Larry Mendonca
Appearances
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Fortunately, the arrival of a new Kauai police chief put his plans on hold. Daryl Perry, a 30-year veteran of the Honolulu PD, agreed to meet with Larry and listen to his theories about the case.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Wandering through this land, you wonder if you've been transported to the beginning of biblical time. to a garden free of want, temptation, or betrayal. And in a land so distractingly beautiful, tourists who ebb and flow like the tides could be forgiven for looking past this lone, tormented father, begging for help for a terrible reason to solve the murder of his precious daughter, Sandy.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Chief Perry was struggling to tell us that he did know what it was like to lose a child. He came out of retirement and took the job as head of the Kauai Police Department after the sudden death of his 26-year-old son, Erickson.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
So after meeting with Larry, Chief Perry sent Sandra's file to a couple of friends in Honolulu, investigators with the state attorney general's cold case unit. I asked them to see if they can find anything else that we may have missed. And they did indeed find something.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Using what was breakthrough science for that time, early 2009, cold case investigators extracted touch DNA from Sandra's shirt and bra. Chief Perry called Larry with the news.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
It took a scientific breakthrough to finally get Larry Mendonca the help he was pleading for. Touched DNA, microscopic skin cells on Sandra's shirt and bra. It was a match to Darren. When that result came in, tell me what your first thoughts were. Who got him? But Larry was wary.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Because what seemed like great evidence to the cops did not to the newly elected prosecuting attorney, Shailene Aseri. For one simple reason, the DNA did not exclusively match Darren.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But 2009 ended as it had begun, with the case in stasis. No breaks, no leads, no arrests. And 2010 was no different. Same for 2011. Nothing. It's fair to say Sandra's murder investigation was very much cold. So, 2012 now, six years after the murder, and three years after that DNA test, Chief Perry gave the case to a new detective named Bryson Poncey.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
who reexamined the physical evidence, like Sandra's car, undisturbed since the day she was murdered.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And so Ponce circled right back to those original two suspects, husband Darren, boyfriend Ryan. But which one? From the file, Ponce learned Ryan, in addition to being a drug trafficker, had also been convicted of domestic violence. And was there something fishy about how he found Sandra's body? He told the cops he went to Sandra's house. Doors were locked.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Said he peered through these ventilation slats at the base of her garage wall. Said he saw Sandra in her car.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Called a friend to help him find a body? Wouldn't be the first time a guilty party did that. And did Ryan remain here at the scene, wait for the police officers and talk to them there? Was there anything in the report about his demeanor that night?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Yeah, he was holding back a little. Yeah, and maybe he was a little bit nervous. But Ryan had an alibi, right? He was at work when Sandra was killed. Well, Fonse found out the estimated time of Sandra's death was really more of a rough guess. And that Sandra could just as well have been murdered hours earlier, when Ryan wasn't at work.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And then there were the results from Ryan's 2006 polygraph exam. What was the result of that?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Which didn't look good for Ryan. Except Darren's polygraph result didn't look so great either. How'd he do?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
He didn't pass. Now that was interesting. Both suspects failed the polygraph. So now Ponce looked at the evidence against Darren. who gave police two entirely different accounts of the morning of the murder. First, he said Sandra came by to get the kids. Then, a minute later, said she didn't. Now, remember, Darren and Sandra were going through a divorce and a heated child custody battle.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
So Darren apparently thought it'd be a good idea to take note of run-ins with Sandra, like the time she was late in picking up the boys, hoping it would one day help him in court.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Why is that important? Because Sandra was murdered that very morning, the morning of the 25th, about the time when she would have been picking up her sons.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But he didn't. Nor did he call her to find out why she was a no-show. Ponce theorized that Sandra actually did go to Darren's house to get the boys, but there was an argument of some sort, and she left without them. Darren, still angry, followed her home, parking his truck on a street behind Sandra's cul-de-sac.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
So you think that Darren came up, followed her, had the confrontation there, killed her with a ligature, choked her to death, then what did he do?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And nobody saw him? You know, it was still dark. Ponce also found this email Sandra sent her lawyer just three weeks before her murder. Darren started asking me about my boyfriend, as he calls him, Ryan. He got really upset and started swearing at me. He started shaking me, telling me to tell him the truth and don't ever call him again. Ponce worked the investigation for close to a year.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
It's all good. We first came upon Larry Mendonca, well, on another Dateline assignment, way back in 2009. which is when we shot this video. He was 68 years old then. Alone, he worked, handing out flyers, gruff and stoic, except when the pain was just too much. I just said, you know, three years.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And as he weighed and reweighed the evidence, he always came back to Darren. who lacked an alibi, who called in sick to work, who gave conflicting accounts about the morning of the murder, who left blank the diary entry for the 25th, who failed a polygraph, who was jealous of Ryan, who never called Sandy to find out why she didn't pick up the boys.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Ponce delivered his final report to Chief Perry and Prosecutor Aseri and a handful of fellow investigators.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And Prosecutor Aseri finally agreed to present the case to a grand jury. And in October 2012, the grand jury indicted Darren for Sandra's murder. So, was Larry's quest for justice finally over? Oh, no. Not by a long shot.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
On October 31st, 2012, Darren Gallus was charged with the murder of his wife, Sandra. He pleaded not guilty, was released on bail. Six and a half months later, on May 15th, 2013, Sandra's dad, Larry, and mom, Toshi, held this memorial dedication service outside Kauai's Domestic Violence Center. Chief Perry was there, as was Bryson Ponce. But Darren stayed away, as did Sandra's two sons.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
At this point, Larry and Toshi thought they were in the home stretch. So Darren's trial was just months away. But the prosecuting attorney who indicted Darren lost her bid for reelection. Defeated by this man, Justin Collar, who flat out accused his predecessor of bringing charges against Darren to make a splash and help her chances of re-election.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
So now, Larry's quest for justice was mired in a political battle. with the new prosecutor saying he couldn't proceed because the alternate suspect, Ryan Shinjo, had never been completely eliminated.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Former prosecutor Shailene Aseri fired back, saying the entire investigative team voted to seek an indictment.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
She's dreaming, said Collar. She never would have won. So Collar reopened the investigation again and delayed the trial again while his office tried to strengthen the case. And the result was one trial delay after another. And three years later, 2015 now, Larry was one furious 74-year-old man.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But you must have been ready to let it go at some point. You know, we can't do this, let's forget about it.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
It was Larry's kind of constant input part of the thing that kept you going here?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
When we spoke to Larry in 2015, Darren's trial was on the calendar for March of the following year. Are the odds Larry gave of that happening?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But even that was optimistic. The trial was delayed again until November 2016. But as that trial date approached, the defense requested another delay and the judge granted it. The case was continued to August 2017. And as that date approached... We look back on what Larry said to us in 2015. Someday this is going to end, one way or another.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Early in the morning of the 14th of February, 2017, Larry Mendonca, age 75, went out to play a round of golf, wasn't feeling well, called his son Lawrence in Texas.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry took us to Sandra's grave, told us how he promised to bring her killer to justice.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry Mendonca didn't comprehend what was happening to him as he walked this fairway, played his round of golf. It was only later when the doctor intervened, rushed him by air ambulance to Honolulu. Heart attack, then quintuple bypass surgery. And then a stroke. It was difficult for me to see how vulnerable he was at that time. Because he'd always seemed like the invulnerable man.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
It was sheer cussedness, probably, that pulled him back from the brink.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry spent months in physical therapy to build up the strength to attend Darren Gallus' trial, scheduled for the summer of 2017. But it was delayed yet again. And Darren, during all this time? Out and about. This time we found him at Sun Austin's soccer game. That's him wearing the black T-shirt, gold chain, and wraparound sunglasses. And in the blue shirt, his wife, Shireen.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
We had no idea, then, where this meeting would lead us, that our journey would last a decade, in case it would expose evil lurking in this garden paradise and bring Larry to the edge of his own mortality. Many on Kauai News, Sandra, even watched her as a teenager dancing in a local marketing video. Later, as a 20-something, at the head of a parade float.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry and his wife Toshi were there at the soccer game, too. Always are. And what Larry felt in his chest was more rage than physical pain.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Then, late 2017, a breakthrough. The prosecutor felt his investigators had finally and fully eliminated Ryan as a suspect, which now only left Darren in their sights.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Darren agreed to plead no contest to assault. You had a murder case here. No contest to assault sounds like not very bad.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And on January 29th, 2018, 12 years after Sandra's murder, we were with Larry outside the courthouse just an hour before the plea hearing, and as you might have guessed, he wasn't happy. There's no justice. What are the chances that thing could fall apart over there this morning?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
as Darren formally changed his plea from not guilty to murder two to no contest to assault one, was not final resolution, but more delay. The court granted Darren four more months of freedom before sentencing. And Larry? Well... I'm very mad. I'm very upset. There was once a time, just after Sandra's murder, when Larry and Toshi were hoping to raise Sandra's boys.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
As he left court, Darren was protected by a phalanx of friends and relatives, which included the two grandsons. Darren declined to speak with us, but his defense lawyer, Michael Green, did stop to talk.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But now, for four months... uncertainty because the judge had the power to sentence Darren to anything from 10 years in prison to probation. What I foresee at sentencing, they're going to ask for leniency. Do you think he could actually avoid going to prison altogether?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
On May 30th, 2018, we were back outside the courthouse with Larry Mendonca. This time, he was the one surrounded by supporters. A 12-year investigation, now reduced to just an hour in court, that felt as stressful and tense as any jury trial. Would Darren be carted off to prison? Or would the judge give him probation and send him home?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Darren's lawyer, Michael Green, reminded the judge there had been an alternate suspect.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Then he told the judge to remember this was not a murder case.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And then Larry got his chance, finally, to let 12 years of pain pour out, starting with that first awful night when he broke the news to Toshi.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Darren stoically sat through it all. And then, what sentence would the judge impose? She began by quoting Darren's attorney.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Like many here, she was multiracial, growing up in a household that was half Japanese, half Portuguese, all Hawaiian. And a devout Catholic who attended St. Catherine's School with friends Alma Umala and Joni Morita. So when people ask you, what was Sandy like, you tell them.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And Larry's stomach started to tighten. And my lawyer reached over and she says, this doesn't sound good. And then, six minutes into her ruling, finally, here it was.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Ten years. The maximum she could oppose. And with that, the Mendonca family's 12-year quest for justice came to an end.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry and Toshi follow a series of rituals on the anniversary of Sandra's death. They bring flowers to her memorial outside the YWCA, have lunch at the Beach House restaurant where Sandra once worked, and they pray by her graveside at Holy Cross Cemetery, where she is surrounded by her ancestors. Sandra, so homesick when away from this island she loved, is now forever a part of it.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
In high school, Sandra was an athlete, a cheerleader, very popular.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Discipline, a very important thing to Larry, he the 20-year Air Force veteran.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
That was why Mary insisted Sandra leave Kauai to go to college. She ended up in Honolulu. But for a small island girl, it felt as big and lonely as New York City. She missed Kauai, her family, and would come home as often as she could.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Darren Gallas, a little older, made good money at his highway construction job. Sandra was crazy about him. And soon after she moved home, they got married. Son Austin came nine months later, and Brayden two years after that. So by the age of 24, Sandra was the matriarch of her own little clan.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
life was good, until April 2005, when Sandra came to her parents very upset.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
By June, Darren had moved out. And Sandra moved on, got a job at the Beach House Restaurant, an island landmark. It was a life changer.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Krista Hall was a waitress at the Beach House and saw firsthand Sandra's transformation from quiet island girl to young working woman.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Sandra started going out with friends. And as is pretty obvious in this concert video, she was enjoying her new life. But before too long, Sandra started getting friendly with one of the chefs, a recent transplant from Oahu named Ryan Shinjo.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Going on Honolulu shopping trips, for instance, where Ryan would lavish expensive gifts on Sandra, like Louis Vuitton luggage. Larry and Sandra's mom, Toshi, knew little of this relationship. And on January 25, 2006, were in Dallas visiting their son when they got an odd call from Sandra's boss.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Hours later, the phone rang again. It was 3 a.m., a time when bad news comes calling. Larry's son answered the phone.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
She was beyond the Eden of the tourist sea. out of sight of the rich and verdant estates of the wealthy few. She was in a neighborhood more working class suburbia than Polynesian paradise. In her own small ranch house, in her garage, in her car, she'd been strangled to death. It was Sandra's new boyfriend, Ryan Shinjo, who called the police, said he found her that way.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Roy Asher was one of the original investigators. We spoke to him in 2009. This was three years after Sandra was murdered.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Sandra's shirt and bra were askew. Her lip was split, as if she'd been punched in the face. Ryan, the boyfriend, he's the one on the right of the screen, told investigators he'd discovered Sandra's body around 9 p.m., but the cops could see she had been dead for a while by then.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Could you get any more exact? No. Given that the estranged husband, Darren, used to live with Sandra and Ryan was now dating her, their fingerprints could certainly be explained. Nothing suspicious there. But Ryan finding the body? Well, that was potentially suspicious. Did he have an alibi? Yes. And it checked out? Yes. Do you remember what it was? He was at work. So who else?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Well, there was Sandra's estranged husband, Darren, of course. And this was interesting. That morning he called in sick. So in other words, he didn't have an alibi? No. Based simply on that lack of an alibi, the police arrested Darren.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But even as Larry tried to wrap his mind around that idea, a detective called him the following day.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Meaning what? Was Darren involved or not? Hit by grief and impatient for answers, Larry launched an investigation of his own.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
As a native Kaua'ian and veteran Air Force intelligence analyst, Larry had both the connections and the skills to piece together the details surrounding his daughter's murder. For instance, he found out that two days before the killing, Darren, while working on a road crew, saw Sandra and Ryan together.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
At that time, and this is important to the case, Sandra and Darren shared custody of their two sons, but remember, she worked evenings at the restaurant, so the boys slept over with Darren, and at 6 o'clock in the morning, she would show up, pick them up, take them off for breakfast, get them ready for school and daycare.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
But Larry discovered that on the night before she was murdered, Sandra stayed over at Ryan's house, her boyfriend. He dropped her off at her place at 6 a.m., And then the neighbors told Larry they saw her leave in her car soon after that, apparently heading to pick up the boys. And neighbors confirmed they saw Sandra's car return a short while later, but without the children.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Larry learned through his contacts that Sandra had a 10 o'clock appointment that morning to get her nails done at a salon about 45 minutes away. She never made the appointment.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
The cops didn't tell him, but Larry learned from his own sources that boyfriend Ryan had an alibi. Well, husband Darren did not. All of which got Larry thinking the same thing as the police must have been Darren who murdered Sandra. Right now, I'm driven by the case. I mean, I've got to get there. Many of Sandra's friends, like Krista Hall, also thought Darren was guilty.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And exactly one year after the murder, there was indeed an arrest. But it wasn't Darren.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Kauai is unique in many ways, not the least of which is this. It's almost a media-free zone. Most information spreads here as it has for generations, by word of mouth, where facts, opinions, and gossip all swirl together as one. Had the news swept across the island like a rogue wave? Ryan Shinjo had been arrested, but not by the island cops, by the FBI.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
Ryan, it turned out, was a player in a big money drug trafficking ring, running meth from the mainland to Oahu to Kauai. Well, when people found out about that, rumors started to fly. Was Ryan using Sandra as an unwitting drug mule? When he took her to Honolulu, was she bringing back meth with her?
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
And the final act of that story? Sandra found out about the drug ring and was killed before she could go to the police. But that was just a rumor in a sea of rumors. Police didn't seem any closer to finding Sandra's killer, whoever it was. The case grew colder with each passing year. Larry still thought Darren killed Sandra. And it seemed wherever Larry went on this small island, there he was.
Dateline NBC
The Other Side of Paradise
On this day, Larry and Sandra's mom, Toshi, had to see Darren at grandson Austin's Little League game. That's Darren on the field coaching. And in the dugout with his girlfriend, Shireen, a woman he'd known since before Sandra's murder. And it was at this point, 2009, three years after Sandra's murder... when Larry felt the time had come for him to go from investigator to avenger.