Chauntelle Acol had just turned 8 and was in the second grade in 1997 when her stepfather treated her and her older brother, Allan, to burritos and Sprite, sat them down on their back porch and told them that “Pepe was going to go live with family to learn Hawaiian stuff.”

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Chauntelle Acol had just turned 8 and was in the second grade in 1997 when her stepfather treated her and her older brother, Allan, to burritos and Sprite, sat them down on their back porch and told them that “Pepe was going to go live with family to learn Hawaiian stuff.”

She felt jealous and “wanted to learn Hawaiian stuff too,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, not knowing their little brother, “Pepe,” Peter “Peter Boy” Kema Jr., was already dead from a short life of horrific abuse at the hands of Peter Kema Sr., who also lied to the general public about his “missing” son.

Now at age 37, Acol, and Peter Boy’s half-brother, Allan Acol, and younger sister Lina Acol, are finally seeing a resolution to their January 2018 lawsuit against the state and the Department of Human Services with a $3.25 million settlement reached July 30, eight years after the lawsuit was filed and nearly 30 years after his death.

His father chained him to a bed, forced him to eat dog feces, denied him food and had inflicted injuries causing multiple broken bones by the time he was 3 months old, among other acts of cruelty.

But more important than the money, the settlement comes with an apology from the governor, said Randall Rosenberg, attorney for the three surviving siblings, who are now in their 30s.

“It’s never been about the money,” Chauntelle Acol said. “We’re grateful for anything, but we’re just grateful that this lawsuit will be done, where we will actually have closure, so long as Pepe’s memory isn’t forgotten or wasted.

“He was a real little boy who suffered tremendous pain and torture, and he still didn’t receive justice. Yes, Jaylin (Peter Boy’s mother) and Peter (the stepfather) were given sentences, but the state failed him.

“If the state did what they were supposed to do, he would have been here.”

Had he survived, Peter Boy, born May 1, 1991, would have been 35 years old.

Acol said on the day before the settlement, she told her siblings, “I think we’re going to reach a settlement tomorrow,” and she was right.

“My faith is a big part of me, … just really trusting that God is faithful. I just had that overwhelming peace.”

Acol says she has undergone deep healing for the last four years through a discipleship program that “helps us walk through trauma.”

She learned that she had “bad coping habits,” although she never did drugs or alcohol.

She said having children compounds the problems, and “you can perpetuate that with your kids,” she said.

“I’ve had two examples of parents, and what not to do,” she said.

Acol said in her previous marriage, “I didn’t realize I had anger.”

“I told myself I was a happy person, but I didn’t realize I had so much anger toward my mom and stepfather. It’s been a long journey of navigating.”

Acol said after going back through her childhood memories, “I knew something was wrong, but I wanted to go back to my parents even though they were mean.”

And she now realizes that she was conditioned by the physical abuse inflicted on her.

Her last foster mom told her, “When I need you to do something, I don’t hit you to behave.”

“It was like a probing question,” she said. “You could just be asked to do something, but that wasn’t something I was conditioned to do.”

Acol and her brother ended up living with their biological father, while Lina Acol, the youngest, lived with their maternal grandparents, the Acols, and eventually moved to the mainland.

Allan Acol later moved in with his grandparents, and inherited their house in Kona, where he remains.

“We’ve all turned out good, not perfect, but good despite the major abuse we suffered.”

Chauntelle Acol is married, has a 15-year-old son, owns her own business and bought a house in Florida this year.

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“We don’t want the story to end with the settlement,” Acol said. “We hope it continues for awareness, wiser decisions and better commitment of protecting children, if that’s part of Pepe’s legacy.”

The complaint details the failure of the Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Services Branch to protect Peter Boy and his siblings from their abusive parents.

Peter Boy likely died of septic shock from a large wound on his arm in June or July 1997.

Despite repeated suspicious injuries of Peter Boy, evidence of abuse of the older children, reports from various individuals including the children’s maternal grandparents, foster parents, their removal from the Kema household and placement into foster care, the failure of the Kemas to attend parenting and counseling sessions, and the Kemas’ diagnoses of psychological illness, the children kept being returned to their unemployed parents.

In 1997, a month before Peter Boy’s 6th birthday, a 15-year-old cousin told her therapist Kema broke Peter Boy’s arm, forced him to eat dog feces and that the family planned to move from Nanawale in Puna to Kaumana Estates in Hilo.

Although the therapist immediately reported it to Child Welfare Services, CWS workers did not investigate until June, but by then it was too late.

Acol recalls that’s when she and her other siblings were removed from the home.

Rosenberg said: “Not a day goes by that they don’t think about him. They are all successful parents now. They are not wealthy. They are trying to get by, but the money would be potentially life-changing. More importantly, the state’s acknowledgment is substantial enough to be important … Peter Boy will be acknowledged.”

On Aug. 5, AIG, the state’s insurance company in this case, gave firm approval for its $1.25 million share in addition to the state’s $2 million to the settlement amount reached July 30, Rosenberg said.

The siblings will have to wait until the 2027 legislative session to receive the proceeds of the settlement, but Rosenberg doesn’t foresee a problem in getting approvals from the Legislature and the governor.

Despite there being clear liability based on the evidence in the case, the delay in settling the case lay in the state protesting that the claim was made well past the statute of limitations of two years after the death of the child, Rosenberg said.

But the lawsuit was timely filed because although he was reported missing in 1997, the public did not know Peter Boy was dead.

His father lied to the public back in 1997, telling the media that while on a trip to Oahu, he handed over the child to the care of a family friend, “Auntie Rose Makuakane” in Aala Park, and that Peter Boy and the woman could not be found.

Kema held onto that lie for 20 years.

A break in the case came Dec. 1, 2016, when Peter Boy’s mother, Jaylin Kema, admitted to causing his death by neglect, as part of a plea agreement with Hawaii County prosecutors. She was convicted of manslaughter.

Then on April 5, 2017, Peter Kema Sr. took a plea deal and admitted to trying to burn the boy’s body. When that failed, he placed the boy’s body in a wooden box and dumped it into the ocean off the Puna coast.

The Department of Human Services has made policy changes after his death, Rosenberg said. Reunification of the biological family had been their main goal.

“The safety of the child became the No. 1 issue after what happened to Peter Boy,” Rosenberg said.

The department also has tried to hire more case workers, since it was “horribly understaffed,” he said. “But it’s not enough. I’ve got two death cases, he said. “It has not caused enough policy changes to protect Hawaii’s children.”

The case was also the first time a special master was appointed by the court in such a capacity. Steve Lane investigated the voluminous DHS records in the Kema case, with the cooperation of the then-DHS Director Lillian Koller.

Lane and attorney Bridget Morgan, who were architects of the special master protocol, convinced Family Court Judge Mark Browning to approve its use, though it is not a statutory provision.

“It has been there as a resource and is now used far more often,” Lane said.

Peter Kema Sr. is incarcerated in Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., serving a 20-year sentence since July 2017. He never offered an apology to the family. Jaylin Kema died in January 2019 of renal failure.

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