Amanda Knox (3:01)

Can solve it when it's said. Steve Kramer was part of the team that identified the Golden State Killer. We mean that after 40 years of failed attempts to do so, he made it happen in 63 days, which is just incredible. And because of all that, the Hawaii Innocence Project believed Kramer and his business partner, Steve Bush, who co founded the FBI genetic genealogy team together could be their ticket to identifying unknown male number one. Now, because of the joint investigation agreement between the Hawaii Innocence Project and the prosecution's office, the Hawaii Innocence Project had access to all of the DNA evidence. But they were frustrated by the lack of progress made in Dana's case after Ian's exoneration. Here's Hawaii Innocence Project co director Ken Lawson.

Ken Lawson (3:55)

So, yeah, around February 7th, we hired Kramer. Now, keep in mind, too, the Hilo Police Department, when we're standing out on the courtroom steps, right, giving a press conference after Ian was exonerated in 2023, saying, we're going to, you know, look for her killer and we're not going to stop. We want to find her. The Hilo Police Department also issued a press release saying that they have never stopped searching for unknown male number one. Mind you, they wasn't doing jack before then. They didn't do jack after the exoneration. They didn't go out and get Kramer like we're talking about February of 2024. Ian was exonerated in January of 2023. So a year has went by, Right. They haven't done anything with the DNA, not nothing. So we go get Kramer, and then they don't know that we have Kramer. They don't know that until February 26th when Kramer comes back and says his.

Steve Kramer (4:55)

Should be your suspect for genetic genealogy, which. That profile, the vernacular is we call it a snp. It stands for single nucleotide polymorphism sn. So they had already developed. They'd sent the DNA from the Dana island homicide, sexual assault, to a private lab to develop this DNA profile called the snp. And they had already uploaded that profile to a database, and that's when they brought it to us. Yeah, they had initially started it, and they had developed the SNP and uploaded it. And then Barry, after talking to me the previous year, indicated that he wanted to start doing more genetic genealogy or have our company. We have a software, and he wanted to try out our company's software. It's simply in a. Technically, we're not even in beta testing at that time. Back in February. But we obviously, we've always been interested working with the Innocence Project. I'd spoken with folks from the Innocence Project a couple years earlier and volunteered to help them. And so this was the opportunity. So we were just really anxious to see what we could do for an Innocence Project case. And the reason for that, obviously, is to seek the truth to get justice for victims. But also it provides a derivative benefit to the technique, and that being if you can put people in prison with this technique or help put people in prison, then you can also help get people out. They just give us the login information to the database with the profiles uploaded. I never saw the sample or anything like that, so we just upload it. Steve and I took a look at the. What we call matches. Matches are simply. It's a term for people that share DNA with you. So if you were to do an Ancestry 23andMe test, something like that, you're going to get a list of people, could be thousands, thousands of people long. And these are all people that share a small percentage of DNA with you. And that's the way genomics work. You share. Everybody shares. 50% of their DNA with their mother, 50% with their father, approximately 25% with each of your grandparents. And then the further you get away, the less DNA. So all these databases are showing you is just the percentage of DNA or people that you share a percentage of DNA with, and they can be a parent, first cousin, a sixth cousin. So that's what we looked at that list, and we kind of evaluated, you know, how difficult the genealogy would be in this particular case.

Amanda Knox (7:23)

To reiterate, the Hawaii Innocence Project started working with Steve Kramer on February 7, and Steve Kramer provided results 19 days later. In a case that has ruined so much and taken decades of life and freedom away from so many, it took only weeks for everything to change. I'm Amanda Knox, and this is three. Chapter seven Hiding in Plain Sight. In two weeks, Steve Kramer knew more about their suspect than ever before.

Ken Lawson (8:24)

Sure.

Steve Kramer (8:24)

I mean, I believe it only took a few days for us to figure it out. And then we spent several more days trying to confirm everything and look at other possibilities. But, yeah, in this particular case, after we got access to the account information, we looked at it in our company. We have access to these. We have arrangements with the companies that we work both with, Family tree DNA and GEDmatch. So we get access to the data, the same information that law enforcement gets access to, and plug it into our software to start arriving at a family tree where we could get an idea of what family lineage this person would be belonging to. The unique thing about this case and kind of the difficulty in general with somebody from Hawaii, particularly if they're native Hawaiian, they're going to have a lot of ancestry that's going to be in the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, things like that, Maori ancestry, as well as a mixture maybe from other Asian communities. So it can be very difficult. The fortunate thing that we saw when we first looked at it was we knew the suspect was 80% Filipino, because if you go to, like, family tree, DNA where it was uploaded, you know, will show, you know, their origins. They'll say it's like their ancestry, ethnicity. So, I mean, they'll tell you if, like, you're Irish, Scottish, whatever. And in this case, it said Filipino. It's just very unique that the Filipino is a separate, you know, ethnicity that actually is shown on these genealogy sites as a separate ethnicity. That's just something unique about the DNA. So we knew that if he's 80% Filipino, then he likely has three grandparents that are Filipino. So what we did is we put parameters in, okay, Filipino, you know, heavy Filipino ancestry. But also we worked in public records from the Caucasian, European side. And so that's what we just looked for. And then we obviously had age. We're looking for a male. Steve and I figured we figured this individual just from the nature of the crime scene, was probably young. It just seemed like an impulse crime. And we figured it was somebody probably close in age with Dana Ireland. And then obviously, we focused on where the original traffic accident happened and then where her body was left, knowing that generally, if you're going to commit a crime like this and go take this poor woman, you know, who's just been run over and is badly injured, you're going to take her to a spot that you're comfortable, you know, being in, where you wouldn't be abnormal for you to be seen there, but also something, you know, it's safe. So he takes her to this little fishing trail. So we figured probably familiar with it, he probably lives close to it. So we're looking for somebody on this eastern, southeastern, you know, tip of the Big island, you know, probably south of Hilo. So you start. Those are our parameters, and you put that in, and you start looking for relatives that fit that demographic as well as those genetics. And that's how we started it. And we were able to come up with, you know, several matches that lined up with families that moved from the mainland United States to Hawaii and married into Filipino families. So we come across, you know, somebody that lives 1.7 miles from the crime scene. And this is where the human touch goes into it. Okay, we start looking at these suspects and this is where you start scrolling social media and we find this guy. Like, let's look at his Facebook. And you can look at his Facebook and go through it and you can see like he's a big shore fisherman. And like, we knew this was like a local fishing trail. And like, and I swear to God, I don't know if it is, but some of those photos, it looked like it was the same trail. And like, you gotta be kidding me. And then we're looking at, looking at some of the. He had some old photos on there of like these trucks, like pickup trucks that, you know, seem similar to the type of vehicles. I mean, I won't go into details. We were actually pulling up those trucks and see what kind of tires they came with from the manufacturer because there were tire marks on it. And, you know, we look at the tire prints and like, what kind of cars do you have in the Facebook to do all that? So we took all that information, Steve and I, and kind of verified it against the work we did. And then we arrived like, this has to be our guy.

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Amanda Knox (13:49)

It wasn't Ian Schweitzer or Sean Schweitzer or Frank Pauline Jr. Not even the prison priest Frank Nazario, Anthony Torres or Roy Santos, who, if you think all the way back to episode two, were at the top of the suspect pool for a minute there, albeit for different reasons. The name didn't end with Gonzalves either. This name was actually nowhere to be found on any list held by law enforcement, the prosecutor's office, or the Hawaii Innocence Project. This guy wasn't on anybody's radar for the past 32 years. Remember, they don't have a DNA match yet, but via ancestry information and research through public records and social media, they've got a very likely suspect. A 57 year old man named Albert Laurel Jr. He'd spent the last three decades building a life with a wife and kids, while Ian Schweitzer sat in a prison cell and while Shawn Schweitzer took to life in the shadows.

Ken Lawson (15:01)

I don't know about you, but it was just like, I was wrong about everybody and who I thought it was. That's how I felt. It's like, God damn. I mean, I mean, I had a list, right? And so I'm like, I mean, I mean, I was just totally wrong, totally wrong. And you know what? Had I been on one of these people's jury, one of my suspect's jury, I would have convicted him and still been totally wrong. I was like, the emotional reaction was, finally, finally we're going to find out what happened. Because it was not just we knew the name, but we knew he was living right? And so it's like, finally. Because, you know, when you work on this case for all these years, all of us, man, we used to sit around in the hip office, you know, with our students, and we, you know, did the rape happen first and then she got on a bike and. Right. Did she know this person? Right. We wanted to know, why did you do this to her? You know, what happened? And so I really, like, we're going to get some answers, you know what I mean? Because initially we kind of thought, well, since he hadn't been in the coldest, he's probably dead.

Amanda Knox (16:03)

Back in the 1990s, Albert Laurel Jr. Was living only two miles from the crime scene. He was known to fish along the isolated trail Dana's body was found on. He also drove a pickup truck, which people long suspected was the vehicle that struck Dana, not a VW Bug. He would have been 25 at the time of Dana's murder. No one from law enforcement to anyone's knowledge or in any of the case files ever talked to Albert, a member of his family, or even knocked on his door during a traditional neighborhood canvass in 1991.

Ken Lawson (16:42)

When this happens and you find a body on a fishing trail and Albert Laurel lives right near there, and you're trying to solve this crime, you're gonna go talk to the neighbors and, you know, tell me who frequents this fishing trail? Who comes down here and fishes a lot? Can you tell me? They may have seen something. I want to go talk to them. Do you go over there? Right. Do you know who does? Now? Somebody down there who knows Albert because they're all together, would say, hey, man, Albert goes over. I mean, that's all he do. That's how he makes a living. He fish. So he may have seen something.

Amanda Knox (17:17)

After Steve Kramer and Steve Bush get their lead, they contact the FBI, who are working alongside the Hawaii Police Department. With the results from there, the FBI's genealogy team would take the next steps.

Steve Kramer (17:32)

I wanted them to look at it and verify it. And we knew this, too, from working at the FBI on the genetic genealogy team. We're never the FBI. Thankfully, they're not. Just take somebody's word for it and go take somebody's DNA or anything like that. Just because somebody says that's the person. The FBI is going to do their homework, verify that there's a reason that they should be out there collecting DNA from an individual.

Amanda Knox (17:57)

Between February and July of 2024, the Hawaii Police Department tries to cross their T's and dot their I's, and they want to conduct additional testing. So with the advice of Steve Kramer, they decide to go track down Albert Laurel Jr. And tail him for a bit until they are able to do a trash grab and snag one of his forks. That will enable them to develop a full DNA profile for Laurel Jr. And see if it matches the DNA profile of unknown male number one. In the meantime, Ken Lawson and everyone else at the Hawaii Innocence Project has to keep their mouths shut and not tell anyone about this new lead, even their clients, Ian and Sean.

Ken Lawson (18:44)

Because we didn't want anybody saying that they were tampering with witnesses. So let's say we tell them, hey, man, we found the guy, you know what I mean? And then something happens to him, right? We don't want anybody to be able to say that our client, if our clients was connected to him somehow, they tipped him off or whatever, you know what I mean? So it just. It makes it a lot cleaner to say they didn't know anything about this. So it protects them from all these types of different conspiracy allegations.

Amanda Knox (19:15)

So after the Hawaii Police Department pulls a fork used by Albert Laurel Jr. Things stay quiet as they wait for the results of the testing. Then finally, on July 1, 2024, the results come in, and they confirm that the DNA found at the crime scene of Dana Ireland's attack is indeed connected to Albert Laurel Jr.

Steve Kramer (19:41)

So, essentially, we were out of the loop until they did the surreptitious collection of this fork in July, and then they sent that fork to this private lab in California to create the STR to match it against the profile from the crime scene. And because of my understanding, it was an injunction by the Innocence Project in this case, there was an agreement that that lab wouldn't do anything on that case without the Innocence Project agreeing to it, and also the Innocence Project being privy to the results of that. So at that point, we knew that the lab had DNA that was collected by, I assume, the local police and. Or the FBI from this individual. And we learned a few days later that that fork, actually, the DNA contained on that fork from this individual, Albert Laurel, matched perfectly the DNA that was found on the body and clothing of Dana Ireland. So that we knew we had our guy. So I said earlier, 98% sure. Now we're 100% sure. Got right guy. This is him. So at that point, then generally. And when I say generally, like 99.9, I think every single case that we've ever done, the next step is you write up an arrest warrant for the individual, and your probable cause becomes. Not the genetic genealogy. You don't use that for probable cause. You use the DNA STR from the crime scene matches that four, and that's your probable cause. And it'll have crazy odds, like, the odds of a random match will be 1 out of 50, septillion or something like that.

Amanda Knox (21:21)

The lab notifies both the Hawaii Innocence Project and the Hawaii Police Department, but the ball is in the Hawaii Police Department's court at this point. And the more they stay quiet and the longer they take to do something, the more the team at the Hawaii Innocence Project becomes concerned that whatever nonsense happened behind the scenes that led to Shawn and Ian's wrongful conviction is the same nonsense happening behind the scenes today.

Ken Lawson (21:50)

And then when we're. Like I said, we had an agreement with the lab. And I think. I don't know if h. They must have known. I don't know why, but we had an agreement with the lab that whenever they test an item, they had to notify both parties at the same time, Hilo and us. And so, you know, Wednesday the 24th, I think it was, I'm in my office, and then, bing, you know, I get the email alert, and I look at it, and there's a lab report, and I'm reading it, and it says, that they swabbed him on Friday, July 19 and I'm looking at and the lab gets it on Tuesday the 23rd and they test it and within 24 hours they're able to come back. But it doesn't look like they've taken him into custody.

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Amanda Knox (23:41)

As Ken Lawson and the Hawaii Innocence Project try to figure out just what the heck is going on with Albert Laurel Jr. They are set off on a bit of a wild goose chase.

Ken Lawson (23:53)

I'm on the phone, I'm like, look, this lab report, he's thinking, I'm talking about the one from July 1, you know, so he keeps talking over. And I'm like, no, I'm not talking. I said, barry, I just sent you the lab report. Will you please open it and read it? And then he opens it and reads it. And then we start calling the prosecutor. You know, what the hell's going on? We're leaving messages, we're sending emails. They're not responding. This is Wednesday. On Thursday, I sent an email that had been written by Barry that talks about the suicide concern, you know, is he in custody and all that. Because we sent it to the copy, the AG on it. We copied the judge, we sent it to the judge and sent it to the prosecutors. Sent it that morning. Within five minutes the prosecutor's calling, right? And the next thing we know, the judge sets a conference for Thursday. By this time, I've already searched the jails. He's not in there. You could tell from the it didn't say that they took him into custody in the DNA report. And so. And the prosecutors Wouldn't tell us. They just kept saying, we can't tell you. Right? So when we talked to him, they're like, you know, it's an ongoing investigation. I'm like, you know, did y'all arrest him? You couldn't really tell.

Amanda Knox (25:02)

After the Hawaii Innocence Project team reaches out to the Attorney General and prosecutors, demanding to know the suspect's whereabouts, they receive an immediate response. That prompts an emergency zoom meeting between the Hawaii Innocence Project and prosecutors Shannon Kagawa and Michael Kagami. During this call, Ken and the prosecutors go back and forth about the whereabouts of their suspect, Albert Laurel Jr. Because Ken thinks it's a terrible mistake for police to tell Laurel Jr that he's a suspect, bring him into swab, and then just let him go. That just isn't acceptable. The prosecution disagrees with Ken's idea of, quote, best practices, but they're playing coy. All of this to say by the vibe of the conversation. Ken is feeling confident that Laurel Jr isn't in some jail somewhere or being held by Hawaii pd. He's sure that they've let him go. So he pushes and pushes, trying to get someone to tell him the actual truth.

Ken Lawson (26:12)

So after they respond the way they did that morning, I sent, you know, we contacted the court bailiff. He told the judge what was going on. The judge told us all to meet at 4:20 because he's in a jury trial. So at 4:20, we're on the zoom with the judge. And now the judge has already searched through all of his. He gets a report on everybody locked up in the state. So he's already searched that. Right. And so he asked why, you know, what's going on? We tell him. And so he says, you know, I searched. He's not locked up. And he turns to the prosecutor, do you have him? That's when they said, you, Honor, we can't come on go on investigation. And then that's when the judge told him. He said, what? What are you investigating that you can't say about whether or not he's in custody? How is that so important to the investigation, whether you got him or not? And so they just kept saying to the judge, we can't comment on going investigation. So then we get off the zoom. We on the zoom with the judge for, like, maybe 45 minutes, going back and forth on this. We get off the zoom, and then we meet. And Kramer's in a meeting too, right? So we're talking to Kramer, and all of us are meeting. And, you know, at one point, you know, we had Been on there for a while. So at one point, people were saying, you know what? Who all thinks that he's in custody? Raise your hand. It's like eight of us on this zoom, the legal team, you know, who all thinks that he fled, you know, because there's some evidence that he may have spent 10 years on Christmas island right after this happened from one of his kids Facebook posts. And so then people like who thinks he's dead.

Amanda Knox (27:52)

Concerned that their suspect, who was very much alive at the time, Steve Kramer and Steve Bush, identified him as Dana Ireland's killer, is now not. Ken Lawson starts making more calls.

Ken Lawson (28:06)

So I said, you know what? I'm gonna call the morgue. So Bill Harrison said, well, you know, we only have one mortgage in Honolulu. When he said we only have, he meant the entire state. So he said, anybody that dies on the Big island is going to be in Honolulu. So next morning, I called it Honolulu. And I'm like, you know, and I don't say, I want to know if you have the body. I come in, like, I presume you do, right? Because I don't want them lying to me. So I'm like, you know, can you tell me when you're gonna release the body? Can you tell me when you're gonna release the body? Something like that. And she refers me to the Hilo Police Department. But she also, like, she looks at. She says, we don't have him here, right? And then. But she's like, you know, Hilo would have him at the police department. And I find out that it was a Tuesday that they had taken. And so I called the Hilo Police Department, and the guy answers, and it's a young officer, and he's like, professional standards. And I'm like, you know, I'm looking. I want to know when you're going to release the body of Albert Lord Jr. Like, well, but maybe I can help you. You know, can you. Can you spell the last name or something? So I give him the last name, and then he puts me on hold. And, you know, I'm paranoid like you wouldn't believe, because I'm like. When she told me I had to call the police department, I'm like, oh, shit. You know, I don't care what the chief tells you, right? And so I called the police department, and I'm waiting for him to come back. Then it gets disconnected, and I'm like, shit. Then he done went back and asked somebody. He said, somebody's calling about this guy named Laura, right? And somebody told him, hey, you can't give out any information. Right. This is what I'm thinking in my head, you know, you don't. Who's. Get off the phone? He hangs up on me. So first I went. I'm like, nah, I gotta call back. Professional standards. Yeah, I was waiting. I was on hold and I got disconnected. Yeah, sorry about that. We got disconnected. Okay. You have a paper and pen handy? Yeah. Okay, first of all, let's write down the report number. The report number is 240-67088. 067088. Yes, that's the report number. And the detective who is assigned the case is detective Paul Hina. That's p O O H I N a. So thank you. Been really helpful. One question I have, though. How long do they normally hold. Hold the body? When do you think we'll be able to get his body back? That. That really depends on the. On the circumstances. I have no idea. You'd have to talk to the detective. All right, But. But he is in Hilo, though, right? Okay. Detective, isn't he? Yes. No, no, I'm saying that means his. His body's there too, then. I would assume so, yes. All right. If we. If we wanted to view it, we just make arrangements with the detective. That's a question for the detective. Okay. All right, thank you. I don't know if they'll allow that, but you can check with him. Then I started. I started playing stupid about it. I didn't know what a police report number was because I'm trying to get him to say that the body's there. And so I said, you know, why would there be a criminal report for suicide, Right? So that's what you call a loaded question. So he said something, but I said, well, you know, anytime we go out and respond. So I knew they went out and responded to the residence because anytime we go out and respond to a residence, we have to make a police report, and it has a number. So then I get off the phone with him, and I emailed the judge's clerk. I emailed it. I called Kramer first. I called Crame, and I'm like, man, you know, we was right. So then I notified the rest of the team, and then I emailed the judge's clerk. I'm like, we need a hearing. And I tell the clerk, like, dude is dead. He's like, the judge is in jury trial, but he's going to want to meet as soon as possible. So about 10 minutes later, he shoots an email over. The judge wants to everybody now the judge wants to see everybody at 12 noon. Everybody. All parties.

Amanda Knox (32:09)

That's next in chapter eight, which you can listen to next week.

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Amanda Knox (33:02)

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