Murder in Paradise: A Christmas in Hawaii Turns to Tragedy

By all accounts, 23–year–old Dana Ireland would have been successful at whatever she chose to do with her life. But she didn't get that chance. On Christmas Eve, 1991, this blonde–haired, blue–eyed young woman set off on her bicycle. As she was riding back to the holiday meal, three local youths decided to celebrate Christmas in a different way. They followed her in their car, then rammed her bike, kidnapped, raped, and beat her, and left her for dead on an isolated spot overlooking the ocean. In a community where many residents left their doors unlocked, people were shocked and terrified by this random, brutal act of violence. Worse still was that if the authorities hadn't taken so long to get to the victim, she might have lived. As months and years went by, frustration turned to outrage when police failed to arrest anyone for Dana's murder. But from his home in Springfield, Virginia, John Ireland started his own dogged investigation and crusade for justice. And nine years after his daughter's murder, after one of the most complicated cases the state had ever seen, three men were convicted. Here is a dramatic true story.

It Can't Happen Here

Hawaii is Heaven-on-Earth, with its soft, flower-scented breezes, clear turquoise ocean water, and gently swaying palms. But on Christmas Eve 1991, it became a place of darkest evil, when Dana Ireland was kidnapped by three strangers, raped, savagely beaten, and left to die in the early hours of Christmas morning. A vivacious, 23-year-old visitor to the "Big Island," her life ended prematurely thanks to a terrible, senseless assault and the failure of rescue workers to reach the crime scene on time. Then the local police seemed unable to catch her killers. But one man refused to let the bloody outrage go unpunished. From his Virginia home thousands of miles away, John Ireland, Dana's father, launched his own investigation — a determined hunt for his daughter's killers that would stretch out over nearly a decade ... and spark one of the most intensive manhunts and one of the most sensational and shocking trials in the idyllic island's history.