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My friend called me and she was hysterical and she said, Sanders has been killed.
I was like, oh, my God.
As soon as she was killed, we all knew who did it.
As the months went on, we just realized that this guy is going to get off.
How is this happening?
Just keep praying. That's all we can do.
There aren't a lot of murders in Paradise.
People still talk about it.
Talk about this one.
Just a darling girl with two darling children.
It's a story Keith Morrison followed for more than a decade.
How, when? I got a call from her boss, she said she hadn't showed up for work.
They found her in the car.
I saw in the back of her neck some literature marks.
I just didn't deserve that.
A small island, a small pool of suspects, Ryan, her lover with a past. I had no idea he was a drug dealer.
and Darren, the soon to be ex -husband.
That morning he called in sick.
Was Darren polygraphed?
Didn't pass. And the lover?
He didn't do that good either.
Without much else to go on, this case was growing colder by the day.
Nothing, just nothing happens.
But a father doesn't forget.
I have to have justice for my daughter.
After all these years, are there still secrets to uncover?
It's been quite a journey for you.
It isn't over yet. This father finally got his answer, but is it the one he wanted?
Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine what we're going through now.
I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
Here is Keith Morrison with the other side of paradise.
Wandering through this land, you wonder if you've been transported to the beginning biblical time to a garden free of want, temptation, or betrayal.
And in a land so distractingly beautiful tourists who ebb and flow like the tides could be forgiven for looking past this lone tormented father begging for help, for a terrible reason, to solve the murder of his precious daughter Sandy.
I really appreciate it Dave. No, no, no anything we can do.
We're, uh... This takes time, Doug.
We hope we hope, we hope we get an arrest this year.
This is how close we are.
We're 90 % there. Okay, it's all good.
We first came upon Larry Mendonca, well, on another Dateline assignment way back in 2009.
Which is when we shot this video.
He was 68 years old then.
Alone he worked handing out flyers, gruff and stoic.
Except when the pain was just too much. 3 years.
is still rough. Larry took us to Sandra's grave, told us how he promised to bring her killer to justice.
She won't be forgotten as long as I'm alive.
We had no idea then where this meeting would lead us.
That our journey would last a decade in case it would expose evil lurking in this garden paradise and bring Larry to the edge of his own mortality.
Many on Kauai knew Sandra, he even watched her as a teenager dancing in a local marketing video.
Later as a 20 -something at the head of a parade float.
Like many here she was multi -racial growing up in a household that was half Japanese half Portuguese all Hawaiian.
And a devout Catholic who attended St. Catherine's School with friends Alma Umaola and Joni Morita.
So when people ask you what was Sandi like, we'd tell them.
She was absolutely a go -getter, like she was teachers pet, always perfect, she She always had her hair nicely done, she was always focused.
In high school, Sandra was an athlete, a cheerleader, and very popular.
She was a complete package.
And her home life? Old fashioned, traditional family, Catholic, played by the rules type of people, yeah.
Discipline, a very important thing to Larry, he the 20 -year Air Force veteran.
I was trying to toughen her up, if you want to put it in that expression, to know what the real world was like.
That was why Larry insisted Sandra leave Kauai to go to college, she ended up in Honolulu.
But for a small island girl, it felt as big and lonely as New York City.
She missed Kawhi, her family, and would come home as often as she could.
That's when she got involved with Darin.
And Darin was here?
Darin was here. Darin Gallas, a little older, made good money at his highway construction job.
Sandra was crazy about him.
And soon after she moved home, they got married.
Son, Austin, came nine months later, and Braydon two years after that.
So by the age of 24, Sandra was the matriarch of her own little clan.
She loved the boys to death.
There was the apple up her eye.
Life was good until April 2005 when Sandra came to her parents, very upset.
As she told us, she was cleaning out her husband's backpack and two papers fell out.
Two phone numbers. So she called the phone numbers and it turned out to be two different married women.
Sandra confronted Daron.
He would never admit it.
They just kept saying they were friends.
They were friends. And she knew otherwise.
She knew what it was.
By June Daron had moved out.
And Sandra moved on, got a job at the Beach House Restaurant, an island landmark.
It was a life changer.
She was just a darling girl, you know, with two darling children.
Krista Hall was a waitress at the Beach House and saw firsthand Sandra's transformation from quiet island girl to young working woman.
And she wore her hair back in a ponytail and she was very prim and proper and very subdued.
And then as soon as she got away from Darren, she was like, cut her hair into bob and it was really cute, stylish all of a sudden.
Sandra started going out with friends and as is pretty obvious in this concert video, she was enjoying her new life.
But before too long, Sandra started getting friendly with one of the chefs.
a recent transplant from Oahu named Ryan Shinjo.
He wined and dined her and took really good care of her.
And he was really nice to her.
They were always doing all kinds of fabulous things.
Going on Hallelu shopping trips, for instance, where Ryan would lavish expensive gifts on Sandra, like Louis Vuitton luggage.
Larry and Sandra's mom, Toshi, knew little of this relationship.
And on January 25, 2006, we're in Dallas visiting their son, when they got an odd call from Sandra's boss.
I said she hadn't showed up for work.
Very unusual for her.
Hours later the phone rang again.
It was 3 a .m. A time when bad news comes calling.
Larry's son answered the phone.
And this is basically how he goes hello, you know, oh, hi, yeah hi cousin.
No! When we come back… She was slumped to the right to the passenger seat, face down.
Who wanted Sandra dead?
From what we're told, he went ballistic.
and he just flipped up.
She was beyond the Eden of the tourist sea, out of sight of the rich and verdant estates of the wealthy few.
She was in a neighborhood more working -class suburbia, than Polynesian paradise.
In her own small ranch house, in her garage, in her car, she'd been strangled to death.
It was Sandra's new boyfriend Ryan Shinjo who called the police said he found her that way.
And she was slumped to the passenger seat face -down into the seat.
Roy Asher was one of the original investigators.
We spoke to him in 2009.
This was three years after Sandra was murdered.
I saw in the back of her neck some literature marks.
We didn't find the cord itself.
We had an idea of what could have been used.
What? A thin cord, like a fishing line.
Sandra's shirt and bra were askew.
Her lip was split, as if she'd been punched in the face.
Ryan, the boyfriend, he's the one on the right of the screen, told investigators he'd discovered Sandra's body around nine p .m. But the cops could see she'd been dead for a while by then.
Probably eight to 10 hours.
Which would have put the time of death about when?
In the morning. Could you get any more exact?
No. Given that the estranged husband, Darren, used to live with Sandra, and Ryan was now dating her, their fingerprints could certainly be explained.
Nothing suspicious there.
But Ryan finding the body?
Well, that was potentially suspicious.
Did he have an alibi?
Yes. Ah, and it checked out?
Yes. Do you remember what it was?
It was at work. So who else?
Well, there was Sandra's estranged husband, Daren, of course.
And this was interesting.
That morning, he called in sick.
So in other words, he didn't have an alibi.
And based simply on that lack of an alibi, the police arrested Darren.
When they first said, you think her husband could have done it?
And I said, my first reaction was no. But even as Larry tried to wrap his mind around that idea, a detective called him the following day.
And he says we got to let him go.
We don't have enough.
We've talked to the prosecutor and attorney, we don't have enough.
Meaning what? Was Darin involved or not?
Hit by grief and impatient for answers, Larry launched an investigation of his own.
It was like, I don't know, a panic.
I mean, you know, I've got so many things to do, and I've got to get it done now.
As a native Kawaian and veteran Air Force intelligence analyst, Larry had both the connections and the skills to piece together the details surrounding his daughter's murder.
For instance, he found out that two days before the killing, Darin, while working on a road crew, saw Sandra and Ryan together.
She goes driving by with her boyfriend in the car and for what we're told for his coworkers at the time, he went ballistic and he just flipped off.
At that time, and this is important to the case, Sandra and Darrin shared custody of their two sons, but remember she worked evenings at the restaurants, so the boy slept over with Darrin and at six o 'clock in the morning she would show up, pick them up, take them off for breakfast, get them ready for school and daycare.
But Larry discovered that on the night before she was murdered, Sandra stayed over at Ryan's house, her boyfriend.
He dropped her off at her place at 6 a .m. And then the neighbors told Larry they saw her leave in her car soon after that, apparently heading to pick up the boys.
And neighbors confirmed they saw Sandra's car return a short while later but without the children.
Larry learned through his contacts that Sandra had a 10 o 'clock appointment that morning to get her nails done at a salon about 45 minutes away.
She never made the appointment, So, this is how we narrow down the time of death, before about 9 o 'clock, where she would have had to leave to make her appointment.
The cops didn't tell him, but Larry learned from his own sources that boyfriend Ryan had an alibi, well, husband Darren did not.
All of which got Larry thinking the same thing as the police, must have been Darren who murdered Sandra.
Right now I'm driven by the case.
I mean, that got to get there.
Many of Sandra's friends, like Krista Hall, also thought Derron was guilty.
I think everyone thought that Derron would be arrested immediately and it would, you know, he'd be going to jail and the children would be going to the grandparents, or her brother, and everything was going to be okay.
And exactly one year after the murder, there was indeed an arrest. But it wasn't Derron.
Coming up, a new theory about Sandra's murder.
She may have been smuggling drugs and not even knowing it.
And a threat from her father.
If I ever figure out a way to get away with it, it'll happen.
When Dateline continues.
Dateline True Crime Weekly.
Andrea Canning and the Dateline team cover breaking crime news around the country.
And now, a special series with daily updates from the trial of Sean Combs.
I'll be talking to NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas every day after court about what she's seeing inside, the witnesses, the evidence and what it all means.
Dateline, True Crime Weekly.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down Podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro to talk about his lead role in the buzzed about new Wes Anderson movie, The Phoenician Scheme, and his path from a childhood in Puerto Rico to the heights of Hollywood.
You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.
The hit podcast, Dateline, Missing in America, is back with a new season and more unsolved cases.
The not knowing is the hardest part.
Thirty -seven -year -old Danielle Lopez evaporated into the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey.
She was seen alive around 6 p .m. on April 13.
that was the last time she was on video by these two civilians that were just driving down the road.
No call, no text, no goodbye, and almost no trace.
What happened to Danielle?
Where did she go? Maybe you could be the key to solving her case.
Dateline, Missing in America, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen now. Kauai is unique in many ways, not the least of which is this.
It's almost a media -free zone.
Most information spreads here as it has for generations, by word of mouth, where facts, opinions and gossip all swirl together as one.
Had the news swept across the island like a rogue wave?
Ryan Shinjo had been arrested, but not by the island cops, by the FBI. Then we hear that Ryan has gone to jail, and we're like, oh, my god!
What, did he do it?
Could that, then we hear, no, no, he went to jail for drug dealing.
Which, none of us knew he was a drug dealer.
I had no idea he was a drug dealer.
Ryan, it turned out, was a player in the big -money drug trafficking ring.
running meth from the mainland to Oahu to Kauai.
Well, when people found out about that, rumors started to fly.
Was Ryan using Sandra as an unwitting drug mule when he took her to Honolulu?
Was she bringing back meth with her?
Who knows, she may have been smuggling drugs in her new Louis Vuitton suitcases and not even knowing it, you know.
And the final act of that story?
Sandra found out about the drug rain and was killed before she could go to the police.
But that was just a rumor.
In a sea of rumors.
Police didn't seem any closer to finding Sandra's killer, whoever it was.
The case grew colder with each passing year.
Larry still thought Darren killed Sandra.
And it seemed wherever Larry went on this small island, there he was.
This is the house here with the boat and the truck in there.
It's not easy giving by here and knowing that he's still running free.
We've, we've got to get this case solved.
On this day, Larry and Sandra's mom Toshi had to see Darrin at grandson Austin's Little League game.
That's Darrin on the field coaching and in the dugout with his girlfriend Sharin, a woman he'd known since before Sandra's murder.
And it was at this point, 2009, three years after Sandra's murder, when Larry felt the time had come for him to go from investigator to avenger.
He was seriously thinking about killing Darren.
If I ever figure out a way to get away with it, it'll happen.
Fortunately, the arrival of a new Kauai police chief put his plans on hold.
Darryl Perry, a 30 -year veteran of the Honolulu PD, agreed to meet with Larry and listen to his theories about the case.
He showed me the scene, and he explained to me what happened, and I could feel his grief.
I mean it wasn't of any forensic value to you to be there to look at it, was it?
No, not at all. The point was what?
But the point was I wanted him to realize that there is somebody there that's listening to him.
What'd you do next?
We went to her grave site.
We stood there and...
What were you thinking about?
I was thinking about the sadness and the loss of a child.
There's nothing, nothing, nothing like it.
Nobody can understand unless they've been there?
Not unless you've lost a child.
Chief Perry was struggling to tell us that he did know what it was like to lose a child.
He came out of retirement and took the job as head of the Kauai Police Department, after the sudden death of his 26 year old son, Erickson.
I feel in a way that I'm working through him, that he motivates me.
I believe that things happen for a reason.
And in fact, I told Larry this.
I told him, there's a reason why we met.
I don't know what the reasons are, but I'm here for you.
So after meeting with Larry, Chief Perry sent Sanders' file to a couple of friends in Honolulu, investigators with the state attorney general's cold case unit.
I asked them to see if they can find anything else that we may have missed.
And they did indeed find something.
Using what was breakthrough science for that time early 2009, cold case investigators extracted touch DNA from Sanders' shirt and bra.
Chief Perry called Larry with the news.
And he said, they got something.
They rescanned her clothes, and they found two—how did he put it ?—two microscopic particles of a male origin.
Coming up, sometimes it's what you find, and sometimes it's what you don't.
Going through the calendar, it's pretty detailed from January 1, every day.
But on the morning of Sandra's murder… You got nothing.
It took a scientific breakthrough to finally get Larry Mendonca the help he was pleading for.
Touched DNA, microscopic skin cells on Sandra's shirt and bra.
It was a match to Darren.
When that result came in, tell me what your first thoughts were?
We got him? But Larry was wary.
It isn't over yet. Because what seemed like great evidence to the cops did not to the newly elected prosecuting attorney Shailina Seri.
For one simple reason, the DNA did not exclusively match Darren.
It could have come from the two children.
Larry, though, refused to be discouraged.
The driving force is to get this case solved and put my daughter to rest. Because she isn't here.
Hopefully it'll be this year.
Hopefully it'll be 2009.
We're close. The 2009 ended as it had begun, with the case in stasis, no breaks, no leads, no arrests.
And 2010 was no different.
Same for 2011. Nothing.
It's fair to say Sandra's murder investigation was very much cold.
So, 2012 now, six years after the murder, and three years after that DNA test, Chief Perry gave the case to a new detective named Bryson Ponce, who re -examined the physical evidence like Sandra's car, undisturbed since the day she was murdered.
She was sitting down on the driver's seat and from her waist up was pulled, slouched over into the passenger seat.
You said pulled, but it did appear that it had been yanked over that way?
It appeared that way, yeah.
We believed that there was a struggle outside of the vehicle in the garage.
And that's due to some evidence that was on the outside front of the vehicle.
What was it? Some smudge marks, some hair.
When you look at how this homicide happened, it wasn't sexually motivated or it wasn't a robbery, it really was focused on anger.
And so Ponce circled right back to those original two suspects, husband Darren, boyfriend Ryan.
But which one? From the file Ponce learned Ryan, in addition to being a drug trafficker, had also been convicted of domestic violence, and was there something fishy about how he found Sandra's body?
He told the cops he went to Sandra's house.
Doors were locked. Said he through these ventilation slats at the base of her garage wall.
So they saw Sandra in her car.
And calling out, Sandra, Sandra, and then he says he couldn't get into the door, he called a friend to come and help him open the door.
Called a friend to help him find a body?
Wouldn't be the first time a guilty party did that.
And did Ryan remain here at the scene, wait for the police officers?
And talk to them then?
Was there anything in the report about his demeanor that night?
You know, initially the investigators thought that maybe he wasn't saying everything that happened.
Yeah, he was holding back a little.
Yeah. And maybe he was a little bit nervous.
But Ryan had an alibi, right?
He was at work when Sandra was killed.
Well, Fonsy found out the estimated time of Sandra's death was really more of a rough guess.
And that Sandra could just as well have been murdered hours earlier when Ryan wasn't at work.
And then there were the results from Ryan's 2006 polygraph exam.
What was the result of that?
He wasn't in his past. Which didn't look good for Ryan.
Except... Daren's polygraph result didn't look so great either.
How did he do? He didn't do that good.
He didn't pass. Now, that was interesting.
Both suspects failed the polygraph.
So now Ponce looked at the evidence against Daren.
who gave police two entirely different accounts of the mourning of the murder.
First, he said Sandra came by to get the kids, then a minute later said she didn't.
Now, remember Deryn and Sandra were going through a divorce and a heated child custody battle, so Deryn apparently thought it'd be a good idea to take note of run -ins with Sandra, like the time she was late and picking up the boys hoping it would one day help him in court.
You know going through the calendar what I found really interesting is that it's pretty detailed from January 1st every day all the way up until the 24th is the very last entry and on the 25th you got nothing.
Why is that important?
Because Sandra was murdered that very morning the morning of the 25th about the time when she would have been picking up her sons.
You would expect Darren to have rolled down in there that Sandra never showed up to pick up the boys, that he had to take off from work.
But he didn't. Nor did he call her to find out why she was a no -show.
Ponce theorized that Sandra actually did go to Darren's house to get the boys, but there was an argument of some sort.
And she left without them.
Darren, still angry, followed her home, parking his truck on a street behind Sandra's cul -de -sac.
This path, you know, basically leads to the cul -de -sac and her house is just three houses down right when you come to the end of this walkway.
Very, very close, easy access.
So you think that Darren came up, followed her, had the confrontation there, killed her with a ligature, choked to the death, then what'd he do?
You know, I think after the incident happened over here, he went back as where he came and just took off and headed back home.
And nobody saw him.
You know, it was still dark.
Ponce also found this email Sandra sent her lawyer just three weeks before her murder.
Darren started asking me about my boyfriend, as he calls him Ryan, he got really upset and started swearing at me.
He started shaking me, telling me to tell him the truth and don't ever call him again.
Monse worked the investigation for close to a year, and as he weighed and re -weighed the evidence, he always came back to Darren who lacked an alibi, who called in sick to work, who gave conflicting accounts about the morning of the murder, who left blank the diary entry for the 25th, who failed a polygraph, who was jealous of Ryan, who never called Sandy to find out why she didn't pick up the boys.
Ponce delivered his final report to chief Perry and prosecutor Asseri and a handful of fellow investigators.
We all believed there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the case was not going to get any better than what we had.
And prosecutor Isseri finally agreed to present the case to a grand jury.
And in October 2012, the grand jury indicted Darren for Sandra's murder.
So, was Larry's quest for justice finally over?
Oh no. Not by a long shot.
Coming up... We've got a problem here.
A new prosecutor. A new delay.
Kauai is a murderous paradise.
If you wanna kill somebody, come to Kauai.
When Dateline continues.
I'm Josh Mankiewicz and I hope you'll join us for season four of Dateline Missing in America.
In each episode of Dateline's award winning series, we will focus on one missing persons case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them.
You will want to listen closely.
Maybe you could help investigators solve a mystery.
Search Dateline missing in America to listen on Apple podcasts.
On October 31, 2012, Daron Gallas was charged with the murder of his wife, Sandra.
He pleaded 2013, Sandra's dad Larry and mom Toshe held this memorial dedication service outside Kauai's domestic violence center.
Chief Berry was there as was Bryce and Ponce but Darren stayed away as did Sandra's two sons.
As most of you know that today is Sandy's birthday and this is why it's a very very special day for us.
Mahalo. At this point Larry and Toshi thought they were in the home stretch. The Daron's trial was just months away.
But, the prosecuting attorney who indicted Daron lost her bid for reelection.
Defeated by this man Justin Coller who flat out accused his predecessor of bringing charges against Daron to make a splash and help her chances of reelection, though the case, he said, wasn't ready for trial.
This case is the textbook example of why you do not insert politics into people's lives and into their families.
So now, Larry's quest for justice was mired in a political battle, with the new prosecutor saying he couldn't proceed because the alternate suspect, Ryan Shinjo, had never been completely eliminated.
If you've got cases where you have multiple suspects, and you're going to charge one of those suspects, you better be sure you've excluded the other suspect.
Former prosecutor Shailene Isseri fired back, saying the entire investigative team voted to seek an indictment.
The team decided unanimously.
It wasn't Shailene's decision.
it was the team's decision.
I definitely feel that there was more than overwhelming evidence to convict Mr. Gollas.
You could have gotten that conviction.
Oh I definitely believe so.
She's dreaming, said Caller.
She never would have won.
So Caller reopened the investigation again and delayed the trial again while his office tried to strengthen the case.
And the result was one trial delay after another.
And three years later, 2015 now, Larry was one furious 74 -year -old man.
Kawhi is a murderer's paradise.
If you wanna come, kill somebody, come to Kawhi and you, you've got probably about an 80 -90 percent chance of getting away with it.
And I firmly believe that.
There was never any point during this process where the file was just sitting on a shelf getting dusty There's always something that was being done another piece of evidence that was being tested Another witness that was being looked for but you must have been ready to let it go at some point So, you know, we can't do this.
Just forget about it that conversation happened any number of times over the years But at each time we said no, there's got to be a way to move this forward It was Larry's kind of constant input part of the thing that kept you going here?
Of course, I mean none of us wanted to get that call saying, Hey Larry, Larry wants to see you right away and he's not happy.
When we spoke to Larry in 2015, Darren's trial was on the calendar for March of the following year.
And the odds Larry gave of that happening?
I would say probably a little better than 50 -50.
But even that was optimistic.
The trial was delayed again until November 2016.
But as that trial date approached, the defense requested another delay and the judge granted it.
The case was continued to August 2017.
And as that date approached, we look back on what Larry said to us in 2015.
Someday this is gonna get gonna end, you know, one way or another.
And maybe I can rest a little bit.
Early in the morning of the 14th of February 2017 Larry Mandonca age 75 went out to play a round of golf, wasn't feeling well, called his son Lawrence in Texas and told me he was having a heart attack and he was going to emergency.
Who was that like? It was This is pretty intense.
But being as stubborn as my dad is, you know, don't worry about it, I'll be fine.
They're just going to put a stint in me, I'll be fine.
I don't think he knew the magnitude of the situation at the time.
Coming up, a father fights for his life.
See him in that hospital bed, it was tough, very tough.
What will happen to his fight for justice?
It's all about what you can prove in a court of law.
Mary Mendoza didn't comprehend what was happening to him as he walked this fairway, played his round of golf.
It was only later when the doctor intervened, rushed him by air ambulance to Honolulu.
Heart attack then could topple bypass surgery, and then a stroke.
for me to see how vulnerable he was, at that time.
Because he'd always seemed like the invulnerable man.
Correct. I mean, he was Superman to myself and my sister.
And to see him in that situation in that hospital bed, it was tough.
It was very tough. It was sheer cussiness, probably, that pulled him back from the brink.
My cardiologist says the whole thing was due to the 10 -12 years of stress.
Larry spent months in physical therapy to build up the strength to attend Darren Gallas' trial, scheduled for the summer of 2017.
But, it was delayed, yet again.
And Darren during all this time?
Out and about! This time we found him at Sun Austin's soccer game.
That's him wearing the black t -shirt, gold chain and wraparound sunglasses.
And in the blue shirt his wife, Shireen.
Larry and his wife Toshi were there at the soccer game too.
Always are. And what Larry felt in his chest was more rage than physical pain.
Someday I might lose it all.
I really don't know what I'm gonna do.
You never know till it happens.
Then, late 2017 a breakthrough.
The prosecutor felt his investigators had finally and fully eliminated Ryan as a suspect.
which now only left Darrin in their sights.
We had done some work over the years that had made the case somewhat better.
Maybe Darrin looked himself in the mirror and said, I know I did it.
I don't know. But they said, we'll plead.
But plead guilty to murder?
No. Darrin agreed to plead no contest to assault.
You had a murder case here.
no contest to assault sounds like not very bad.
Well, we may think we have a murder case, we may know that he did it, but it's all about what you can prove in a court of law.
And on January 29th, 2018, 12 years after Sandra's murder, we were with Larry outside the courthouse just an hour before the plea hearing, and as you might have guessed, he wasn't happy.
There's no justice.
What are the chances that thing could fall apart over there this morning?
There's a possibility.
He can, I'm told, he can change his mind at any given time up to the time he is sentenced.
But what happened here?
Now drawing your attention to the no contest plea form.
As Daron formally changed his plea from not guilty to murder two, to no contest to assault One was not final resolution, but more delay.
The court granted Darren four more months of freedom before sentencing.
And Larry? Well... I'm very mad.
I'm very upset. There was once a time just after Sandra's murder, when Larry and Toshi were hoping to raise Sandra's boys.
But now... He's been working on them for 12 years.
He's been brainwashing them.
They hate their mother.
They hate their grandparents.
As he left court, Darin was protected by a phalanx of friends and relatives, which included the two grandsons.
Darin declined to speak with us, but his defense lawyer, Michael Green, did stop to talk.
There's a big difference between pleading no contest and pleading guilty.
It certainly suggests he did something to her.
Well, he assaulted her.
That very day, but he didn't kill her?
He doesn't admit that he assaulted her.
No contest means he neither admits nor denies the charges.
But now, for four months, uncertainty, because the judge had the power to sentence Darren to anything from ten years in prison to probation.
What I foresee at sentencing, they're going to ask for leniency.
Do you think he could actually avoid going to prison altogether?
At this point I wouldn't put anything past them.
On May 30th, 2018, we were back outside the courthouse with Larry Mendonca.
This time, he was the one, surrounded by supporters.
A 12 -year investigation now reduced to just an hour in court that felt as stressful and tense as any jury trial.
Would Darrin be carted off to prison, or will the judge give him probation and send him home?
Darren's lawyer Michael Green reminded the judge there had been an alternate suspect.
This guy sends you, who was a person of interest the entire time.
Then he told the judge to remember, this was not a murder case.
There's an agreement that my client will plead guilty to nothing.
Nothing. He's offered to plead no contest to an assault charge.
And then Larry got his chance, finally, to let twelve years of pain pour out, starting with that first awful night when he broke the news to Toshi.
How do you tell a woman that the baby she had once nursed fallen asleep in her arms, played on her lap, skipped off to school clutching the lunch that she had made for her, was now dead?
We received a life sentence full of pain, sorrow, agony and frustration.
A life sentence with no parole, sending of eternity.
Daron stoically sat through it all.
And then, what sentence would the judge impose?
She began by quoting Daron's attorney.
And that is that he pled, no contest, to the charge of assault in the first degree.
That's what this sentencing is about.
Larry's stomach started to tighten.
My lawyer reached over and she said, this doesn't sound good.
And then, six minutes into her ruling, finally, here it was.
You are hereby ordered committed to the custody of the Director Department of Public Safety for imprisonment for a period of 10 years.
10 years, the maximum she could oppose.
and with that the Mendonca family's 12 year quest for justice came to an end.
That was my graveyard promise to my daughter.
I fulfilled it. Larry and Toshi follow a series of rituals from the anniversary of Sandra's death.
They bring flowers to her memorial outside the YWCA.
At lunch at the beach house restaurant where Sandra once worked, and they pray by her graveside at Holy Cross Cemetery, where she is surrounded by her ancestors.
Sandra, so homesick when away from this island she loved, is now forever a part of it.
That's all for now.
I'm Lester Holt thanks for joining us.
