20 years for fatal Puna stabbing

HILO — An escaped mental patient who stabbed his high school friend to death in Puna almost 2 1/2 years ago was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison.

Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara called 37-year-old David True Seal “a danger to others in our community” while passing sentence. In a deal with prosecutors, Seal pleaded no contest to manslaughter for the slaying of 32-year-old Rory Thompson Wick, which took place Nov. 5, 2013, at Wick’s home in Eden Roc subdivision.

Seal scaled a 14-foot-high wire mesh fence at the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe, Oahu on Dec. 3, 2009. He was committed to the mental facility in April 2002 after his acquittal by reason of insanity for the kidnapping and attempted rape of an 8-year-old girl on Maui. He was living in a separate dwelling on Wick’s property when the stabbing occurred.

Deputy Prosecutor Kelden Waltjen asked Hara to sentence Seal to the maximum 20 years “for the protection of the public and as a deterrence to others in the community.” He described Wick as “a dedicated single parent who loved his three children dearly.”

“He was an artist, a teacher and, most importantly, a trusting friend,” Waltjen said. “It was Rory’s trust and loyalty the defendant betrayed when he took his life on Nov. 5, 2013. In the defendant’s own words, ‘I killed him. I killed my own brother. I killed the closest person in the world to me.’ The defendant will have to live the rest of his life knowing that Rory died at the defendant’s own hands as a result of the defendant’s own actions.”

“As the court is aware, at the time of the incident, the defendant had been on the run for four years after his escape from the Hawaii State Hospital. During that time, he used an alias and lived among us in our own community.”

As “Serif Swaim,” Seal was taking martial arts lessons from Kobukan Kendo Club at Waiakea Recreation Center in Hilo. A local man, Jun Mantupar, told the Tribune-Herald and a Honolulu television station he called Crime Stoppers about a month before the homicide to report Seal was taking kendo lessons at the county facility.

Lucia Samuels, grandmother to Wick’s three children, ages 10, 9 and 7, addressed the court while holding a photograph of Wick with the keiki.

“These precious children, my three grandchildren, should have a human face here,” Samuels told the judge. “Their lives will never be the same. They don’t have their father. They have other loving people in their lives, but it’s not the same thing as the father who brought them into life.”

Asked if he wanted to address the court, Seal replied, “No, except there’s no ‘David’ in my name, your Honor.”

Hara told Seal the killing was “needless, senseless and unnecessary.”

“Looking at your prior history, your escape from the state hospital and the reasons why you were there and the charges of which you were acquitted and the charges that you now face, they all involve threats and danger to others around you. … You are a danger to others in our community,” he said.

Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Lee said afterward the deal with Seal calls for no parole and for Seal to return to the mental hospital after he completes his prison term.

“We felt this was the best option for public safety,” Lee said.

Samuels said she wishes Seal — who’s being sued by Maya Samuels, the mother of Wick’s children, and by Wick’s mother, Elizabeth Hall — would have spoken during sentencing.

“What would drive someone to kill someone who was actually watching out for him and was concerned about his well-being? Why would that turn?” she asked. “Was it the drugs and alcohol or his mental state? What was it? Because I want to be able to say something to these children someday, as soon as the opportunity arises to explain it better to them.”

Samuels’ husband, Larry, added there was something he’d also hoped Seal had said.

“That he was sorry.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.