The Hawaii Paroling Authority on Thursday reduced the mandatory minimum sentence for a former Big Island police sergeant convicted in the 1992 kidnapping and murder of his wife, Yvonne.
Kenneth Wayne Mathison’s sentence was reset to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 25 years for the murder conviction, Hawaii Department of Public Safety Paroles and Pardons Administrator Tommy Johnson told West Hawaii Today Friday morning.
Mathison, currently 61 and incarcerated at the Saguaro Correction Center in Eloy, Ariz., will be eligible for parole on Nov. 7, 2020, Johnson said. Mathison’s minimum term for the kidnapping conviction remains unchanged at 20 years. He will complete that sentence, which runs concurrent with his term for the murder conviction, on Nov. 10, 2015.
In a Friday prepared statement read by Irene Bender, a victim assistance counselor with the Hawaii County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, Yvonne’s family expressed disappointment with the parole board’s decision.
“The family of Yvonne Mathison is very disappointed in the outcome of the minimum term hearing. However, they will continue to fight for the memory of Yvonne at every opportunity. They hope justice will prevail,” Bender stated.
Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Vince Kanemoto also expressed discontent with the board’s decision.
“We are disappointed,” Kanemoto said Friday morning.
Mathison’s case came back before the Hawaii Paroling Authority during a hearing held Sept. 25 prompted because Mathison didn’t have legal representation during a 2009 hearing when the parole board resentenced Mathison to a minimum mandatory term of 90 years.
During the September hearing, the state argued that the minimum terms set in the 2009 hearing were correct and requested that the parole board leave them unchanged. Mathison testified via videoconference from the Arizona prison; family members of his wife, Yvonne Mathison, testified at the hearing in Honolulu.
The decision was delayed while follow-up information was gathered.
Johnson said a 2012 Intermediate Court of Appeals ruling in the case of Raita Fukusaku vs. State of Hawaii set precedent that the board needed new evidence that was unknown before or a change in circumstances to justify increasing a minimum term during resentencing. He said the board was not available to comment Friday on whether new evidence supporting an increased mandatory minimum term existed in 2009.
Mathison was sentenced June 7, 1996, to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years following his conviction in a jury trial of the murder of his wife, Yvonne. He was also sentenced to a concurrent 20-year prison term for her kidnapping.
On July 15, 2009, the parole board reset Mathison’s minimum prison term at 90 years for the murder conviction and the full 20 years for the kidnapping conviction.
Yvonne Mathison, who was a hostess at Ken’s House of Pancakes, died on Nov. 27, 1992, after being beaten with a pipe and run over by a van. Mathison, who was found cradling his wife’s bloodied body, said he accidentally ran his wife over with the family’s van.
The case took three years to go to trial, and the group Citizens for Justice alleged a police cover-up.
The case was prosecuted by the then-Deputy Attorney General Kurt Spohn, who said that Mathison killed his wife to collect a $500,000 insurance policy. The state’s star witness was noted forensic pathologist Henry Lee, who testified that blood spatter patterns proved that Yvonne Mathison’s death wasn’t accidental.
Mathison’s attorney Richard Gronna did not respond for comment on the ruling as of press time on Friday.