Accused murderer Kirk Lankford took the witness stand in his own defense yesterday, tearfully telling jurors that victim Masumi Watanabe died accidentally and that, afraid he would lose his job, he disposed of her body at sea because he thought it would be a "peaceful" place to lay her to rest.

Lankford, 23, is accused of murdering Watanabe, 21, a reserved young woman from Japan who came to Hawai'i to learn to be more outgoing and independent, after he encountered her walking on Pupukea Road last April 12.

A pest control technician with Hauoli Pest Control, Lankford said he was driving between customer stops that morning, looking at a map book when Watanabe stepped in front of his truck.

He said he "swerved and braked" but his truck made contact with her.

"It looked like she was trying to push off the side of the truck," he said, but in the collision her arm broke the lower right-hand corner of the windshield.

Lankford said he stopped and determined that Watanabe was not badly injured and offered to give her a ride home.

He said he didn't want to report the accident because he had already been warned about bad driving and was convinced he would lose his job.

Lankford said he communicated with Watanabe through hand gestures because of the language differences between them.

When he "signaled" to her that he would give her a ride, "she appeared to understand that," because she nodded and then got into the truck, Lankford told jurors.

After driving down and up Pupukea Road, slowing at intersections and houses, Lankford could not determine where to take Watanabe, he said, and drove along other streets branching off the main road, he said.

When he reached Makana Road, he said, "I really slowed down and she indicated I should go left."

While he was driving along Makana, Watanabe "started getting more and more upset" and he began driving faster, Lankford said.

"She started getting louder and louder, speaking in Japanese," Lankford said.

Asked by defense lawyer Donald Wilkerson how much noise Watanabe was making, Lankford said, "It was pretty loud, like screaming."

He raised his voice to be heard, telling her to "calm down, calm down," until he was also yelling, Lankford said.

When Lankford was driving "35 to 40 miles per hour," Watanabe "got really quiet and she dove out of the truck," he said.

He said he continued driving along Makana and considered leaving Watanabe there.

He said he was "in shock" and felt that "she clearly didn't want my help."

But he turned around and found her lying by the edge of the road, dead from a severe head injury caused when she struck a roadside rock, Lankford told jurors.

When he described the circumstances of the death, Lankford was standing beside a map of the Pupukea area set up in front of the jury box. His back was to the audience in the court and he spoke in a very soft voice punctuated by tears.

Watanabe wasn't breathing, had no pulse and had suffered a severe head wound above her right temple, Lankford testified.

"Her head was really messed up," he said.

Lankford looked for his cell phone in the truck but couldn't find it. "I was going to call someone, call my dad. He would know what to do," the defendant said.

Lankford said he felt "terrible" and knew he would "lose my job for sure now."

Not knowing what to do, he put Watanabe's body in the back of his truck and drove off. When he was leaving, he ran over his lunch box, which had fallen out of the truck, so he turned around again to retrieve it and then found Watanabe's glasses, shoes and a small notebook with Japanese writing in it, he said. He collected those items and drove off to continue his work duties, he said.

"I kept thinking, I'm going to lose my job. The only way I'm not going to lose my job is if nobody finds out what happened," Lankford said.

WENT TO CHURCH

After finishing work that night, he dropped off his work truck with Watanabe's body still in the back at the Hauoli base yard and drove his personal truck home to Kalihi, he said. He took his wife, Corinne, and their son to church, where he was an active member, and sat in on band practice, falling asleep at one point with his son in his arms, he said.

He later took his wife and son home and went to Home Depot to buy a shovel, garbage bags, duct tape, gloves and a flashlight. He said he had decided to bury Watanabe because that "seemed like the right thing to do."

He drove back to work, moved Watanabe's body to his personal truck and drove to Kahana Bay on the Windward side of O'ahu.

He had put the body in three successive garbage bags, he said, duct-taping each bag closed.

He stopped at Kahana Bay at around midnight. He picked the spot because "I was trying to think of a place to bury her, a place that would be peaceful, I guess." And he added that he "really didn't want anybody to see me."

But he had bought the wrong kind of shovel, with a square blade that would only "scrape at the surface" of the earth at Kahana, Lankford said.

And while trying to dig the hole, he was interrupted by John Thoma, a homeless man who testified earlier in the trial that he frequented Kahana Bay because a close friend of his had been murdered there only months earlier and he liked to visit a small memorial he had erected in her memory.

Thoma demanded to know what Lankford was up to and pointed out the memorial that was right nearby, Lankford said.

"That really freaked me out when he said that. There was a dead person in the back of my truck," Lankford said.

When Thoma "said something about calling the police," Lankford left and drove along Kamehameha Highway toward Kane'ohe.

He stopped by the ocean near Kualoa Ranch, stripped down to his boxer shorts and carried Watanabe's body out to sea, walking barefoot on the reef as far as he could until the waves were "chest high," he said.

Then he released the body. "I thought that would hopefully be as peaceful as being buried beside the ocean," Lankford said.

Lankford said he "walked and swam back to shore," learning from his lawyer much later that it was high tide when he disposed of the body.

He said he did not injure his bare feet on the reef or rocks because they were "kind of calloused" from wearing thin-soled shoes.

He threw Watanabe's shoes, the duct tape, garbage bags and blood-stained paper towels in a trash bin at Windward Mall, he said.

He disposed of the shovel in a trash bin near his home.

'I WAS SCARED'

When he was later interviewed by police as a possible witness in the case, he didn't tell the truth, he said.

"I was scared. I was ashamed of what I had done. I knew what I had done was not the right thing at all even though I did it for what seemed like the right reason," Lankford said.

Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle began his cross-examination of the defendant late in the afternoon, immediately homing in on Lankford's original statement to police.

Although he told HPD officer Phil Camero that he had never seen Watanabe, Carlisle asked, "You knew that she had been killed, correct?"

"I knew she was dead," Lankford replied. "Just because somebody's dead doesn't mean somebody killed her."

"You knew she had gotten dead, didn't you?" Carlisle then asked.

"Yes," Lankford answered.

"It was your plan and intention to lie?" Carlisle asked.

"I purposely lied to him," the defendant answered.

Lankford's testimony has been anticipated as the central part of the trial since it began six weeks ago. He took the stand wearing a brown suit, white shirt and floral-designed tie which he said his mother picked out for him.

His parents were in court yesterday, but not his wife. In response to questions from Wilkerson, Lankford said he married his wife when she was 16 and he was 19. They have two young sons.

He said he is the sole financial support for his family and was earning about $72,000 per year from Hauoli before he was arrested.

Cross-examination resumes this morning.