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New Website Aims at Locating Body of Murdered Tourist

By Minna Sugimoto

HONOLULU (KHNL) -- He never knew her, but wants desperately to find her. An Oahu man launches a website to help locate the body of murdered Japanese tourist Masumi Watanabe.

Bob Iinuma doesn't walk up to people to hand them fliers. He runs.

"Excuse me. Excuse me," he called out to pedestrians. "Could I leave this flier off with you?"

After all, he's rushing to find the body of Masumi Watanabe, a visitor from Japan who vanished April 12th and is believed to have been murdered.

"I have children about the same age as Masumi," Iinuma said. "It's almost impossible to imagine what the parents are going through."

Iinuma never knew Watanabe. But he was driven to create a website, findmasumi.org. It features a biography of the shy 21-year-old, a map of areas searched, and a condolence album.

"Please let your friends know and we need the community's support," Iinuma said to a pedestrian.

"Sure, absolutely," the man replied.

Iinuma says he met the grieving parents and got approval for the site.

"We had an interpreter with us and the interpreter was crying," he said. "The interpreter couldn't handle it and we did our best. I talked to the father as a father to a father."

Twenty-two-year-old Kirk Lankford, a former pest control worker, is charged with Watanabe's murder.

"She was a beautiful, young lady and had dreams and had a future," Iinuma said. "And more so why we need to find her."

Find her and return her to her family.

You can click on the Friends of Masumi link. 

Lankford's trial is set to begin next month.