Father Of Hawaii Boy Missing For Two Decades Is Sentenced

He gets 20 years in prison — and must serve a minimum of nearly seven — in the death of a child known as “Peter Boy.”

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(AP) — The father of a 6-year-old Hawaii boy who disappeared two decades ago was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, fulfilling a deal with prosecutors that required him to reveal the location of his son’s body.

Peter Kema Sr. must serve a minimum of six years and eight months.

Though Kema led police and prosecutors to a remote coastal area of the Big Island in April, water and time prevented authorities from finding any remains, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rick Damerville said.Kema later passed a polygraph test, which said he was telling the truth about where he disposed of the remains and allowed his sentencing to move forward.

Prosecutors believe the child, known as “Peter Boy,” was abused and died from septic shock after a festering arm sore went untreated.

FILE - In this April 5, 2017, file photo, Peter Kema Sr., left, pleads guilty to manslaughter and first-degree hindering prosecution, in Hilo Circuit Court in Hilo, Hawaii, in the death of his son, Peter Kema Jr., also known as "Peter Boy," who went missing in 1997. Kema Sr. pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 20-year sentence on the condition that he reveal the location of the child's remains. (Hollyn Johnson/Hawaii Tribune-Herald via AP, Pool, File)
In this April 5 file photo, Peter Kema Sr., left, pleads guilty to manslaughter and first-degree hindering prosecution, in Hilo Circuit Court, in the death of his son, Peter Kema Jr., also known as “Peter Boy,” who went missing in 1997. AP

The Kemas have long been suspects in their son’s disappearance, but prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to charge them until last year, when a grand jury indicted the couple on murder counts.

After Peter vanished in 1997, he became the face of a Hawaii campaign for missing and abused children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Posters and bumper stickers asked, “So where’s Peter?”

Peter Kema told authorities that he took his son from the Big Island to Oahu and gave him to someone named “Aunty Rose Makuakane” in an informal adoption. Police could not find a woman as described by Kema or airline records that indicated he had flown there.

Sometime between May and June 1997, the couple’s then-4-year-old daughter heard Jayline Kema calling out for her husband and saw her trying to resuscitate the boy, prosecutors said. The girl later saw her brother in a box, prosecutors said.

In 2005, then-state Human Services Director Lillian Koller released more than 2,000 pages of heavily redacted documents, detailing allegations of abuse suffered by Peter and his siblings at the hands of their father.

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