By Joan Conrow and Mary Adamski

Anahola, Kauai - Hawaiian homesteader Hilbert C. K. "Kahale" Smith blamed his "broken down" house for ruining his health, destroying his marriage.

Still, he loved his Anahola home and vowed to torch it rather than turn it back to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

And during an eviction yesterday morning, Smith did just that, burning to death in flames that engulfed the house. Hawaiian Homes was trying to repossess the house, saying Smith was delinquent on lease payments.

"It's a tragedy," said Kauai police Lt. Martin Curnan. "He was burnt beyond recognition."

The house, the focus of an 18-year fight between Smith and Hawaiian Homes, was gutted. Only the metal roof and frame remain of the home that Smith claimed had been cursed by faulty workmanship since he moved in.

The state attorney general has begun an investigation, said Kali Watson, chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission. He set a meeting today to debrief his department employees.

Curnan said Smith, 58, reportedly was cooperating with the surprise eviction when he suddenly went back inside the house, where he apparently had earlier poured gasoline. Smith was seen lighting a match about 9:50 a.m., Curnan said, and the wooden structure was quickly engulfed. "He made no attempt to get out."

Police are unsure whether Smith intended to kill himself or got caught in the blaze and couldn't escape.

Curnan said an autopsy may help answer that question.

But Smith's brother, Henry, who witnessed the eviction, said he doesn't think the fire was planned. "He had too many documents that I know he wouldn't burn," said Henry Smith, who was evicted by Hawaiian Homes last October after a similar housing repair dispute. A valuable old coin and paper money collection also was in the house.

Henry Smith said his brother initially was "in a joyous mood" during the eviction, "but there were too many bosses telling him to do this, do that. They were touching a lot of stuff he
didn't want them to, and it was getting him upset, depressing him.

"I believe they drove him to that, to the point of no return."

Once the fire started, he said, he tried to reach his brother but was blocked by law enforcement officers.

"If they hadn't blocked me, I know I could have gotten him out. They didn't do anything, and nobody came up to me to say so much as 'I'm sorry.' They had 20 guys there. Don't tell me they couldn't prevent this."

Ten sheriff's deputies joined Hawaiian Homes and the attorney general's office in serving the eviction papers.

Smith told deputies that he needed gasoline to start up and move his cars, said Gregg Takayama, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

"They allowed him to get the gasoline to pour into the cars," Takayama said.

"It happened very quickly. There wasn't much they could do once he set himself on fire."

Takayama said none of the deputies knew that Smith had previously threatened to burn the house rather than turn it over.

Smith threatened to set the house afire when he was interviewed in June and October by a Star-Bulletin reporter, who told Hawaiian Homes officials Chad Taniguchi and John Hirota about the threat.

Watson said he could not comment on whether department staffers were forewarned.

"I don't know what was said or conveyed to department personnel. We are in the process of investigation to find out the circumstances leading up to this tragic incident," Watson said.

Curnan said Kauai police were never told that Smith intended to burn his house. Police didn't respond until the call of a fire came in, he said.

Kauai attorney Ken Carlson, who represented Smith in his last legal fight against Hawaiian Homes, knew of Smith's threat to burn his house but said he didn't go to Anahola yesterday because "there have been so many false alarms that I didn't think that this time it would be anything otherwise. Still, it
doesn't really surprise me, because how many years has he been going through this frustration?"

Kay Smith, married to Smith's second cousin, was stunned to learn that the man who once baby-sat for her children had perished in the flames. She found it difficult to believe his death was planned. "He's like the most congenial, wonderful person," she said. "He's always been a real happy guy."

Carlson said Smith called him about 8 a.m. yesterday and alerted him to the eviction. "He sounded pretty up," Carlson said, certainly not like someone who planned "to do himself in." He said Smith was talking about moving his cars, "like he was trying save his assets."

Henry Smith said his brother had been hospitalized repeatedly because "of the stress he was going through with this," and was under the care of a cardiologist and psychiatrist.

"His avenues were exhausted and I think he saw that there was nothing for him after this," Carlson said. "He's made this issue his life and now they've defeated him."

Hawaiian activist Harold Jim, who had aided Smith in his fight for more than a decade, said he believes his friend deliberately took his own life because he was "disgusted, sick of Hawaiian Homes. They drove a man insane, to kill himself and burn himself. That's how they treat Hawaiians."

Jim said he believes some Hawaiian Homes officials were waging a personal vendetta against Smith.

"I'm very, very angry," Jim said. "It was totally unnecessary what the commission did to him. They just wanted to get rid of his ass. They cost him his wife, his job, his kids, everything."

Carlson said: "He had no other avenue but to give his life so maybe somebody would review what DHHL has done.

"Kahale has played the ace in the hole here."

See related sidebar: A step-by-step anatomy of a tragedy

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