A 75-year-old man paroled for the 1978 murder of a young woman on the Big Island and suspected by prosecutors of having killed another young woman on the island that same year is “under the highest level of supervision,” according to the administrator of the Hawaii Paroling Authority.
The administrator, Corey Reinecke, said the conditions of release for the parolee, Steven Ray Simpson, “includes a strict curfew and reporting to his parole officer at least once a week.”
Simpson, also known as “Stretch,” was sentenced Feb. 25, 1980, to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole for the strangulation murder of 24-year-old Mary Catherine “Kathy” Drapp, a University of Hawaii at Hilo student.
Drapp’s body was found Dec. 11, 1978, in a field in Fern Forest, a Puna subdivision where Simpson — who had fled parole in Washington state and was in Hawaii as a fugitive — lived at the time.
Simpson was released Sept. 30 after a hearing by the parole board.
Reinecke said Simpson isn’t allowed to leave the state of Hawaii or his island of residence without approval of his parole officer.
“That’s across the board for every parolee,” he explained.
Asked what island Simpson is living on, Reinecke replied, “I cannot share that specific information.”
“Prior to any inmate’s release on parole, their residence is approved by a parole officer,” he added. “They have to keep their parole officer informed of their whereabouts at all times. And they have to notify and obtain permission from their parole officer prior to changing the place of residence.”
While in custody, Simpson was most recently in the Oahu Community Correctional Center’s work-furlough program. He previously served time in Halawa Correctional Facility and in Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz.
According to the state’s Parole Handbook, parolees are required to be present in their reported residence between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. except under very limited circumstances.
Parolees, regardless of age, also are required to work, seek employment or attend schooling unless they submit medical documentation indicating they are unable to do so.
“Their employment is verified and approved by their parole officer,” Reinecke said. “So once they’re on parole, they shall actively seek and retain employment, and they shall notify their parole officer in the event of termination of employment and be governed by officer’s instructions. So they cannot accept or quit a job unless they have permission” from their parole officer.
A Department of Public Safety spokeswoman told the Tribune-Herald in 2022 that Simpson was arrested on a work-furlough job site in downtown Honolulu after being indicted for a second murder by a Hilo grand jury on June 23, 2022. That indictment involved a beating and strangulation death that occurred more than four decades earlier.
Simpson pleaded not guilty to the murder of Valerie Ann Warshay, a 26-year-old woman whose nude body was found on April 23, 1978, by a 10-year-old girl picnicking with her family at Harry K. Brown Park in Kalapana.
According to police, Warshay — a Northern California park ranger who was on the Big Island for her dream vacation — was last seen alive at about 10 p.m. the night before, talking to two men in the park. According to police, Warshay, who was camping in a coconut grove in the park, declined the men’s invitation to join them.
The Kalapana park no longer exists, having been inundated by a 1990 lava flow.
On Oct. 24, 2023, Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota dismissed the charge against Simpson after court-appointed defense attorney Keith Shigetomi filed a motion describing the evidence used by prosecutors to indict his client as as “incompetent” and “hearsay.”
In his findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order granting the motion to dismiss the indictment, Kubota ruled the state had presented incompetent and inadmissible evidence to the grand jury.
In his motion, Shigetomi questioned the Hawaii Police Department’s handling of a blue tarp upon which Warshay’s body was purportedly placed, and from which Simpson’s fingerprint was obtained. Also in question was the handling and DNA analysis of “pubic combings” reportedly collected from Warshay’s body.
Kubota found there was no evidence presented to the grand jury that the “purported pubic combings … actually came from Warshay.”
The dismissal of the indictment — which is not the same as an acquittal — was without prejudice, which means the state is free to refile charges against Simpson. There is no statute of limitations for filing a murder charge.
Prosecutors didn’t re-indict Simpson, instead filing an appeal with the state Intermediate Court of Appeals in 2023, arguing that Kubota erred by “substituting (his) judgment for the grand jury” in determining there was insufficient evidence to establish probable cause to support the indictment and try Simpson for the murder of Warshay.
The appellate court affirmed Kubota’s dismissal of the indictment on Oct. 30, 2024, and the state has taken no further action on Simpson’s case.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.