The Johnson family spoke with Big Island Chronicle last week, and shared that in the time they were on Hawaii Island, police kept them under constant surveillance. Kathy and Tom Johnson, their son, Mark, and their family friend Matt Hale left out of Kona International Airport on Thursday, June 13, with police following them all the way to the airport, they said. According to Kathy and Tom, undercover police officers approached Mark Johnson in the airport, asked him to present his identification and had him remove his tee shirt to positively confirm he wasn’t Boaz Johnson trying to board an airplane. Mark Johnson and Hale are back where they reside in Illinois and Kathy and Tom Johnson are at home in Petersburg, Ill., largely because they were so unnerved on the island with police following them around constantly, and then being so evasive with them whenever the sought information asked about the case. But the Johnson family continues from afar to try and figure out what happened to Boaz and Brittany, who was an estimated three months pregnant. Meanwhile, police won’t say too much to the media to compromise any part of their investigation, but they are appealing to the public in hopes of leads pertaining to the disappearance of Boaz and murder of Brittany. “This is an active investigation, no one is in custody, Mr. Johnson’s whereabouts is currently unknown,” Hawaii Police Lt. Greg Esteban told the Big Island Chronicle Monday. Esteban stressed that there was very little he would comment on, and that he absolutely would not speak about any “comments” or “innuendos” made on any social media platform, like this website or Facebook. The Johnson family, in an interview with Hawaii Tribune-Herald’s John Burnett, had suggested that police look into threats someone in a lava tour business in Kalapana had made to Boaz Johnson. That individual has since announced in Facebook posts that he had gone to the police to rule himself out as a suspect. He has not yet responded to a request for an interview with Big Island Chronicle. Esteban on Monday would not comment on whether that individual had in fact come to the Hawaii Police Station and taken a polygraph test last week. Esteban noted that this is “an active investigation.” “With any investigation we go through the process of including or excluding individuals,” Esteban said. Also, an individual has publicly revealed he spoke with Boaz on the phone the morning that Royal’s body was pulled from the ocean. Having spoken so openly, that individual’s name and claim have been referred to on multiple online forums, including the comment section of Burnett’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald piece last week. Asked if someone spoke to Boaz on the phone the morning Brittany’s body was discovered, Esteban put this reporter on hold momentarily, then came back on the line, saying, “This is an active investigation. We’re in the process of acquiring data or records through subpoena. It’s a standard practice.” Asked who the fisherman was that first discovered Brittany’s body in the water, Esteban would not comment. Nor would he say which lava tour boat operator the fisherman had left the body with before authorities arrived. ”No comment,” he said. ”I’m not going to volunteer information in an active investigation.” Esteban also would not say whether there were other individuals out on the lava camping alongside Brittany and Boaz Johnson at the time of her murder and his disappearance. “No comment on that.” “There is a missing person case,” Esteban said. “Mr. Johnson is the subject in that case. He is a missing person. Then there is a murder case, and Mr. Johnson hasn’t been excluded as a suspect.” This reporter pointed out that police previously have referred to Johnson as a “person of interest,” and that term is not necessarily synonymous with “suspect.” “Mr. Johnson hasn’t been ruled out as a suspect,” Esteban reiterated. In related news, BIC reached the person claiming to have talked with Boaz the morning Brittany’s body was found. He goes by “Kalapana Ed.” “I believe this is a police matter,” Kalapana Ed responded, when BIC sought an “on-camera” interview with him. ”If police say it’s okay — this is getting way out of control!” Kalapana Ed noted the recent Hawaii Tribune-Herald story in which the Johnson family suggested there was a tie with one of the lava tour companies. ”With what was in the paper, I’m not throwing any more heat in the fire. I’m going to let the police take care of this,” Kalapana Ed said, before hanging up on this reporter. U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Bill Taylor, who handles vessel inspections on the Big Island, could not tell BIC Monday which fisherman and what lava tour boat company had had contact with Brittany’s body on May 28. “I don’t know anything about that stuff, I wasn’t alerted,” Taylor said. “If it was reported to police, maybe they should have contacted us.” He suggested BIC call the Coast Guard Command Center on Oahu for more information. Petty Officer Eric Abarca, who answered at the Coast Guard Command Center Monday, noted that the Coast Guard has a memorandum of agreement with local authorities that the USCG does not get involved in search and rescue and body recovery within two miles of the shoreline. The Coast Guard was not alerted to the disappearance of Boaz because there was “no confirmation he was in the water,” Abarca said, adding, with the recovery of Brittany’s body, “if it was not the fault of a marine casualty, then the Coast Guard is not involved.” Abarca then suggested this reporter was “digging in the weeds” with further questioning, and should contact Coast Guard’s public affairs officer Lt. Kevin Cooper. Cooper did not immediately return a telephone message. FBI agents in Honolulu, meanwhile, aren’t aware of the case, and wouldn’t be able to speak about it if they were, because it’s an active investigation, noted Special Agent Tom Simon, who acts as that office’s spokesperson. He said he was happy to talk with BIC nevertheless.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:07:21 +0000
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