http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=19&id=6210Pillar Mt. murder remains unsolved 15 years later
Article published on Thursday, May 15th, 2008
By RALPH GIBBS
Mirror Writer
When 18-year-old former Kodiak resident Carlo Medina graduates from Dimond High School this year, his father Carlos will not be there to watch as he walks across the stage.
He was not there to watch his eldest child, Maria, or his other son, Aloysius, graduate either.
However, this is not another story of a family broken by divorce. Instead, this is a story of a family torn apart by murder, an unsolved case that happened on Pillar Mountain in 1993.
The victim
Carlos Medina was born in the Philippines on Nov. 4, 1956. After graduating from Imus Institute High School, he attended Marian College and Adamson University, graduating in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in commerce.
He moved to Kodiak in 1982, and met and married his wife Tita Toledo in 1983.
In Kodiak, he worked at various jobs including five years at Kodiak Electric Association as a materials handler. He opened a restaurant, The Asia House, in 1992 and had just signed mortgage papers on a new home.
Medina was well known and active in the community, his obituary read. He helped elderly people pay their medical bills and sponsored a Filipino basketball team.
But on Saturday, May 1, 1993, Medina disappeared.
Medina’s family reported him missing Saturday evening and said he had not been seen since closing the restaurant Friday.
On Sunday, Medina’s silver Nissan truck was found just off Pillar Mountain Road.
A search of the area by about 50 volunteers from the Alaska State Troopers, Kodiak Police Department, U.S. Coast Guard, the fire department and KEA personnel eventually found Medina at approximately 6:15 p.m.
After an initial investigation, police quickly ruled his death a homicide, but did not release many details.
“By releasing (the autopsy report) we would hinder our follow up,” then Kodiak Police Chief Lt. George Weaver told the Kodiak Daily Mirror in the May 7, 1993, edition.
It was later released that Medina had been beaten to death.
Weaver said a lot of evidence was gathered at and around the crime scene, but he didn’t release details for fear of compromising the case.
One item police did talk about was Medina’s missing black briefcase and police asked the public for help in locating it.
“We don’t need to know who they are if they tell us where it is,” Weaver told the Mirror in the May 11, 1993, edition.
Medina’s brother Jerry, who now lives in Canada, said Carlos kept his credit cards and a lot of other personal items in the black briefcase.
By May 24 of that year, as Glenn Hochmuth, 19, went on trial, accused of first degree murder in the shooting death of Kristopher Cornell, 18, and Henry Willie, 25, the event began to fade from Kodiakans’ memories.
A year later, there was nothing to mark his passing except a poem by the Medina family in the Kodiak Daily Mirror.
Jerry has tried to keep the investigation in the forefront of the Kodiak Police Department by communicating with the police chief every few months.
Torn apart
It was a hard case for police to investigate. Police said the Filipino community made investigation difficult and the Filipino community accused the police of not giving the case the attention it deserved.
Police said one year after the murder, they had received only three Crime Stopper tips, none of which panned out.
In the meantime, police began to suspect Carlos’ other brother Rolando, who had returned to the Philippines, of the murder.
By 1997, word had drifted back to Jerry that Rolando was living beyond his means in the Philippines.
Rolando told relatives he’d made a lot of money in Alaska. Jerry disputes that.
Finally, Jerry flew to the Philippines to confront his brother, but with Rolando not at home, Jerry let himself in.
He alleges he found a marble bathtub, a large color television, three VCRs, 800 CDs and piles of new clothing.
Jerry also said he found a box with Carlos’ credit cards and identification missing from the briefcase police were searching for.
Jerry said he also found a box containing canceled checks from Carlos’ life insurance account.
Jerry turned the evidence over to then-Kodiak Police Chief John Palmer.
Palmer flew to the Philippines and met with Rolando. When Palmer returned to Kodiak, he appeared before a grand jury, and Rolando was charged with second-degree murder in April 1998.
Rolando claimed at the time that his brother Jerry framed him.
Rolando also was charged with first-degree theft for allegedly taking $258,000 in insurance money from Carlos’ widow and children.
The charge of murder against Rolando was dropped when DNA evidence collected at the crime scene did not support the charge.
The district attorney at the time, Michael Gray, said the new evidence does not exclude Rolando, but that it clearly points in the direction of someone else.
“We do have evidence pointing to someone else,” Sgt. Milton Bohac, the police officer now in charge of the case, said Wednesday. “We’re actively investigating those leads that came from that evidence. The problem that we’re having is that it’s a cold case and the folks that we’re looking at were, back then at the time, involved in the fishing industry and tracking them down has become problematic. We’re still in that process.”
Bohac said that often it’s easy to solve a case, but that it’s often difficult to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“There’s a difference,” Bohac said. “We can solve a case, but to prove it to a jury is our ultimate goal and that’s a requirement by the district attorney’s office and it’s oftentimes very, very hard.”
He said that is where the investigation stands now.
“I’m not saying we have enough to make an arrest now,” Bohac said. “We’re continuing on in the investigation, step by step. It’s pretty linear. You just take it one step at a time.”
Although the murder charge was dropped, the theft charges were not.
Rolando pleaded no contest to the theft charges and was ordered to pay back $60,000.
The murder remains unsolved.
“I really want to know what happened to my brother,” Jerry said. “Carlos was the head of the family and well respected. He is very much missed.”
Mirror writer Ralph Gibbs can be reached via e-mail at rgibbs@kodiakdailymirror.com.
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