Chauntelle Acol is a woman of faith.
For years, the half-sister of Peter Kema Jr., also known as “Peter Boy” and “Pepe,” believed — against all odds and against all reason — she would see her brother alive again.
But after her parents, Jaylin Kema and Peter Kema Sr., pleaded guilty to manslaughter for allowing the abused 6-year-old boy to die in 1997 without seeking medical attention, she takes solace in her belief Peter Boy is with God.
“I know he’s in heaven,” Acol told the Tribune-Herald on Thursday. “It’s more about knowing where he was at his last days. They talked about (Jaylin Kema) doing CPR on him and all that, but in the end, he died alone and by himself. But I know God is good and he is with God in heaven.”
Jaylin Kema faces 10 years probation. She’ll be released from jail April 27 after a year behind bars. Her husband faces a 20-year sentence with the possibility of parole when he’s sentenced June 9.
Part of Kema Sr.’s deal to avoid trial on a murder charge for his son’s death requires Kema Sr. to lead authorities to the location where he left Peter Boy’s body. If remains aren’t found, he’ll have to pass a polygraph test to avoid five additional years in prison for hindering prosecution.
“We just want his body, even if it’s just the bones. We just want something to be able to love on this little guy one last time,” Acol said. “Because we know he’s in heaven. So it’s just closure for the people who knew him and loved him and were with him and wanted nothing but good for him.”
And if the search for remains comes up empty?
“As long as the polygraph test comes back that Peter (Kema Sr.) was telling the truth about what happened in the end, that is enough closure.”
Acol described it as “hard hitting” to see her mother plead guilty in December, and then her stepfather plead guilty Wednesday with what Acol described as a “smuggish” look on his face.
“How can you explain evil?” she reflected. “You’d really think that … in jail, he would have a change of heart, but it seems that he really is doing everything for his own benefit. Withholding the whereabouts of Pepe’s remains — it’s all a control thing. I look at it now, and he is a master of control. I don’t believe that intent to kill was there, at all, but it was just messed-up thinking that took it to that level.
“I’m sure Peter (Kema Sr.) had some sort of child-abuse thing that made him so messed up in the head. But the thing is, he knew what it was like to feel that way, yet he wanted to inflict that upon another person.”
Peter Boy, who was born May 1, 1991, was hospitalized at just 3 months old with a broken arm, and he and his two older half-siblings — Allan Acol, now 30, and Chauntelle, who just turned 28 — were taken from the Kemas by Child Protective Services. All thrived in the home of Jaylin Kema’s parents, James, now 80, and Yolanda, who died nine years ago at 61. Unfortunately, all were returned to the Kemas despite numerous warnings they were unfit parents.
“How many times does a child have to be taken away before you realize, ‘Oh my gosh, he shouldn’t be going back to that house,’” Acol said.
Most of the abuse was at the hands of Kema Sr. but some was from her mother, as well, Acol confirmed.
“I think a lot of the abuse and even neglect that she inflicted on Pepe was because she didn’t have any control over Peter (Sr.),” she said. “There are times that he would abuse her and then it wasn’t good enough, and so he brought in Pepe and I. And I do have memories of her being scared, balled up in a corner when Pepe and I were being punched in the face or being taunted by Peter, and even a time when Pepe was being thrown out a window. … I do understand that, and my heart does hurt for her at times, but at the same time, she brought that upon herself.
“She had many instances where she went to a grocery store and she could have done something. And she participated in the abuse.”
Acol said her grandparents raised five children, and four “grew up to be loving individuals.” She added Jaylin Kema’s role in the abuse of her four children, including the youngest, Lina Acol, now 24, still weighs on her grandfather.
“But my mother was an adult when this happened, and she had to make her own choices, and she did make her own choices,” she said.
Acol, who now lives in Florida, is still close with her family, except her mother and stepfather. After Jaylin Kema pleaded guilty, Acol wrote a letter to her mother that she won’t send until her mom’s release from jail.
“I don’t want unforgiveness to reside in my heart. And that’s the same for Peter Sr. I don’t want unforgiveness to bitter all my other relationships,” she said. “As a mother who has her own kid, a boy at that, I can’t see any justification for allowing somebody to treat your own flesh and blood, your own child that way. It’s hard to wrap my head around it. But when you forgive, you just have to let it go.
“And she’s got to deal with that the rest of her life.”
The reminders of Acol’s brother, whose tragic plight touched the collective heart and raised the collective hackles of the public, are constant. Her son, Kaeo, is 6, “exactly the same age as Pepe was when everything happened.”
“Pepe was bold. He was very bold and very courageous, even as a 5- or 6-year-old. I can see that in my son, standing up for people and taking the blame when he shouldn’t be. And those are the things that my brother did for me to protect me from getting beaten up by my stepfather. Every day I’m reminded of his boldness and his courageousness and I remind myself, ‘You’re an adult now. You can do it. You have the power to impact a little boy’s life to do amazing things, to do the same things my brother probably would have done, had he survived.’”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.