For North Shore residents and others, the guilty verdict for Kirk Lankford was bittersweet.

"There is some sense of responsibility since it happened in our community," said Carol Philips, a member of the North Shore Neighborhood Board. "We were the ones that should be able to protect our guests and the members of our community better. My heart just goes out to her family."

Philips founded the World Championship for Women's Bodyboarding, which draws 15 to 20 Japanese women to the North Shore each year, and was particularly upset that Lankford killed a painfully shy woman sent to Hawai'i to learn independence.

"The Japanese girls are the sweetest, nonaggressive people probably of any culture," Philips said. "To have this happen to the innocent of the most innocent is wrong."

Jessica Lani Rich, president and executive director of the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawai'i, served as spokeswoman for Watanabe's family when she was first reported missing. "I think that justice was served," she said yesterday.

"I saw what a gut-wrenching experience it was for the family," Rich said. "By having the jurors reach closure, it should bring a certain amount of peace and comfort to the family to know that this unfortunate part of their life has come to an end."

Rich said she believes Watanabe's family members "demonstrated a tremendous amount of restraint and composure" sitting through testimony and watching Lankford during the trial.

"It was not easy for them to hear, I'm sure, about the awful acts that he did to their daughter and justified it by saying he didn't want to lose his job," she said.

The case generated a tremendous amount of publicity in Japan, Rich added, but people have to remember that it was an isolated incident in an area with little violent crime.

Most North Shore incidents, she said, "are crimes of opportunity — rental cars with a purse or a bag on the front seat. A perpetrator will take that opportunity."