A 72-year-old prison inmate pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the beating and strangulation death 44 years ago of a Northern California park ranger who was on the Big Island for her dream vacation.
Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto ordered Steven Ray Simpson to appear for trial at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 14.
Simpson, who appeared via videoconference from Halawa Correctional Facility on Oahu, was indicted on June 22 by a Hilo grand jury for the murder Valerie Ann Warshay.
Warshay’s nude body was found on April 23, 1978, by a young girl picnicking with her family at Harry K. Brown Park in Kalapana.
The 26-year-old Warshay had been last seen alive at about 10 p.m. the night before, talking to two men in the park. According to police, Warshay, who was camping in a coconut grove in the park, declined the men’s invitation to join them.
The park no longer exists, having been inundated by a 1990 lava flow.
The indictment, which was drafted in accordance with the 1978 murder statute, doesn’t specify a degree to the murder charge.
In a press release, County Prosecutor Kelden Waltjen said, “Murder is punishable by a life term of imprisonment with the possibility of parole.”
A conviction under today’s second-degree murder statute makes that life sentence mandatory.
The state Judiciary website lists the charge against Simpson as a Class A felony, which today carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment. Simpson’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Keith Shigetomi, told the Tribune-Herald after the hearing the life sentence isn’t mandatory in Simpson’s case.
Simpson currently is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the strangulation murder of 24-year-old Mary Catherine “Kathy” Drapp, a University of Hawaii at Hilo student whose body was found Dec. 11, 1978, in a field in Fern Forest, a Puna subdivision where Simpson lived at the time.
Nakamoto asked Shigetomi if he wished to discuss bail for Simpson.
“Your Honor, Mr. Simpson is currently serving a life sentence, so that’s moot,” Shigetomi replied.
Nakamoto maintained Simpson’s bail at $250,000.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.