Crime
Bend Bulletin: A Quiet Past for Bend Woman Accused of Murder
Published: Jan. 21, 2018
For the better part of two decades, the name Hailey Dandurand was one few people associated with much of anything. Then, on Dec. 7, the 20-year-old Bend woman’s name tore through the Hawaiian island chain. She and her boyfriend, both living on Oahu, were arrested on suspicion of killing a woman and kidnapping her 8-year-old daughter.
Dandurand, along with her 23-year-old boyfriend, Stephen Brown, remain in a Hawaii jail. Dandurand’s bail was set at $500,000, and Brown’s was set at $1 million.
Former classmates who attended middle and high school with Dandurand in Bend said they’re shocked by the allegations. Several classmates remember her as unassuming and kind, although a theme of self-isolation grew over time.
When Dandurand’s father, Kaipo Dandurand, was approached for comment at his northwest Bend home, he opened the door several inches, enough to allow a yellow dog to peek through. Dandurand was on the phone.
“One second,” he said softly and closed the door. Opening it again, he said, “We have no comment at this time, bud.”
Buckingham Elementary School principal Sunshine Dandurand, who is married to Kaipo Dandurand, according to public records, is Hailey Dandurand’s mother. Last month, Sunshine Dandurand launched a campaign on the crowd-funding website FundRazr. The page features a photo of Sunshine and Hailey, both smiling. The text reads: “Please support us to give our daughter a fair defense for a fair outcome in our legal system. Love and hope to all.”
When asked for comment at Buckingham Elementary School, Sunshine Dandurand was “not available,” according to office manager Becky Taylor-Negus.
Hailey Dandurand and Brown have been charged with second-degree murder for the death of Telma Boinville. They’ve also been charged with two counts each of kidnapping and first-degree burglary. Dandurand is also charged with the unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle and the unauthorized possession of confidential personal information. Brown was additionally charged with criminal property damage, according to court documents.
Dandurand and Brown will appear in a pre-trial conference scheduled for Jan. 24 in Hawaii’s First Circuit Court. The trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 19, according to the Honolulu prosecutor’s office.
North Shore tragedy
Court documents and a GoFundMe.com campaign created by Boinville’s husband, Kevin Emery, describe, in grisly detail, the killing of Boinville, 51, a substitute teacher who moonlit as a housekeeper.
On Dec. 7, Boinville picked up her 8-year-old daughter, whom Emery identified as Makana, from school in Emery’s gold 2003 Toyota Tacoma. She stopped by a beach-facing rental home on the north shore of Oahu to “put some flowers out for display and to take some stuff out of the dryer” for incoming vacationers, wrote Emery, Boinville’s husband of 12 years.
“Telma had Makana wait for her(in the truck). She was watching a movie on her mom’s phone while Telma went inside to do her quick task.”
This is when police believe Dandurand and Brown killed Boinville. Afterward, the couple discovered the girl in the truck, according to Emery.
“Makana told me that a guy that had green hair in a bun and a girl, both covered in blood, grabbed her and pulled her out of the truck and dragged her upstairs into the house where they bound and gagged her,” Emery wrote.
The gold truck was parked in front of the rental when the vacationers arrived. Inside, they discovered Boinville’s “body tied up inside a pool of blood,” according to court documents. Near the body was a bloodied hammer, knife and mallet. They heard movement upstairs. The vacationers rushed out of the rental house and called 911. When they returned after police arrived, the gold Tacoma was missing from the driveway. In an upstairs room, police found Boinville’s daughter bound and with tape covering her mouth, according to court documents.
The GoFundMe campaign that Emery started for his daughter’s future education has raised more than $100,000. Its goal is to reach $250,000.
The Boinville killing is one of the most heinous Hawaii homicides in recent memory, according to Michael Kitchens, an Oahu resident who started Stolen Stuff Hawaii, a Facebook group that circulates information about stolen property and missing persons. Emery shared the image of the gold truck and license plate number on social media and the 100,000-member group quickly shared it. A public dragnet combed Oahu.
“A posse was formed out of nowhere,” Kitchens said. “Word got out in a big way. It made everyone take a call to action. Anytime you have something that horrible happen, it brings people together.”
Boinville, a Brazil native, was well-liked. After her death, artists throughout Hawaii painted murals in her honor.
“The murder was so brutal … and haunting that it affected the whole community of Oahu in a big way,” Kitchens said.
‘She just noticed’
Despite living in Bend for most of her life, Dandurand left little impression on those around her.
Interview requests with nearly 80 former classmates produced only a handful of foggy recollections of Dandurand. Everyone described her as quiet.
Former High Lakes Elementary classmate Jovana Espinoza described Dandurand as an inclusive friend. Espinoza moved with her family to Bend from Tijuana, Mexico, in 2003. When Espinoza transferred to High Lakes Elementary halfway through the fifth grade, Dandurand often helped her with math homework.
“If I didn’t understand anything … she always helped me even If I didn’t ask her. She just noticed,” Espinoza, 20, wrote via Facebook. Dandurand completed sixth through eighth grades at Cascade Middle School from 2008 to 2011, according to records from Bend-La Pine Schools.
“(Dandurand was) one of my only friends at the time,” Espinoza wrote. “She was very sweet and funny. … She invited me to her birthday party. There were only like three other girls. I was very quiet and timid, and she was always making sure I was included and having fun.”
Throughout middle school, Dandurand appeared once in each yearbook. In sixth and seventh grades, Dandurand wore a smile and a middle part in her dark hair. In the 2010-11 yearbook photo, her eighth-grade year, Dandurand didn’t smile. In the 2011-12 Bend High School yearbook — Dandurand’s freshman year and the last time she appeared in a Bend-La Pine Schools yearbook — Dandurand wore a burgundy top. Her smile had come back. The yearbooks show little indication that Dandurand was involved with school clubs or teams.
During her 2011-12 freshman year at Bend High, Dandurand ran on the cross-country team. Her name appears on the roster of the team’s yearbook page, but Dandurand doesn’t appear in the group photo. She competed in two 5,000-meter races, finishing in times of 45 and 34 minutes, respectively. Bend High cross-country coach Lisa Nye said she did not remember Dandurand when she read news reports about her murder and kidnapping allegations.
“They said her name, and I said, ‘Wait a minute,’” but no memories came to mind, even when Nye saw a photo of her, she said.“We have so many kids pass through.”
Chris Reese, the principal of Bend High School, declined to comment for this story.
Regan Fehrenbacher, 20, was one of Dandurand’s Bend High cross-country teammates and shared the same social group during their freshman year.
“Hailey wasn’t very into the sport. She was definitely always the person lagging in the back — all the time,” she said. “She was one of those teammates that people kind of wondered why she was there. She was really unenthused, unmotivated.”
In the Bend High lunchroom, Dandurand and Fehrenbacher shared an accepting, mostly female group of friends that was defined by a common shyness. Dandurand, however, “was really, really quiet.”
“She was the girl with hair in her face,” Fehrenbacher said. “She wasn’t the kind of person you could easily talk to. She was incredibly difficult to approach. She was in the background a lot. She wasn’t really actively a part of the group, but she was always there. She isolated herself a lot and confined herself to one or two people. She was very dark compared to the rest of us. She never smiled — that was the other thing.”
Dandurand was the subject of two missing person/runaway reports while a minor living in Bend. One was filed on Aug. 26, 2012, according to the Bend Police Department, shortly before Dandurand began her sophomore year at Bend High School on Sept. 6. She left school on Sept. 28, school records show.
Fehrenbacher remembered seeing missing person fliers featuring Dandurand that were posted throughout Bend High.
“With the fliers and everything — it was a big deal,” Fehrenbacher said. “I was like, ‘My God, I knew her. … What happened?’ It was common knowledge she was missing. After that point, she dropped off the face of the map. I remember wondering about her, ‘Where did she go? Did she ever come back?’”
On Oct. 1, 2012, Dandurand transferred to Summit High School. She remained there until Feb. 8, 2013. After another absence, Dandurand was reinstated on March 18, 2013 and finished the school year.
She never returned to Bend-La Pine Schools.
It’s unclear if she finished high school elsewhere or if she earned a GED.
Summit High principal Alice DeWittie declined to comment beyond saying she didn’t know Dandurand.
At the time of Boinville’s killing, Dandurand was enrolled at Kapiolani Community College, a school official said. The school is located on the slopes of Diamond Head, about 40 miles south of the crime scene.
‘My life is over’
A few hours after Boinville’s body was found on Dec. 7, a tipster called the Honolulu police: A man and woman — “blasting their music” — pulled up in a gold truck with Boinville’s license plate at a shopping district parking lot about a half-hour drive from the crime scene, according to court documents. Dandurand and Brown, their clothes stained with blood, were soon arrested at a nearby Starbucks; Brown initially tried to run away, according to court documents.
A viral cell phone video showed Brown exchanging heated words with an agitated mob. “You’re going down, braddah!” one onlooker taunted Brown.
When Brown was being detained, he “spontaneously uttered ‘Just shoot me, I deserve this,’” according to court documents.
When Dandurand was being detained, she said: “Can you just pull your gun out and shoot me in the head? My life is over after today.”
‘This is us checking out’
Social media allowed information pertaining to Boinville’s killing to spread across the island chain as quickly as it could be shared.
Brown’ and Dandurand’s online footprints began to circulate. Dandurand’s Facebook page, which has been taken down, featured her full name Hailey Kai Kahelemeakua Dandurand. Her profile picture featured Brown — his hair dyed green — and Dandurand, closely huddled. The cover photo was an illustration of a gnashing wolf. Text read: “When lone wolves gather …” It’s a cropped portion of industrial rock band Psychic TV’s cover art for the 1984 album: “When Lone Wolves Gather … They Could Start a War.”
A Facebook page belonging to Brown remains online. The account carries the alias Axel Haze Hendrix and has photos of Brown. They often showcase him flexing his abdomen and pectorals. The page includes the introduction: “just an aspiring musician. Music is Life.”
Weeks before Boinville’s killing, a Stolen Stuff Hawaii user and Oahu resident circulated a makeshift missing person flier featuring Dandurand. Written by someone identifying as a friend of Dandurand’s father, the notice claimed Dandurand was involved with a man with a troubled, violent past who was wanted by law enforcement. The flier seemed to allude to Brown, who at the time of his arrest had a $20,000 probation revocation warrant and a $150 contempt warrant, according to court documents. Last June, Brown was arrested for allegedly assaulting a then-girlfriend at her Waikiki apartment, although court records indicate the case was dismissed.
The flier also claimed that Brown was plying Dandurand with heroin.
On Nov. 5, 2017, an official missing person report for Dandurand was filed by a family member, according to the Honolulu Police Department.
On Nov. 26, 2017, Brown posted a 45-second selfie video — titled “We almost died. Becoming a daily struggle peace out” — to his Facebook page. He and Dandurand addressed the camera while standing in sunny, breezy grassland. Dandurand, smiling, appeared intoxicated.
Brown began the video: “So we just died.”
Dandurand giggled, as she does each time Brown said anything in the video.
“Again,” she said.
“Again,” Brown added. “This is our dying video.”
“Yeah,” Dandurand said.
“It was nice knowing you, world,” Brown said.
“Sort of,” Dandurand said.
“Not really,” Brown said.
“Not really,” Dandurand said. “Mostly bulls---.”
After a sarcastic, profanity strewn nod to Satan for perceived injustices, Brown said, “This is us checking out. It’s been real. It’s been fun,” he said, elongating the last word of each sentence. Dandurand extended her middle finger to the camera.
“Goodbye,” Brown said, while holding his middle finger to his face like the barrel of a pistol and pulling the trigger. “Anarchy,” he added while waving with his pinky and ring fingers.
Dandurand grinned. She kept gazing at Brown.
Bend Bulletin: Police Form Coalition to Stop Sex Traffickers
Published: April 27, 2016
When David Romeil Cobbs was arrested April 8 on suspicion of promoting prostitution and human trafficking, it wasn’t the Californian’s first time visiting Bend.
He spent late February here, where he had met an 18-year-old woman while walking down NE Third Street near a strip club, according to an April 18 search warrant affidavit. In subsequent days, Cobbs, who introduced himself as “King David” and propositioned the 18-year-old and her sister, who was residing in a sober living house, to work as escorts for him, making $200 per date without having sex.
They would go on trips together, and Cobbs would arrange to send them on dates with men. He gave one of the sisters heroin, the search warrant affidavit alleges, which she used in a motel room. Days later, Cobbs, another man wearing a cowboy hat, and two women who appeared to work for Cobbs, drove the 18-year-old Bend resident to Santa Monica, California. There, under Cobb’s supervision, she allegedly performed commercial sex work on March 2 — nine days after she met Cobbs on NE Third Street.
Since January 2015, nine people in Deschutes County have been arrested on charges related to prostitution and human trafficking, according to the Deschutes County District Attorney’s office. District Attorney John Hummel told The Bulletin earlier this month that promoting prostitution and human trafficking are “extremely uncommon” cases for his office to file.
Four women charged with prostitution have addresses outside of Bend, including Medford, Springfield, Portland, and Vancouver, Washington. Cobbs is from Los Angeles; another man charged with promoting prostitution has a Beaverton address.
Now, Bend Police have formed a countywide coalition to try to deal with the problem, and two anti-human-trafficking groups are putting on a forum today to educate the public on the subject. The migratory nature of prostitution operations, which police officers describe as a roving bazaar, may be the unintended consequence of metropolitan police departments cracking down on prostitution, pushing sex trafficking operations to smaller communities where police might not have human trafficking units or other necessary resources.
This is the picture that Bend Police Sgt. Devin Lewis paints.
It’s a problem in Bend because sex traffickers have spread the word that this city is a place where they can make money and not get in trouble, according to Lewis. “We’re going to see an increase in the problem here,” he said.
There are commonalities among some of the recent sex trafficking arrests. Lewis breaks them down like this: Sex traffickers post advertisements on Backpage.com under the escort section. Would-be customers click through salacious yet carefully worded listings that advertise “full service” or “100-rose special.” Phone numbers are listed and plans are made over a quick phone call or a series of texts. Many of the escorts mention they’re “new in town” or it’s their “last night in Bend” — a status attractive to sex buyers who live in a town lacking larger cities’ anonymity. Traffickers typically make arrangements to meet sex buyers at local motels.
To combat human trafficking, Lewis said the Bend Police have recently formed a countywide coalition that connects them with the District Attorney’s office and its Victims’ Assistance program; the local Department of Human Services Child Welfare office; KIDS Center, a child-abuse intervention center; and Saving Grace, a domestic-abuse prevention nonprofit.
“We recognize (sex trafficking) is a growing problem and we’re doing what we can to get it taken care of,” Lewis said.
Charles Lovell, a Portland Police sergeant in a human trafficking detail, agrees that the marketplace for sex is often on the move. He mentioned the recent arrest his department made of a man who was allegedly taking prostitutes from Portland to Bend.
Lovell said lack of competition in Bend may be an attraction to sex traffickers. Additionally, sex traffickers know that prostitutes are more dependent on them for their needs when they’re in a new area without friends or family to reach out to for help.
David Romeil Cobbs
The local interagency anti-human-trafficking program, which has yet to carry an official name, is responsible for Cobbs’ arrest, Lewis said.
According to a search warrant affidavit filed April 18, Cobbs was visiting Bend and staying in motels.
On March 2, Detective Chris Morin received a tip about a possible missing person. Unknown to Bend Police and her mother, she was in Santa Monica with Cobbs, who would direct her in her first commercial sex act, she later told Bend Police. The next day, Morin received a formal report from Cascade Youth and Family Services, filed by the 18-year-old’s mother.
On March 5, the mother informed Bend Police that her daughter had contacted her and she was flying her home. Bend Police later spoke with her; she has not been charged with any crime related to Cobbs. Morin could not comment for this story.
According to the search warrant affidavit, by April 8 Cobbs had also returned to Bend, where he brought a rental vehicle to an AAMCO service garage. Its staff suspected the car was stolen and contacted Bend Police. Cobbs’ sister rented the car; no one was to drive it but her, and the car was outside its rental jurisdiction of California and Nevada, which the rental company knew because of a GPS tracking device. Working with information the 18-year-old woman provided to Bend Police, the AAMCO staff, and the car rental company, Officer Thomas Lilienthal reached Cobbs by cellphone and arranged to meet him in the Arco gas station parking lot on NE Greenwood Avenue and Third Street, according to the affidavit. Lilienthal told Cobbs he wanted him to make a written statement about the rental vehicle after presenting his identification. After confirming his identity, Lilienthal arrested Cobbs. He has been charged with two counts of human trafficking and one count of promoting prostitution, all felonies, and is being held in the Deschutes County jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. Casey Baxter, Cobb’s attorney, did not return a call for comment. Cobbs is due in court for a plea hearing on May 10.
“These pimps aren’t dumb,” Lewis said. “They’re targeting girls that have had problems, they’re going to be weak, going through a drug and alcohol rehab, already coming from abusive situations,” Lewis said. “Obviously it’s a lot easier to entice someone who has been victimized, someone who may not have a lot of self-worth, self-confidence or a lot of education. They’re definitely good at what they do, which is unfortunate.”
Sara Hunt, a Bend native and sex trafficking survivor who promotes awareness, agrees.
“People don’t understand that these pimps are masterminds. This is their job, this is how they make money,” Hunt said. Then 17 and studying at Portland State University, she said she was working at a department store where she met the pimp who would lure her into prostitution for 2½ years. His technique involved a mix of seduction, drugs and entrapment.
Hunt said traffickers considered U.S. Highway 97 a safer, lower-risk corridor than the parallel I-5, which they considered more heavily patrolled. The Highway 97 communities are often considered worthwhile places to connect with sex purchasers when traffickers return to Portland from an out-of-state trip.
The stepdaughter of a former Bend Police captain and daughter of a once-successful real estate broker, Hunt, now 28, says girls and young women are susceptible to human trafficking — regardless of social strata.
The public is invited to attend The Forum Against Human Trafficking from 6-8 p.m. today at St. Charles Bend meeting rooms A and B. Forum speakers will include Tom Perez, founder of the EPIK Project, and Nita Belles, the executive director of In Our Backyard. Both are Northwest anti-human-trafficking nonprofits. The free event is presented by Soroptimist International of Bend.
Bend Bulletin: Off-road Trucks Tear up Wanoga Sno-park
Published: Feb. 3, 2018
Deep, muddy ruts carved by trucks driven off-road at Wanoga Sno-park tore up a groomed snowfield and forced the cancellation of a popular vintage snowmobile race scheduled for Saturday.
The damage covers about the length of a football field and is found where snowmobiles and certain kinds of four-wheelers are allowed, but vehicles such as trucks and SUVs are not. The Moon Country Snowbusters, a local snowmobile nonprofit, had been grooming the 6-inch-deep snowfield in preparation for its now-canceled Vintage Snowmobile Oval Race.
“If (the off-roaders) did it intentionally to mess up the races, that’s sad,” said Moon Country Snowbusters Vice President Bill Inman. “Maybe they were just some people who wanted to have some fun and they had no idea what they were doing. If they had ridden ATVs, they probably would have stayed on top (of the snow) and it wouldn’t have been a problem. But it was a pretty heavy rig, I would guess.”
About 300 people were expected to attend the grooming club’s largest fundraiser, which it canceled Thursday. There is no plan to reschedule the event that was expected to raise more than $4,000 — nearly half of the volunteer-run group’s annual budget, member Mark Young said. The nonprofit club grooms 250 miles of the Deschutes National Forest for snowmobiling and other nonmotorized activities. Grooming chairman Mike Merritt said 16 inches of snow would have to fall before the club can resume grooming the damaged area.
According to federal law, Forest Service roads in the snowmobile trail system — those designated for grooming — are considered trails between Dec. 1 and April 1. That means vehicles such as trucks and SUVs are prohibited, said Marvin Lang, recreation forester for the Deschutes National Forest. Snowmobiles and Class 1 ATVs are the only motorized vehicles allowed on the trails, unless the trails have been designated for nonmotorized activities, such as nordic skiing, sledding, or snowshoeing, for example. Vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs are always prohibited off-road in the Wanoga Sno-park Play Area.
“(Street-legal vehicles) are off-limits everywhere except the roads and routes listed on the Motor Vehicle Use Maps,” Lang said. “There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what is legal, especially in the winter. Vehicles have to stay on those (approved) routes all the time. They can’t go off-road.”
In a Jan. 30 Facebook post, Moon Country Snowbuster member Austin Alvarez, 24, lamented the damage and the canceled race. In the comments, Bend resident and off-road enthusiast Brenden Newberg, 18, claimed responsibility for the vandalism: “It was me and a couple buddies, there weren’t any signs saying that we couldn’t go in there, and it’s a play area.”
Reached by The Bulletin for comment, Newberg said he was a passenger in a friend’s Dodge Dakota for the joy ride through the sno-park. Some of Newberg’s cousins were also there, he said.
Newberg said they didn’t know off-roading at Wanoga Sno-park was illegal. He said they assumed it was legal for them because they had an off-highway vehicle permit.
Street-legal vehicles do not require an off-highway vehicle permit because they’re licensed by their plates, Lang said. Off-highway vehicle permits are Oregon permits for operating other types of vehicles, such as quads and dirt bikes, on public land. Such vehicles are still not permitted to travel off-road on national forestland, Lang said.
“There weren’t any signs saying we couldn’t go out into the field or anything,” Newberg said.
Three prominent Forest Service signs are positioned where Newberg said they entered the play area. Two signs are affixed to tree trunks, the third to a stand-alone pole. Soupy tire gouges cut within 2 feet of each sign. They state that the trail is closed to all motorized vehicles except four-wheelers and snowmobiles. The permitted vehicles are featured in pictograms.
Informed of this, Newberg said: “Oh, really? That’s interesting. We’ll have to go look at that. … We didn’t see the signs at all, even with our lights on and everything. I don’t know where they are or anything.”
Even if future snow covers the ruts, catching a snowmobile ski on one of them can flip the vehicle, Lang and several snowmobilers said.
The Forest Service is not investigating the incident, said Kassidy Kern, the agency’s public affairs specialist. Offenses such as off-roading can carry a maximum punishment of six months in jail and a $5,000 fine, Lang said.
The state, which shares sno-park jurisdiction with the Forest Service, can write citations for operating a class 2 vehicle in a prohibited snow area.
“It’s illegal for (off-roaders) to be there,” Lang said. “The idea is when people do this kind of thing, they’re affecting a whole lot of other people. It’s a self-pleasure thing for them, but by doing that, they’re doing some resource damage potentially, but they’re certainly affecting a lot of other recreation users that would use that area.”
“There are a lot of other places they could go,” he said. “The issue this season is there is just not enough snow to keep people out of those places,” Lang said. “There is not enough snow to preclude a four-wheel-drive rig from being taken for a joy ride.”