IT'S ONE OF THE BIGGEST UNSOLVED
MYSTERIES IN HAWAII ... WHAT
HAPPENED TO JIE
ZHAO LI?
A LITTLE GIRL WHO VANISHED
WITHOUT A
TRACE .. WHILE SELLING BENEFIT
CHILI TICKETS.
THIS YEAR MARKS 30 YEARS SINCE
SHE
DISAPPEARED.
TONIGHT, WE TAKE A LOOK BACK AT
THIS COLD CASE, FOR A STORY
THAT'S NEW AT NINE..
February 11th, 1988 .. 12 year
old Jie Zhao Li was
selling benefit chili tickets at
this 7-Eleven store at the
corner of Nuuanu and Kuakini.
GARY: while she was there, she
just simply disappeared.
Gary Dias was in charge of the
case.
she never had a history of
running away and she didn't
have the personality based on
our discussions with the
family of being the type that
would run away.
Jie Zhao had moved to Hawaii
from China with her
parents and two sisters just two
years earlier.
She went to Royal Elementary
School.
according to the family she is a
very obedient child. in fact
was very dear to the heart of
the parents.
Posters and fliers went up.
Word went out through the news
media. And there was an
extensive search.
we have a crime reduction unit
from kalihi on foot in the
street areas checking with the
neighbors again, looking
for witnesses, evidence, any
other information that might
help us.
GARY: hundreds of officers
involved, got involved with
this investigation and we ended
up on a dead end street.
That's despite tips and leads
that came in.
Dias says a person of interest
was a mentally ill
man who had a run-in with
another little girl at that 7-
Eleven.
GARY: he would tell us on
several occasions 'i'll show
you where she is' or 'i'll show
you where she's buried.'
GARY: but his conversations with
us led us to conduct an
extremely extensive search of
the nuuanu stream area,
utilizing our swat team and the
dogs we had with the
department at the time. and we
came up with nothing.
Another tip was that someone
thought they saw a
young Asian girl get into a
1950's Chevy.
GARY: so what we did was run a
computer check
through our research dept and
came up with a list of all
registered chevrolets between
1953 and 1959 and we made
physical checks of every single
chevrolet.
Nothing came of that either.
Someone else suggested Jie Zhao
had been
kidnapped by someone from China.
GARY: well I am among the group
of people who believe
that she met with foul play.
Now, that being said, I would
pray that i'm wrong, that
nothing happened to her and
somehow somewhere she's alive
somewhere and
somewhere somehow she will come
forward if she is
alive.
This is what Jie Zhao may look
like as an adult.
Today, she would be 43 years
old.
Dias says it's a case he still
thinks about.
GARY: you kind of always say did
I do enough? Did we
do enough?
GARY: and we felt at the time of
the incident we did the
best we could to try and locate
her.
WE REACHED OUT TO JIE ZHAO LI'S
MOTHER
THROUGH HER ATTORNEY. AND SHE
DECLINED TO DO AN INTERVIEW.
WE WERE TOLD: "ON BEHALF OF MRS.
LI, SHE
WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND HER
HEARTFELT
APPRECIATION TO THE NEWS MEDIA,
H-P-D, THE A-G'S OFFICE AND ALL
OF THE OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS WHICH HAVE SO
TIRELESSLY
ASSISTED ON THIS TRAGEDY.
ALTHOUGH IT HAS BEEN 30 YEARS,
SHE STILL
THINKS OF JIE ZHAO EVERY SINGLE
DAY AND
STILL HAS HOPES FOR INFORMATION
LEADING
TO HER RECOVERY. WITHOUT FAIL."
SO ... IF YOU HAVE ANY
INFORMATION THAT CAN HELP SOLVE
THIS COLD CASE .. CONTACT
CRIMESTOPPERS .. OR
"MISSING CHILD CENTER HAWAII" ..
WE HAVE THEIR
NUMBERS ON OUR WEBSITE, KHON2
DOT
COM.
MARISA:
THE HONOLULU POLICE COMMISSION
PICKS THE