Correctional officers mistakenly release murder suspect from jail
By: CNN
Posted: Jul 28, 2018 07:18 AM PDT
Updated: Jul 28, 2018 07:18 AM PDT
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CAPTAIN COOK, Hawaii (CNN) -- A murder suspect in Hawaii was mistakenly allowed to walk out of jail.
Brian Smith was released on Tuesday, but he turned himself into police Thursday night.
Officials are investigating what led to the mistake.
Police say a little after 11 p.m., Brian Lee Smith called them from a business in Captain Cook, saying he wanted to turn himself in.
Smith is accused of shooting and killing mango picker Thomas Ballesteros Jr. in South Konda in June.
Smith was accidentally released on Tuesday.
"On behalf of the Hawaii Community Correctional Center, and the Department of Public Safety, I want to express our deepest regrets for the undue duress, our error caused the Hawaii Island community as it endured this situation," said Nolan Espinda, Hawaii Public Safety Director.
The mistake caused the second manhunt in a week for Hawaii County police officers, who are still coping the loss of Officer Bronson Kaliloa.
"The HPD stepped up in this crisis even while working through their own period of mourning," said Espinda.
The public safety director said he couldn't elaborate on the details about the mistake, saying it's too early in the investigation.
But court records indicate public safety workers may have thought a court document transferring the case to another court was a release order.
That same thing happened in February when Anthony Louis Glover, the suspect in a knife-wielding bank robbery, was also released.
He was found and arrested a few days later.
Espinda refused to talk about that prior case.
The governor was also grilled about how long it takes his departments to warn the public of threats like in the case of confessed killer Randall Saito who escaped from the state's mental hospital.
