Transcript of Talking Dateline: The Bucket Hat Mystery

Hi, guys. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are Talking Dateland. I am here with the one and only Keith Morrise. Keith, this is my first time seeing you on Talking Dateland since we saw each other in person in Nashville. Hi, friend.

It was so good to see you there. We had so much fun.

We had such a good time. I know. Usually, we meet like this, but we saw each other in person. Let's talk about our episode today. Today's episode is called the Bucket Hat mystery. It begins in Wapahu, Hawaii, where a beloved acupuncturist, John Tokuhara, was found shot to death inside of his clinic. As investigators dug deeper, they uncovered a web of love and jealousy that went around some bends, but eventually led to Eric Thompson, the husband of John's former lover. Now, if you haven't watched this episode yet, you can go find it right below this podcast or stream it anytime on Peacock, then come right back here. When you do come back, we'll share more from one juror in the trial who had a lot to say about what unfolded inside the courtroom. Of course, later on, we will answer some of your questions from social media. So, Keith, let's talk Dateland. Let's do it. Well, Keith, I love the way that we opened this first. I mean, it was beautiful. It was picturesque. You talked about just Hawaii. We often talk about the locations where we do these stories becoming characters in and of themselves.

But usually, it's not as beautiful a place as the island of O'ahu, right?

Well, exactly. Or any of the islands in Hawaii. I have been privileged to be able to go to Hawaii often to do stories for Dayline. It actually sounds like an oxymoron to say that because there are stories about people who were murdered. But it is such a beautiful place, and the people are just wonderful. The native Hawaiianians are fabulous people, and they That's who makes up the population of Wapahu. It's a suburb of a Wahu. It's not a 20-minute drive from the famous sites and the surfing beaches, but it's a very different community altogether from what the tourists normally see. These are people who have lived there for many generations. It's their island, it's their home. They're a very tight-knit group of people. There's real love that exists among all of them. John Takuhara was one of those folks from Wapa'u who had gone to the mainland to become an acupuncturist and returned home. Didn't have to, wanted to be at home with folks, and lived with his mother, ran a clinic that was quite popular. Everybody assumed that he was just living a regular single guy life. It was only later on when things had happened that discoveries were made that John Tocoeira had a very interesting and somewhat active romantic life behind the scenes because people loved him.

Women loved him. And one thing would be to another They had affairs.

As things often do. I wonder about the reception. How was our team received when you were shooting in the area? Because we often talk about, obviously, small community. A lot of people knew what was going on. Just give us a feel of what it felt like.

His friends were only too eager to talk to us. And as you could see in the story, they all assembled repeatedly to have conversations with us. Tell us all they knew about John and they knew about what happened. They all followed this investigation so carefully. So did we. So interestingly, this is something that will interest you, perhaps, although maybe not the people, most of the people listening. But this was the last story I was able to complete with Vince Sterla, producer I've worked with for many, many years here at Dateland. He's retired. So we went off to Hawaii to do this story together. But he was there for months beforehand working on this story before I ever joined him and covering the trial, covering all the twists and turns of the story. As we approach the time to film, the authorities pulled back, didn't want to take part in it. We thought, Well, that might make it too difficult for us to do this story. But in the end, we decided to because it was the story that we felt we could tell and tell well, but also there were other ways to do it.

That's why you met Liz Thompson, the investigator we brought on board.

I thought that was a brilliant pivot, and she did a fantastic job. It took only a few minutes, though, for me to realize, Okay, we had to do this in a different way than we typically do our Dateland stories. We didn't hear from his direct family, from his immediate family. We didn't hear from law enforcement or the investigators who worked the case. Typically, those are two very integral building blocks when it comes to telling our stories on Dateland.

Precisely. I think John's mother It was just she was not ready to go on television and talk about her son. It's just she's feeling broken.

It just broke my heart to know that his mother was the one who found him, who discovered him, and just seeing her sitting there in the front seat. Just awful. No, just terrible. Yeah. Terrible.

Terrible. I found myself wondering what it was like for her as the hours went by and she knew there was something wrong and she was holding off to go see him because she didn't want to be too much of an interfering mother. But then finally, she felt she had to and found him there. It was tough. There was some video of her in her car responding to initial police questions. You could tell that she was just so broken that I wanted to give her some space.

Of course. So in the absence of those folks that we typically hear from, of course, you had Liz Thompson. But really, the camera, the mini camera angles, also became the main voice in this story in a way that you don't typically see.

Sure. And that was something Liz could help us with and tell us how that all worked. What happened, of course, was in real-time, was it some junior member of the Honolulu Police Department was assigned to go through all the CCTV, everything that could be found that was in the vicinity of John Tokuhara's clinic at the time that he was killed. You just don't automatically encounter counter what happened. He would go through hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of videotape before finally seeing, hey, wait a minute, that guy in the strange costume, way too much clothing for Hawaii and a bucket hat appeared on this camera, and now he's appearing on that camera. And then you could follow him all the way down several blocks on the route to the acupuncture clinic and then see where he disappeared just before right outside the door of the was the last we saw him. Then the murder occurred within a minute or so of that. Then he reappeared a minute or two after. There was very little better evidence to show this man, whoever he was, must have committed the murder.

It felt like we were going on a journey. I guess I'll say that. It didn't feel like evidence was being presented, but it almost felt like we were going on a journey with law enforcement as they figured this out. When I was watching this, I thought this, Keith, when I was in my very market as a reporter, Augusta, Georgia, someone told me there, Okay, if you go through a day and you have an assignment turning a daily news story and you can't get officials or you can't get somebody to talk to you, then just do a story taking the viewer through your day. We called the city. They put us on hold for two hours. Then we knocked on the store. Let's just go through the process and we're going to give a peek behind the curtain of what that felt like. I thought it was very effective. I loved it.

Good. Thank you.

When we come back, you'll hear more from Keith's interview with a juror who had plenty to say about this case, including what they thought about Eric Thompson and about the woman whose affair set this whole thing in motion. Let's talk about this investigation because it became very clear, one, you introduced some of the people, the ladies in John's life. You're thinking immediately love triangle. Anybody who watches Dateland, you're thinking, Okay, love triangle. But there are a couple of different options that come out immediately. I thought that was interesting.

Well, yes, and so did the police. That's why they looked into those relationships fairly carefully because he had had other relationships before. What was interesting about him was he could have an intense romantic relationship with a woman. Then it would either peter out or they'd break up, but remain friends and then pick it up again, maybe a decade later and have another affair. Sometimes even after the husband or significant other in that woman's life was aware of what had going on, it was unusual because we do see a lot of those love triangles, and there's an awful lot of emotion and anger that has built into them, but seem to be less in this situation, except for one obvious exception. And that was what they eventually got to. The relationship that the Thomson had was fascinating to me. The backstory was fascinating in that he discovered she had had an affair with John Tokohara, and that she had been seeing a psychic. And the psychic had somehow given her what she thought was permission or at least, if you need to have an affair, have an affair. And so this arrangement they made, this It was a close nuptial agreement that he made.

He discovers this. She stopped seeing John Tokohara. She'd already stopped seeing him, actually. But he discovers that there was an affair and makes her sign a deal where if the marriage breaks up for Any reason at all, even if he just walks out, says, I'm done with you, and kicks her out of the house, then he gets the house and he gets custody of their child. And the child. Under any circumstance.

That was the most unbelievable document I had ever heard of in my life.

She is trapped. She simply signed it. Just signed it. She signed it. Yes.

I was stunned that on the stand, he brought forward. He basically said, Oh, it was her idea. She was basically like, No, I'm I'm never going to do this again. In fact, I promise you that I'm never going to do this again. Here, this is my offer to you. I love that the prosecutor came back and said, Basically, you trapped her. You then controlled every aspect of her life. There was no way she could leave that marriage. Otherwise, she would lose her child. To me, that was... If I was waffling before of like, Hey, where does this stand? Or which way will this go? That is beyond controlling behavior.

There's something- That was a clue about that relationship, wasn't it?

Yes, exactly. Exactly that. Also her silence, I thought. I mean, she was there, but she was quiet the whole time. That said a lot.

It was very strange. But then part of that post-nuptial was that she would never go back and see a psychic again. But she did. I just thought that he wouldn't find out. The psychic, I don't think the second time there was any encouragement to continue the affair with Tokohara, but she picked it up again briefly. But interestingly enough, They signed the postnuptial agreement at the end of December, 29th, I think, of December. Twelve days later is when the man in the bucket head walks across the street and John Tokohara is killed.

Was the thought, and I don't know if prosecutors laid this out, but was the thought that, Okay, sign the postnuptial agreement. She goes back, she sees the psychic anyway, and he's thinking, Okay, obviously that postnuptial agreement didn't work. She may just blunt that and decide to go pick up this affair anyway. I need to go a step and actually take care of this man? I was trying to make that connection.

I know. And there's a lot of speculation here that can't be backed up. Some of which we asked the prosecutors and other people involved in the case about. Vince certainly poked around a lot in that area to try to find out what he could. I don't think the investigation even went to some of these places, like the paternity of the child, the questions of some of the more intimate questions of that relationship and what happened.

I got the sense, again, this is blame the viewer. I got the sense that this was a type of person that does not like to lose. That, yes, even though he had the postnuptual agreement that was signed, even though he knew he got everything, if there were, he was just really upset that his wife chose another man, however, temporarily, over him and he didn't like to lose. I also think the conversation around psychics and everything, and this was an undertone in what you discussed, there's a very good possibility that she was dealing with some post Postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety. I mean, going through, having a child, he talked about how maybe she wasn't as excited as he thought that she would be after giving birth. That, to me, immediately speaks postpartum depression. A lot of mothers have a hard time transitioning into motherhood. You have hormones all over the place. Who knows what type of a role that could have possibly played in that as well.

Well, exactly.

Sure. Let's talk about this bucket hat. That turned out to be... It's funny. I think our viewers know by now, but the titles of our Dateland episodes, Keith, you and I don't think those up ourselves. We're not doing a story, and then we say, This should be called the Bucket Hat mystery. No, that's something that usually, I know, at least for me, we don't find out until the week of air, usually.

I have made suggestions before, and others so have others. They call them something else anyway.

Exactly. Exactly. So this Bucket Hat was a That was a linchpin to this whole thing, right? It was. And the journeys of said hat.

The killer of John Tokuhara was going to great lengths to try to get away with it. Had it not been for those carefully placed cameras and the fact that his bucket hat fell off in the middle of the street. There's some question whether or not this ever would have been solved. It's harder and harder to commit a crime these days because there are cameras everywhere. There certainly are, even in neighborhoods where you wouldn't expect them to be.

Arguably, had you just gone there, maybe in some clothes that didn't look so crazy in this bucket hat that didn't stand out as much, might you have been spotted?

Yeah. You raise a good point. As you know, there were two trials. In the first trial, there was a hung jury, partly because of the difficulties with DNA evidence, partly because of various other things. But the evidence was just not enough for the first jury. There was some concern that there wouldn't be enough for the second jury either.

I have to say that when I saw the trial, when we went to the trial so early in the Dateland episode, I said, Oh, something else is coming. You've got about three more different twists for us because we never go to a trial that early. Usually, it's in part 11, part 12, act 11 or 12, when you're about to wrap it up, then there's the trial and you get on with it. I said, Okay, there's going to be something here that doesn't work. Then came the mistrial. I'm curious in your experience, It means, Keith, I mean, does a mistrial, does that usually spell good news or bad news for the defendant?

The defendants will take it as good news always because it's not a conviction. And so there's at least a chance that the prosecutor will decide, okay, I can't I'm not going to find anything better, so I'm just not going to bring it again. And there's also a chance that a second jury will say the same thing. In this case, they doubled down and got what else they could, and it worked out. But But as you saw on the story from the representative of the jury, there was still a lot of discussion, still a lot of argument about whether or not the man was guilty. That could have led to another mistrial, another hung jury.

You spoke with one of those jurors who didn't want to be identified, but gave some really interesting details about what it was like in that deliberation room. Let's listen to a little extra snippet from that interview. Sure.

Yeah. He was a fascinating guy, actually. Felt very sorry for Eric, for John, of Of course, who was murdered, his family, his mother who testified, who almost lost her mind because of it. She could hardly even speak. She broke down in tears. I feel sorry for his wife because she was- She was there, right? Yeah. What did you think of the fact that she was there? She seemed to be supporting him. I think she has to put on a face so that he doesn't go to prison. Did it seem to you that she was putting on an act during the trial? Not necessarily. I can't say that. No, I don't know. I don't know if she even knew he was the murderer or she didn't know. We don't know. The jurors talked about that afterwards. We don't know.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So in the end, Eric was sentenced to 15 to life with a possibility of parole. How did John's family take that? How did all of his friends take that sentence?

Well, in a variety of ways, some of them were wish there could be more retribution than that, but essentially, they were glad he was convicted, glad that it was done. There is something about the completion of a case where, and it's not so much that, okay, everything's going to be okay now, but That portion of it isn't weighing down on you all the time. It isn't something that you think about constantly and worry about what's going to happen or whether justice will be done. One way or another, justice was done, or at least justice as the court and the jury saw.

Sure. Absolutely. Well, it was a fascinating story. After this, we will be back to answer some of your questions from social media. As you can imagine, Keith, we have a lot of social media thoughts, comments, questions that we can bring forward. Sure. Let me read a few of these. At Adora 2000, this is a very simple statement. She says, This is the ugliest love triangle I have ever seen. Mind you, that's a lot because love triangles feature prominently on Dateline.

Well, yes, that's right. I think there were several triangles involved, but yes, it was. It turned out rather ugly.

Ugly indeed, yes. This is from @RealityDoc. I felt very conflicted about this case. Jury interviewed said they felt video could be a man or a woman. So if they ignored video and DNA since hat wasn't tested and lab was compromised, what was there aside from motive and proximity of the white truck?

Which is precisely why that first jury said, No, can't convict, can't quit. We don't know what to do.

Exactly. I think this is interesting. We had several people online who disagreed with the conviction, which is notable because we don't always see that. So, @ Mikeh1990, how they convicted Eric on no evidence, I will never know. Similar comment from @djbrainstorm4you. I don't agree with that conviction. Could the husband have done it? Yes. But I just don't think I could have been a juror on that case and convicted him. Interesting. There you go.

But we waited for the result of the jury's deliberation for quite a while, and there was great uncertainty about what they would decide because of that very problem.

This one's interesting. From @StacyDelilah, she said, She consulted a psychic for permission to have an affair? A lot of people had thoughts on the psychic thing.

They do. There's some question as Whether or not the psychic was giving her permission to have an affair, but I think probably the psychic was... Who knows what that conversation was? Whatever it was, that's how it came out.

Okay, we have a few audio questions. Let's listen to one. This is from Tyler. Was John Tokohar Sarah, the father of Joyce's baby?

It seemed like there was a possible implication of that based on some of the things in the episode, but it wasn't fully confirmed. Thanks.

There were some questions about the baby. I could see how people wondered that.

Well, yes, and we did, too. And you spent a certain amount of time trying to suss that out. But the investigation didn't seem to want to go there, at least not in any way that we were able to find out about. Your speculation is just as good as anybody else's speculation, but I don't think there's an answer to that question that has been revealed.

Yeah. Oh, goodness. Here's another audio question This trend from Katie. Okay, so our question, my sister and I are watching the episode now. She finished it last night. I finished it tonight. And we are wondering, what happens now if the wife wants to divorce him and he's in jail for 15 to life. Does he still get the kids and all the assets because of that post-marital agreement, or does she get that stuff now that he's in jail? Katie Bacca is with a very That's a great question.

I think that's the question of the day, don't you? That's a good one. I don't think anybody has the answer to that question. One would assume if you've been convicted of murder, you're not going to be able to get the custody of your child and the ownership of your house away from your wife. But I don't know. I mean, these things can wind up in court for a long time, potentially.

That postmarital agreement, postnuptual agreement, is just going to be stuck in my mind for a long time. I've never heard of something like that. Certainly not as aggressive as that one is. No, that was- So that's just wild.

That was unique. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Keith, a lot packed into this two-hour episode, my friend. I'm fascinating to watch as always. Thank you for talking Dateland with me. Thank you. That's it for talking Dateland for this week. Thanks so much for listening. If there's a case that you want us to cover or if you have a question for our team, remember, you can always reach us anytime on social media at Dateland, NBC. You can also leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252, which apparently goes directly to Josh's Pager, I'm told, or you can send a voice memo in a DM. Before you go, we want to make sure that you check out Lester Holt's new four-part podcast series. It's called The Last Appeal. It's an in-depth look at the case of Robert Robertson, a Texas father who's set to be executed on October 16th for the 2002 murder of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki. Prosecutors say that the evidence against him is overwhelming, but a growing army of Robertson supporters, including the detective who led that investigation against him, say that new science and new evidence raise serious doubts about his conviction. The first three episodes are available right now, wherever you get your podcast.

It is a fascinating listen. So thanks again for joining us. And of course, we will see you on Friday for an all-new Dateland on NBC.