opinions? no, absolutely not. >> to shirlene's daughters, there was still no doubt about what really happened and what to do about it. i think your mother had a word, didn't she, that she liked. what was that word? >> tenacity. >> i just had to keep going. and here's the thing about keeping going, by doing something, in the process, i was honoring her. >> tiffany filled a suitcase with documents that some prosecutor might find useful, hauled it back and forth to prosecution meetings, pushing for action for years. >> well, i kept going to hawaii for sure. i'm, like, "pardon, hi. it's me again. my mom -- what's going on with my mom's case? " >> by this time, dan oyasato no longer worked at the honolulu county prosecutor's office. and the prosecutor who took over the case seemed reluctant to go forward. but that wasn't going to stop , ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy.
garage in a house in california shirlene had kept looking for evidence to use against ken. so they flew to the mainland. and that's where they were when ken gave consent to take shirlene off life support and she died. >> and i remember thinking -- and just bawling my head off again. so i was mortified. and i was devastated again that i wasn't there. >> at shirlene's funeral, according to detective nick cambra, ken's eulogy sounded like a well-prepared criminal defense. >> he started with that shirlene initiated sex the night before, that she was happy that they were together. and then he started -- he went on to the next day and how he tried to prevent her from dying. >> shirlene's daughters were horrified. now, they were fully determined to keep their promise to their mother, they'd need to ensure that ken was charged with her murder. next to look at the case, prosecutor dan oyasato, who found ken's remarks about strangulation very disturbing. and here's why. >> this was viewed as an overdose. that's how this case went to the hospital. that's what tiffany and tammie were thinking. that's what the police department was thinking. >> and yet, as oyasato began to dig deeper, he found that ken talked about strangulation more
said to them nine months earlier. >> promise me you'll investigate. if anything happens to me, you'll find out what happened. >> they'd promised, of course. though even before they even got on the plane for hawaii, they called the police to report that they already had their suspicions. and those suspicions, even then, were all about shirlene's husband, ken wakisaka. >> i heard from tiffany before i even went to st. francis west. i was assigned the case by my lieutenant, and he said, "before you go, call this girl. " >> tiffany told detective nick cambra about her pre-flight conversation with the hospital.
read, transfixed, the contents of an envelope prepared by their mother, for them, and clearly marked "baby pictures. " but that is not what was in the envelope. instead they found notes, written by ken, apparently an assignment for an anger management class. >> it was actually a journal about all the different ways that he'd abused her. "i have spit at shirlene. i have yelled at shirlene. i have pushed shirlene. " >> there it was in his own hand, evidence she left for you to find? >> yes. >> and suddenly the sisters truly believed their mom was sending secret clues that almost screamed "open in case of death. " attempting to solve the mystery, they found a
in closets for what kind of stuff? >> for things that we thought that might help us to figure out what happened that day. >> because shirlene sounded so out of it on the phone, and ken mentioned pills to the emts, tammie wondered if her mother took pills. in fact, the hospital was treating it as an overdose. but the sisters did not believe she would do it deliberately, so they went looking for those pill bottles. >> we had looked through the house and couldn't find them. and so we were out in the backyard, just looking. and sure enough -- >> in the backyard? >> underneath a bush. >> as if they'd been hidden there or what? >> yes. >> in their minds, only one person could have hidden them, ken. later, as tiffany and tammie were about to drive away from the condo, having thrown in the back seat a sealed envelope ken had left out for them. suddenly tiffany remembered something else her
collier managed the condominium complex where shirlene and ken lived. unlike the daughters, marjorie considered shirlene the dominant, even abusive, force in the marriage. >> she used to tell me that ken was the complete opposite of her, that he was very quiet, and he would never argue with her or get into a fight with her. he'd leave the building. >> yeah. >> he'd just go for a walk. >> how'd she feel about that? >> she didn't like it. >> marjorie was on the scene april 5th, 2000, after tammie called 911, urging emt's to check on her mother. >> i went over to talk to the emt. and he said, "well, she's
>> i asked the emergency room attendant -- i'll never forget this. i said, "where's ken? " and he said, "he went home to feed the dogs. " i said, "so she's there by herself? well, who does that? >> by the time detective cambra got to the hospital, he had been told what tammie and tiffany had suspect. that shirlene had taken or been given an overdose of pills. he also heard from medical personnel. they thought ken's behavior seemed strange. though no one, including the ambulance driver, could quite say why. >> he also related that the husband was acting suspicious. >> did he say how? >> he said he -- just the way he spoke and the way he acted. >> suspicious? >> yes. >> when detective cambra heard that ken left the hospital while his wife was lying in a coma in the icu, he wondered, was ken going home to cover up a crime scene? and when cambra
>> my mother was a free spirit in many ways and didn't have a lot of rules. i didn't have to do things like normal kids had to do. like brush my teeth all the time. but i liked it that way. >> and so it was often tammie, and not her mother, who took on the responsible role with little sister tiffany, which was the other side of shirlene's manic exuberance. >> she was unstable. and she had a hard time taking care of herself, much less anyone else. >> uh-huh. unstable. >> she would have the highs of highs and the lows of lows. >> moods. very dark ones sometimes, said the girls. >> she didn't want to really admit that there was an issue. it was a hot button, and it wasn't something that you wanted to bring up unless you were ready for the fight. >> when shirlene left the girls'father, tammie refused to go with her. >> i said, "i'm not going. i can't leave. i can't leave my dad. " >> what did that feel like? >> like my heart was being ripped in two. >> the girls lived apart for years after that, until their father won custody of tiffany, too. and then the girls watched, loved, and worried about their mother mostly from afar. and then, late'80s, shirlene finally found real happiness when she met and married a man named ken wakisaka. >> she goes, i've never been with a man who really got me. he gets me. she, in her whole life, i think had never felt so quite thoroughly and utterly
>> absolutely. prove me wrong. show me that you're going to do something. quit leading us on to believe that you're going to move forward with a case that we've been hanging onto for ten years. >> defense attorney edmunds said he would knock down the prosecution's new omission theory by pointing out that ken did try to get help for shirlene by calling 911. so far, there has been no move to charge ken, and it's not clear when, or if, there will be. >> ken has maintained his innocence all these years, even though shirlene's daughter's quest to prove him guilty goes on. >> he's very troubled by it. >> is he living under a cloud now? >> he feels he is. he'll never really be at peace. now, more people recognize him on the street. that's embarrassing. >> i miss her so much, tammie. >> me, too. >> call it a promise, a quest, an obsession. her daughters'journey isn't over. how long are you prepared to keep going with this? >> as long as it takes. >> i mean, you could be sitting here an old lady and, years and years from now, and nothing