Cyrus Belt
- January 17, 2008
On January 17, 2008, motorists were
witness to a man
throwing something off of an overpass into the path of traffic on the
H-1
free-way at about 11:40am. Little did any of them know, the "something"
would turn out to be a little boy named Cyrus Belt:
"We received phone calls of a
male throwing
an object over the Miller Street pedestrian overpass. Officers who
responded
to the freeway discovered that it was in fact a baby"
Captain Frank Fujii - Honolulu
Police Department
At first, witnesses thought it was a
doll that had
been thrown 30 feet below:
"It looked like a doll. I
thought it was a
doll at first, 'cause I thought, you really wouldn't
expect that of a regular child. So
we went
over and we looked down on the
highway and we saw that it was an
actual child.
So then we immediately
called the police"
Kraid Hengst
Witnesses were able to describe the
man who had thrown
the baby off of the over pass as an Asian man wearing what seemed to be
hospital scrubs, they said he looked to be about 20 years old. Just a
few
blocks away, police found a man who fit that description and they took
Matthew M. Higa, who was 23, into custody.
Nancy Asiata Chanco, the mother of
Cyrus Belt said
that he was an outgoing child who was very talkative and that she had
left
him with her boyfriend who had then put them in their apartment with
his
grandfather. Nancy said that her father was sleeping and that during
that
time, Cyrus was taken that morning. Nancy also said that she
believes Cyrus opened the door for
whoever took
him because he was such a friendly child. She said, through tears, that
she never left Cyrus with Matthew:
"He stole my baby"
Nancy said that she was afraid of
Matthew because
he acted odd and he was a drug user. Matthew was her neighbor and he
was
always asking her if he could hold her baby. Nancy says even with all
of
that, she never left him with her son. Police had reported that Matthew
had baby sat Cyrus on occasion, Nancy says that's not true:
"I would never, ever let that
murderer watch
my baby"
Nancy says that door to her apartment
was not locked,
though the screen door was and she insists that Cyrus would have opened
the door for Matthew, who was always very friendly towards everyone.
Ron Asiata, an uncle to Cyrus said
that Nancy was
very upset and was not able to go and identify the body of her son, as
was his father. Ron said that he was going to be the one to go to the
medical
examiners office and identify the body of Cyrus:
"He's my nephew. I love him
with all my heart
and he was killed in a violent death.
I'm really upset about it"
Police told Nancy that in video tapes
of what happened,
it doesn't appear that Cyrus is struggling or moving at all. Nancy said
her son was wrapped in a blanket and she believes that Cyrus was either
dead or unconscious before he was thrown off of the overpass.
A neighbor, Roy Seminuk, said that
Nancy and Matthew
had both moved into the apartment complex only a few months before the
incident. Roy said that Matthew was a longer and would walk around all
the time, seemingly with nowhere in mind to go to. He would go up and
down
the stairs of the three floors in the building. Other
neighbors stated that they could hear
Matthew and
his father arguing, that they lived in the same apartment. Neighbors
also
said they could hear things being thrown around inside the apartment.
Matthew M. Higa was arrested and
faced a charge of
second degree murder. He plead not guilty to that charge and was being
held on a $1 million dollar bond. If convicted, he was facing life in
prison
without the possibility of parole. This is the sentence that I believe
ANYONE who kills a child due to abuse should get.
Matthew's lawyer
said that he was going to be sure that he was examined and checked for
his mental status:
"I think that's a brutal evil
crime that he's
done and I think he deserves life. If he has to stay in
the state mental hospital, let him
stay there
for life"
Philip Asiata
Nancy Asiata had been accused of
child neglect in
the past, though Child Protective Services never did much, if anything,
about it. Nancy has two other children, besides Cyrus, neither of them
lived with her at the time of his death. During their lives, Nancy had
been in and out of abusive relationships and she had abused drugs, she
even admitted that while she was pregnant with Cyrus, she had done the
drug crystal meth amphetamine.
The Department Of Human Services
released 180 pages
of documents that were the record of Nancy's case. The records state
that
Nancy was a young mother who filed on more than one occasion to take
proper
care of her sons due to her use of drugs. Parts of the record had been
blacked out to exclude names of family members, case workers and those
who had filed complaints against her.
In May of 2002, Nancy dropped her
son, who was 11
at the time, off with a relative claming she was going to search for a
job and a place to live. When, after a month, Nancy had not taken her
son
back and the relative had been supporting him, the relative filed for
power
of attorney. In December 2002, after giving birth to her second son,
nancy
was accused of being detached from her son and her family said that she
told them she didn't want him. That child lives in Turkey with Nancy's
mother.
In her fifth month of pregnancy with
Cyrus, Nancy
admitted that she had done drugs. After he was born, neighbors called
Child
Protective Services claiming that Nancy often disappeared for days at a
time and that she didn't properly care for Cyrus. In June of 2006,
Police
found that there was no electricity in their home. SHOCKINGLY,
Cyrus
was never removed from her custody.
Nancy said she thought of the birth
of Cyrus as her
last chance to become a good mother:
"This baby was my first baby
that I really
took care of on my own. All he wanted to do was be
beside his mommy. He's the only
thing I cared
about enough to change. And it's too late now"
Lilo Asiata, her father, said that
Nancy had been
taking good care of Cyrus:
"He's the only reason she
wanted to turn her
life around. She just started coming around
and taking care of her boy. She
was beginning
to be a good mother, and now, for this
to happen, it's so sad"
Caseworkers closed their case against
Nancy and one
of them said that nancy was an attractive, intelligent woman who was
providing
a happy home for Cyrus. A couple of weeks before his death, Child
Protective
Services received another complaint. They determined that there was no
immediate safety issue. Nancy's father was upset that the records had
been
released:
"It saddens me to think that
they'd bring these
things out at a time like this"
Lilliam Koller, the director of the
department said
that they were NOT trying place blame, they were simply trying
to
determine if anything could have been done to help Cyrus. Carroll Cox,
an environmental activist, was called by the family, they asked her to
help them. She stated that Child Protection Services had done an
investigation
and
if they felt Cyrus was in danger or that
the family
was a threat to his well being, they should have removed him from the
home.
Philip Asiata, the brother of Nancy
said the media
should focus on the death of Cyrus and the man who killed him rather
than
focus on his sister and father:
"She had nothing to do with her
son's death.
Whatever problem she has in the past, she was
taking care of it, from my
understanding"
The memorial wall on the Miller
Street overpass continued
to grow. People were dropping off hundreds of items including stuffed
animals,
balloons, letters and flowers. Stacey Norris, a former Army Staff
Sergeant
was going to gather up the stuffed animals and pay to have them sent to
children and injured soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stacey brought two friends to the
overpass and they
bagged up the stuffed animals in preparation to wash them before
shipping
them:
"This will give them a little
comfort. This
is the family's wishes"
For
information about
preventing child abuse in the state of Hawaii, click the links below.
If
they can't help you, ask for someone who can. NEVER give up
looking
for help for an abused child!
Call
this number
to report child abuse ANY WHERE in the United States!
1-800-4-A-Child
1-800-422-4453
   
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