After three men were found dead on the Big Island, apprehending the 36-year-old suspect became the police department’s No. 1 priority.
Civil Beat Illustration/2026
Three days before Jacob Daniel Baker went on an alleged killing spree — leaving three older men dead and sparking an ongoing manhunt — his neighbors reported they feared for their lives. But the court system failed to intervene and police were not alerted.
One neighbor was living on a Pāhoa farm with Baker and reported feeling nervous about his increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior. On Friday afternoon, she had asked a judge for help.
“Jacob Baker has threatened my life,” Janelle Honer wrote in an application for a temporary restraining order filed with the Third Circuit Court just before 2:30 p.m. on Friday.
A second woman, Angelia Romero-Hanson, filed a TRO application against Baker about an hour later.
“I came to stay on my friend’s farm only to realize that all the women left because this man threatened to kill them,” she wrote. “Please approve this as soon as possible.”
The courts closed shortly thereafter for Memorial Day weekend without acting on the women’s requests for protection. On Tuesday, Judge Michelle Kanani Laubach denied both applications due to “insufficient evidence.”
By then, two men who lived near the Pāhoa farm were dead. Hours later, police responded to a call about a third man who was found deceased nearby.
Police now suspect Baker killed all three.
On Wednesday morning, an islandwide manhunt ensued for the 36 year old. At a press conference with Mayor Kimo Alameda, Chief Reed Mahuna said capturing Baker was the department’s No. 1 priority. The chief said he wasn’t aware of the restraining order applications that had been filed against Baker days earlier.
Residents of the community were shocked by the killings and rattled by the prospect of a murder suspect on the loose. Some went into lockdown mode as police drones flew overhead and officers peeked under homes. Uncle Robert’s in Kalapana canceled its night market on Wednesday and Koa’s Lounge in Pāhoa postponed an event out of public safety concerns.
Amid the fear, they expressed dismay that warnings about Baker’s erratic behavior weren’t heeded and frustration that there was a delay in alerting the public about a safety threat. Police didn’t publish a public notice until Wednesday morning.
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“Nobody knew he was wanted,” said a woman familiar with the situation who spoke to Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about her safety, “because the police wouldn’t release any information pending investigation.”
Civil Beat asked the state Judiciary for comment on the TROs that were denied and whether there was a hearing on either case. Spokesman Brooks Baehr did not respond.
Police said Baker has short black hair, is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs about 190 pounds. Police said he is considered armed and dangerous. If he is seen, police say to call 911.
‘I Didn’t Want To Aggravate Him’
Baker lived in a cabin and volunteered harvesting coconuts at Josana’s Organic Garden in Pāhoa for about a year and a half until he left the property about two months ago, according to a woman familiar with the situation who spoke to Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about her safety.
He returned to the farm on Thursday looking for his dogs, which had been taken to the Humane Society. At that point, he became extremely angry and started threatening people on the farm, she said.
Excerpt from Angelia Romero Hanson’s TRO against Jacob Baker
The next day, two TRO applications were filed, and on Saturday, an eviction notice was posted on the door of his cabin.
Baker became increasingly angry from there, said a neighbor, who also spoke to Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns.
Baker went to that neighbor’s house on Sunday evening, asking if he could stay there. But Baker was acting extremely aggressive, said the neighbor, who has known Baker for a few years but said six months ago he began acting stranger and angrier than usual.
Excerpt from Janelle Honer’s TRO against Jacob Baker
The neighbor told him he couldn’t stay.
“I was almost feeling threatened, like I didn’t want to aggravate him,” the neighbor said. “He was like, basically saying he had nowhere else to go, and I was like, ‘Well, you can’t stay here.’”
Baker left but returned the next day and stole the neighbor’s truck, according to the neighbor who said he reported it to the police. The neighbor recovered the truck on Tuesday abandoned on the side of Kalapana Road near the Kaimū Korner Country Store, less than a mile from where police discovered the third body on Tuesday night.
A man who answered a number listed as belonging to Baker’s cousin declined to speak to a reporter. A number for Baker’s mother had been disconnected. A message left at a number listed for his brother was not returned.
Deaths Followed Requests For Restraining Orders
Three Victims, Back To Back
Police discovered the first victim, a 69-year-old man, around 8 p.m. Monday, Hawaiʻi police Capt. Jeremy Lewis said during a press conference Wednesday. He was submerged in a cement pond at his residence on Railroad Avenue. At first, police couldn’t tell if foul play was involved and believed the man could have died of natural causes.
An autopsy completed Wednesday morning indicated the cause of death may have been a homicide, Lewis said.
On Tuesday, police discovered two more men who had died in suspicious ways.
One of the homicide victims was found on Papaya Farms Road. (Hawaii News Now)
Just after 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, officers found a second victim at his home off Papaya Farms Road, just 500 feet from the first victim’s home. That man, a 79 year old, had died of blunt force trauma, Lewis said.
Police have not released the names of the victims, but neighbors and friends have identified the first two as Bob Shine and Chitta Morse.
The neighbor who interacted with Baker on Monday described Morse as a friendly man who cared about the environment.
“He was always eco-friendly,” he said. “He was just minding his business, living on his farm.”
Just before 10 p.m. that night, officers conducted a welfare check on a 69-year-old man at a home on Kalapana Kapoho Beach Road, about 20 miles from the other homes. They found him dead of “apparent injuries,” he said.
Lewis did not elaborate on the type of injuries the victims had or what weapon may have been used, except to say that a firearm was not used in any of the killings.
Police would also not share any information about why they believe the killings are linked, why they suspect Baker and what a motive might be.
“We cannot disclose at this time the evidence that we have that connects the three or the method that we use to get that information, but we are confident that the suspect here is responsible or involved in all three homicides,” Mahuna said during the press conference.
‘The Wild West of Hawaiʻi’
As police search for Baker, some residents are also concerned there aren’t enough officers in the understaffed Hawaiʻi Police Department to canvass the region where the crimes occurred. The Puna district is nearly the size of Oʻahu.
Tiffany Edwards Hunt lives in Hawaiian Paradise Park and said the community has little police presence. She said she’s had to wait up to an hour for officers to arrive when she’s called 911.
The Hawaiʻi Police Department is understaffed and responsible for a huge land area. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2023)
“It just feels like people have really lost it, and yeah, I believe if we had more law and order, it would be a little bit more contained,” Hunt said. “And a part of that is getting more police presence in this very, very large district.”
But Hunt said it’s eerie how calm Pāhoa seemed on Wednesday, considering the active manhunt.
Mark Hinshaw, a Puna resident, said he saw police drones and officers canvassing the neighborhood on Tuesday night. He and neighbors were concerned that a criminal was on the loose in their community, and he was surprised there wasn’t a bigger presence or a police helicopter to aid in the search.
Some residents took it upon themselves to patrol the area stretching from Kaimū to Pohoiki. The plan isn’t to apprehend Baker if they spot him, according to Jeff Regan, who is part of the group driving along Red Road trying to bring the community a sense of safety. Instead, the goal is to have more people out looking for the suspect and give people a way to be proactive.
Puna, Regan said, is like “the wild west of Hawaiʻi.”
Regan first met Baker a couple of years ago. Baker would sometimes come over to use Regan’s equipment to dehydrate fish he’d caught to sell at farmer markets or harvest coconuts at a neighbor’s house. At the time, Baker had a girlfriend and a kid, and Regan said he seemed “like a pretty honest young guy … an entrepreneur trying to hustle to make money to feed his family.”
The two haven’t seen each other in about a year and a half.
“There’s going to be a lot of really scared people tonight,” Regan said Wednesday.
