A retired LAPD
homicide detective has been arrested in the fatal beating of his wife in Hawaii
six years ago after being long suspected of the crime, police officials said
Tuesday.
Dan DeJarnette,
59, was taken into custody without incident Monday night at his home on the Big
Island in connection with the slaying of his wife, Yu Dejarnette.
He said at the
time of her November 2006 death that he had awakened and found her lying on a
lava embankment about 20 feet from the couple’s home in Ka'u on the southern
end of island. She suffered severe head trauma and was later pronounced dead at
a hospital.
DeJarnette told
patrol officers his 56-year-old wife had been hurt in an accident. But an
autopsy determined she died from head trauma, and the retired officer was
booked on suspicion of murder — and then released because of lack of evidence.
But authorities
took a new look at the case in January. After additional investigation that
included testing of DNA evidence, prosecutors secured an indictment against
DeJarnette from a Hawaii grand jury, according to sources familiar with the
case. They declined to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
He was
scheduled to make his first appearance Tuesday in a Hawaiian courtroom. He was
being held in lieu of $200,000 bail.
The indictment comes just days after former LAPD Det. Stephanie Lazarus was
sentenced to 27 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole for
killing her ex-boyfriend's wife nearly three decades ago in a fit of rage and
jealousy.
LAPD Lt. Andy
Neiman had no immediate comment on the DeJarnette case because he said
DeJarnette is retired and the LAPD is not handling the criminal investigation.
After joining
the LAPD in 1982, DeJarnette worked as a homicide detective at the Van Nuys
Division and investigated rape cases while assigned to the department’s Robbery
Homicide Division-Rape Special Section.
During his
tenure, he handled several high-profile investigations, including a fatal
Christmas night shooting at an Echo Park pizza parlor in 1990, the 1993
stabbing death of a woman and her unborn baby at an automated teller machine in
Sherman Oaks, and a 1981 cold-case murder of a newlywed in her Sherman Oaks
home by a serial rapist.
DeJarnette
moved to the Big Island after his retirement in 2003 from the LAPD.
In a 2009
interview with the Associated Press in a story about high unemployment in
Hawaii, DeJarnette mentioned he had worked for the LAPD but not his previous
arrest.
''I get kind of
bored sitting at home,” DeJarnette told the wire service, noting he wanted to
pay down some of his credit cards. "My wife passed a couple years ago, and
now I'm waiting every day for the mailman to come, so I need to work."