A homeless man who lives in a World War II-era Army bunker near Kahana Bay provided riveting testimony for the prosecution yesterday in the murder trial of Kirk Matthew Lankford.

John Thoma told jurors that he encountered Lankford digging a hole by flashlight at Kahana Bay shortly before midnight on April 12, 2007, the day Lankford allegedly murdered Japanese visitor Masumi Watanabe.

Watanabe's body has never been recovered.

Thoma said he frequented the area because a close friend of his, Lin Hannon, had been killed there two months earlier and he was visiting a memorial he had placed at the site where her body had been found.

When he saw the flashlight, Thoma said, "I figured I'd go find out what was going on."

He said he saw a man dressed in blue coveralls, wearing "brand new gloves" and digging a hole in the ground with "a brand new shovel."

"I asked him what he was doing. He told me that two months prior he had lost a gold chain" in the area and was trying to find it.

Thoma said when he asked the man what his name was, "He said Matt. I said Matt what? He said Matt Ford."

Thoma testified that the name "just didn't sound right," so he told the man, "that sounds like BS — can I see some ID?"

The man said he did not have identification with him or in his pickup truck parked nearby.

"I asked him to stick around so I could get a police officer and he started hustling away," Thoma told the jury.

When the man drove off, Thoma was worried about remembering the truck's license plate, so he tried scratching it in the ground but he couldn't.

So he used a knife and scratched the license plate number four times in the white stripe running along the side of Kamehameha Highway.

But he still transposed the numbers with the letters. Instead of scratching NXF562, he wrote 562NXF.

"I don't know why I did that," Thoma said.

Police later identified the license plate as belonging to a pickup truck owned by Lankford.

Thoma said he also has trouble remembering faces, but remembered Lankford's because "he looked like my brother-in-law."

In court yesterday, Thoma identified Lankford as the man he saw that night by Kahana Bay.

He acknowledged under questioning from Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle that he has abused alcohol and used drugs in the past, but said he has stopped.

Asked if drug use last April could have affected his memory, Thoma told Carlisle, "That's what I read in the paper that you said, but I don't agree with it."

Defense lawyer Donald Wilkerson asked Thoma if he was frightened when he confronted a stranger in the middle of night in such a remote spot.

"I just got done saying the Our Father out loud," Thoma said. "That's what Lin (Hannon) and I had gotten in the habit of doing when we felt bad. I felt that I had God's armor on."

Wilkerson asked if he wasn't concerned the stranger with a shovel might attack him.

Thoma said he wasn't and even turned his back on Lankford at one point "when I was checking out a centipede — the biggest damn centipede I ever saw."

Law enforcement personnel yesterday said Lankford is not considered a suspect in the Hannon killing. Police said the case is still under investigation.

Lankford's alleged victim, Watanabe, was last seen walking mauka on Pupukea Road on O'ahu's North Shore the morning of April 12.

The prosecution alleges Lankford encountered her that morning while he was servicing customer accounts for the company he worked for, Hauoli Pest Control.

GLASSES, BLOOD FOUND

Yesterday afternoon, police evidence specialists testified that they recovered a pair of eyeglasses matching those worn by Watanabe from Lankford's work vehicle, wedged between the passenger seat and seat back.

The evidence technicians also testified that they discovered what appeared to be human blood on the passenger seat and door panel in the Hauoli truck.

The blood traces weren't visible to the naked eye, but became evident when sprayed with Luminol, a chemical that reacts with the hemoglobin in blood, said evidence specialist Veronica DeMello.

DNA analysts are expected to testify that the blood found in the truck was Watanabe's. The 23-year-old woman, from Sato Island in Japan, was nearing the end of a three-month stay with relatives here when she disappeared.

Her mother testified earlier in the trial that her daughter was a very shy and introverted young woman and the Hawai'i visit was intended to help her grow more independent and outgoing.

Lankford has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. He told police when first interviewed in the case that he never saw Watanabe before and never had her in his truck.

Defense lawyer Wilkerson has asked questions of witnesses in the trial that indicate Lankford may claim to have accidentally struck Watanabe with his truck by driving too close to the shoulder of Pupukea Road.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.