintiffs claim that the county's negligence caused his pain and suffering. Their negligent supervision claim, negligent hiring claim, negligent retention claim, negligent training claim, and punitive damages against the defendant county. But they are. There's also ones that are dismissed but can be amended, that is that the brothers sue about the request for damages. And there's something about standing, whether they have the standing to do this as brothers. Either way, here are the things they don't dismiss, though. The section 1983 claim as legal representative of the estate of Ryder. So she has standing. The estate's negligence claim for the death of Ryder. Count to Deborah Ryder's request for damages pursuant to the Hawaii Wrongful death Statute. The individual plaintiff's negligent infliction of emotional distress claim. So a bunch of things like that. There's nine different claims that they allow to go forward in this lawsuit. Now, what seems to have happened is there seems to have been a settlement and a private one that is not public. Once again, it's very advantageous for the state to give her some money on the terms that you shut the fuck up and don't say that we let a goddamn informant get murdered. Because then who's gonna wanna be an informant, basically? So that's what ended up happening. So it looks like the family got something out of this, I think. But who knows? Because basically they wouldn't have let that lawsuit just drop. And that's the last anyone hears of it. So it seems like a under the table, quick settlement out of court. There you go, everybody. That is Kauai. Hey, Hawaii. There's a nice place in Hawaii where it doesn't rain a lot, but ukulele music is the perfect complement to it. So it's shocking. Crazy. It's fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's shocking.

[James Petregallo]

That is disturbing. Fast and Loose is not even. I mean, not even begins to scratch the surface of how they were playing this shit, these cops.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I want to know so much more about what corrupt shit had to go to Hawaii, there's gotta be so much corrupt shit happening there.

[James Petregallo]

Think about what happens in small towns. We've done how many episodes where there's some corrupt stuff going on? What do you think happens on a goddamn. In a small town, on an island in the middle of fucking where they have their own kind of thing where nobody goes? Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everything's under the rug there. That's scary.

[James Petregallo]

It's fucking crazy. And it feels like all they really give a shit about is make it so the tourists aren't scared to come to Hawaii. That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Make it go away.

[James Petregallo]

Everything else can get put to the wayside. So there you go, everybody. That is Hawaii and a crazy ass episode. If you enjoyed that, get on whatever app you're on, give us five stars. Netflix. That thumbs up helps a lot too. So do that. Thank you for doing everything you do for us. Always. Everybody follow us on social media. We are Smalltown Murder on Instagram, Smalltown Pod on Facebook. You can do that. You can definitely. Shutupandgivemerder.com is the website. Go there. Get your tickets for live shows. They start back up in September again with Milwaukee in the Pabst Theater. We love that place. And it's almost done. It's almost sold out. So get your tickets right now. Then the next night and September 19th at the State Theater in Minneapolis.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Equally beautiful.

[James Petregallo]

Great place. Get your tickets right now. We love doing Minneapolis shows. So get in there and keep up with the Pabst, everybody. Then we have October 3rd in Dallas, a one nighter there, and then October 16th in San Jose, October 17th in Sacramento, then November 13th in Tarrytown, November 14th in Boston. Get them right now. Shut up and give me murder.com. then get Patreon. Hey, well, before you do that, also listen to Crime in Sports, our other podcast, which, by the way, we're doing a long series on Robert Rozier, who was basically a murderer for the Yahweh Ben Yahweh cult. There's a lot of cult stuff and cool stuff there. So check that out. Listen to your stupid opinions also, which is just hilarious. And then also get patreon, patreon.com crimeinsports, which you get there as soon as you subscribe. Almost 400 back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard before. The whole catalog you get immediately. You get new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small thing. Town murder, one small found murder. I just said more small towns, more small towns. You get that. And so yeah, this week is no different for this week, Crime and sports. Back to theme park disasters, another edition. And we're gonna concentrate on the Disney properties for this one for the most part. Then for Small town murder, it's a viewer's listener's choice. The crash documentary and all that goes around it. With that case of Mackenzie Shurilla or Corey Richards, part three, we get to hear even more about what a monster she is because her kid's testimony comes in during the sentencing which says basically, oh, they're little. Says everything that she lied about, how she mistreated them too. It's horrible. So can't wait to get into all that. Your choice. Patreon.com CrimeInSports plus, you get all the shows we put out ad free. And on top of that, Jimmy will give you a shout out during the regular show or you'll go ahead and mess up every damn name you can. But you want to get them right. That's the important part. So do that. Keep coming back and seeing us. You want to follow us on social media. Real easy to do that over at shutupandgivememurder.com, dropdown menus. It'll take you everywhere you got to go. That said, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. Hey everybody listening to small town murder out there. Hi.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hello.

[James Petregallo]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad. But not an ad for a product. This is an ad for dates. Yes, come see a live show. The 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets though to your stupid opinions. On 21 March, Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30 we have September 18, Milwaukee, September 19 Minneapolis, October 3 in Dallas, October 16 in San Jose, October 17 in Sacramento, November 13 in Tarrytown, November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people you're going to have fun. Make some new friends like crazy. And make some new friends come out and see us. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See you on the road.