Masumi Watanabe, a 21-year-old Japanese visitor described as shy and artistic, disappeared while staying with a distant relative and volunteering at an Oahu elementary school. On the morning of April 12, 2007, she took a routine walk along Pupukea Road. Between about 9:20 and 10:00 a.m. witnesses saw her talking to a man in a Hauoli Termite and Pest Control work truck, and reported seeing her appear confused and get into the vehicle. That was the last confirmed sighting.

Police focused on pest control employee Kirk Matthew Lankford after a witness later reported seeing a man digging a hole near Kahana Bay around midnight on the day she vanished and recorded the license plate of a personal truck, which matched Lankford’s. Searches of his personal and company vehicles turned up Watanabe’s eyeglasses and her blood on the passenger seat and door; DNA testing linked both items to her. Lankford was arrested, the missing-person investigation was reclassified as a homicide, and in April 2008 he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Watanabe’s body has never been recovered.

Does anyone have information about Watanabe’s movements in Pupukea on April 12, 2007, or recall seeing her that morning?