Darnell Griffin was convicted yesterday of the 1999 murder of Evelyn Luka in a "cold case" murder trial that was based largely on a DNA match made eight years after Luka was found strangled and near death beside H-2 Freeway.

A Circuit Court jury acquitted Griffin, 50, of a second charge of sexually assaulting the 19-year-old Luka before killing her.

Griffin was on parole from an earlier murder conviction when he met Luka the evening of Sept. 5, 1999, at a Kapi'olani Boulevard nightclub and offered her a ride to her Salt Lake area home. He attacked and strangled her, dumping her nearly lifeless body out of his car the following morning.

Prosecutor Kevin Takata called Griffin a sexual predator who "was on his way to becoming a serial killer" and called the conviction "one of the most gratifying" in his career as a prosecutor.

Griffin is believed to be the first defendant charged under a 1996 state law that calls for a life term without parole for a murderer convicted of a second murder.

"He will breathe his last in prison," said Takata. "We're getting him off the street and keeping him off the street."

Griffin, a computer technician who came to Hawai'i while serving in the Army in the 1970s, said nothing when the verdict was read but spoke quietly with his attorney before court was adjourned.

Defense lawyer E. Edward Aquino was not available for comment after the verdict was returned.

Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario will sentence Griffin July 1.

FAMILY THANKFUL

Luka's brother, Air Force Maj. James Morimoto, tearfully thanked prosecutors and police for their work in the case, singling out HPD homicide Detective Sheryl Sunia for "having the insistence to see this through."

Sunia arranged to have DNA evidence collected from Luka's body analyzed and placed in a DNA database maintained by law enforcement here and on the Mainland.

After the Legislature passed a law in 2005 requiring all convicted felons, whether in prison or not, to contribute DNA samples to the database, Griffin's parole officer obtained a sample from him in 2006.

That sample was matched to the Luka evidence in 2007.

Griffin's defense in the trial was that he and Luka had consensual sex two days before the murder and that he was at home with his wife the night Luka died.

Griffin did not testify in the trial. His wife, Nancy, originally told police in 2007 that she couldn't remember where her husband was on a specific night eight years earlier.

But she testified in the trial that Griffin was at home with her the night of the murder because it was a Sunday and Griffin "is always home on Sunday."

POSSIBLE SUSPECTS

During the trial, defense lawyer Aquino tried to cast suspicion on a number of other possible suspects in the case, including Luka's husband, Kevin, who is also an Air Force major.

Morimoto said after the verdict, he and his sister and Kevin Luka were high school classmates and he called Kevin Luka "a good husband who loved and cared for my sister."

"Kevin and his family and our family have suffered so much," Morimoto said, both in the aftermath of Evelyn's death and during the course of the trial.

Takata said the jury's decision to acquit Griffin of the sex assault charge was "curious" but didn't matter given the murder conviction.

"I can understand that the jurors had problems with the charge," Takata said.

Takata praised Deputy Prosecutor Leilani Tan for her assistance in the trial, saying she pointed out that the pants Luka was wearing when police found her were oversized and baggy and could not have belonged to her.

Takata argued to the jury that the pants were the same size worn by Griffin's wife and that Griffin dressed the victim in replacement clothing after tearing off her original clothing when he attacked her.