Family Feud | Chapter 3

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Restrictions apply. USAA! I arrived in Hawaii the day Ian Schweitzer was released from prison.
I remember the first time I met other exonerees through the Innocence Network, and it changed my life. I suddenly realized I wasn't alone in going through an extraordinary injustice.
These were people that I didn't have to explain myself to. So when I heard that Ian was being exonerated, I was thrilled to pay that energy forward by welcoming him into freedom and into our community of wrongly convicted brothers and sisters.
But it takes time to adjust. It took me years to wrap my mind around

everything that happened to me. And so it wasn't until July of 2023 that our team went back to the

Big Island and to Fern Forest, a small community of a thousand or so, about 45 minutes south of Hilo,

to talk in-depth with Ian and his brother Sean. The drive from Hilo to Fern Forest is full of tall greenery.
The houses are set back off the road, each with a privacy gate or no trespassing sign. Occasionally, we spot one of the residents on foot on the road, and they offer up a friendly wave or smile back at us.
When we pull up to Sean Schweitzer's house, the gate is open, and the yard has a scattering of cars and trucks. Ian Schweitzer is standing outside waiting to greet our team.
At 52, he has short, graying hair, but he looks like he's in the best shape of his life. He says he is often up at the crack of dawn to work out.
Ian's a soft-spoken kind of guy, his voice warm and welcoming. Next to Ian is his younger brother Sean.
He's taller than Ian, with a goatee and long hair tied back. He's initially a little closed off.
His arms are crossed at first, and he's quiet. But he eventually warms up and is every bit as kind and welcoming as Ian is.
This is actually kind of far from where we grew up.

We actually grew up in Pahoa.

So it's a little warmer climate, more down the hill, yeah.

Small town, very, very small town back then, yeah.

Late 70s, we moved over here.

Yeah, for, I guess my dad felt he could see

what was kind of coming in Oahu and he didn't like it. So he moved us out to the country.
Yeah. They pretty much retired early too, kind of.
Like on semi-retirement when they were young. So, yeah.
Less stress, less bills. During our visit with Ian and Sean, we asked them every question under the sun, trying to understand how they became involved in one of the most notorious murders in Hawaii history.
So where our parents live, so it's this side of the street, get the street. Timmy Gonzalez lived right here, dealing drugs, raging fights, two, three o'clock in the morning, burning out, pounding his sounds, midnight.
So he lived right across the street from our parents. He had nice shit, I guess, because he sold drugs.
But, you know, back then, I never know if he was selling drugs or not. I just knew it was like, oh, wow, this guy had some nice fricking cars.
That's about the extent that I knew John Gonzalez. And then, like, Frank Pauline, the only extent I knew is that he was always fighting with people and getting kicked out of school.
I never even seen that guy around. Well, I seen him around, but he's a fucking punk.
Yeah, I never knew him. Like on punk.
The worst punk you can think of

and this guy is worse.

There's no talking to somebody like that.

You know what I mean? He's fucking ignorant.

But the biggest question was

if Ian and Sean

had nothing to do with Dana Ireland's

murder, why

did Frank Pauline say

they did?

I'm Amanda Knox and this is Three.

Chapter Three. Family Feud.
In June of 1991, about six months before Dana Ireland was murdered, Ian and Sean's mother, Linda Schweitzer, actually filed a police report against one of the Gonsalves boys, Timmy, claiming he was threatening to fight the Schweitzer family and was throwing rocks at the Schweitzer home. That's about as far as any type of interaction between the families went.
While Linda Schweitzer worked for the prosecutor's office and Jerry Schweitzer, their father, was your quintessential neighborhood dad, John Gonsalves calls the Hawaii Police Department and says his half-brother Frank Pauline told him information about Dana Ireland's case, that the Schweitzer brothers killed her. So if you go back and look, you know, Ian's parents, one of the reasons why the Schweitzers became targets is because the Schweitzer family lived near the Pauline family.
That's Ken Lawson, current co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, a member of the legal team representing the Schweitzer brothers. So they didn't like him.
Now, at some point, the Gonzales and Paulines have brother and mother, they all got in trouble for cocaine, federal case. So John Gonzales calls, you know, talks to Frank while Frank is in prison on another sex crime.
In jail, I mean, not prison. I said, I got an idea, man.
Sound a little sketch? In June of 1994, more than two weeks after his first conversation with the Hawaii Police Department, Frank sits down again with Detective Guillermo and his team. And this time, he's had a minute to think about his answers, but still admits a lot of the details are not 100% concrete.
Nonetheless, Frank says that on December 24, 1991, he was picked up by the Schweitzer brothers in a purple VW Beetle, once owned by his cousin, Timmy Gonzalez. Ian drove, his brother Sean rode shotgun, and Frank sat in the back.
In this interview, Frank says that after the Schweitzer brothers picked him up, they stopped six or seven times to smoke crack cocaine. And while they were driving around, they spotted a woman walking her bike along the road.
According to Frank, Ian turned the car around after passing the woman and accelerated right towards her, making contact. He says he then watched the brothers load the woman into the trunk of the VW and that he refused to help them, but rode along as they took her to an unknown dirt road towards the ocean, where he watched Ian sexually assault her.
Then they did what they did in front of me, in her meeting. They looked possessed.
They didn't look good at all, man. I would say she, the way she looked to me at that point was like she was dead already.
I was sick. I was flipping.
I wanted to go try to play the hero, but I knew I had no chance against them and not in my state how I was. Knowing they could be identified, Frank claims Ian decided he needed to get rid of her.
So Frank says he saw him grab a tire iron and hit her over the head with it. But then he's not sure what happened.
He doesn't remember if the brothers put the woman back in the trunk or if they just left her there. But he knows that afterwards, all three of them headed back to the Schweitzer's house.
Ian showered, and Frank and Sean washed the purple VW bug. Once Ian finished his shower, Frank says Ian brought a black trash bag outside so they could all put their clothes in the bag, and then he threw it in the bushes in the yard before the Schweitzers dropped Frank back off at his house.
And since then, Frank says, the only other conversation he's had with Ian was when Ian told him at some point to keep quiet about everything or else. So, what a story.
And detectives think so too. Knowing Frank's reputation and history of lying,

this didn't seem like the slam dunk they were looking for.

But with all the detail in his story,

detectives at least entertain the idea.

And that same day, they have Frank take them through the route

he claims he and the Schweitzers took before running

into Dana. Hi, crime junkies.
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Dateline, 24-7, and Forensic Files.

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Restrictions apply. Starting at Frank's house, Frank takes detectives through their drive that day, vaguely pointing out key spots.
But he can't say exactly where they initially hit Dana while she was riding her bike. But either way, the more Frank talks, no matter how specific or general he is, the more police are feeling confident about his story.
But at the same time, remember, Dana's case by now has made national news, and everyone on the island knows the details, including the locations. So this isn't exactly exclusive information.
Nonetheless, detectives turn their attention to the Schweitzers, and specifically to the VW bug. They speak with the Gonsalves, who say that Ian bought the VW from their family, and while they aren't exactly sure what date, they know it's sometime in 1991.
57, baby windows. One of my baseball coaches, he ended up with that car.
They built that car. Yeah.
And his son drove it to high school. Oh, true high school.
True high school. Timmy bought it from them.
Yep. Timmy bought it from them.
Timmy Gonzales, the drug dealer at the time, paid a lot of money for it.

But when Ian Schweitzer decided to buy the VW Bug, he claims it wasn't from Timmy, even though the Gonsalves say he did.

He says he bought it from a guy named Shannon, who bought it from Timmy.

And Ian bought it to add to their already growing collection.

I think I started collecting when I was like 11.

He had a paper route when he was young.

Yeah.

So, you know, he...

I was a hustler.

Yeah.

He had his paper route going and he started buying Volkswagens.

Not just Volkswagens, he bought other cars too.

Yeah.

Volkswagens were a lot cheaper to get back then yeah now now they're kind of ridiculously high but i think we were always into cars because my parents my dad you know he was you know very mechanically inclined owned some auto shops and stuff so when they moved us to the big island they sold their shop and then moved over here and just kind of retired. Yeah, he used to still do cars on the side, though, like extra cash.
Yeah. So on June 26th, detectives receive a search warrant and head to the Schweitzer household to check their place out,

and specifically, the VW Bug. I think my mom called me, said, the cops are here, and they're taking your brother's bug.
I was like, what? She said, get down there, the cops are here, they want to talk to you. So I loaded up my three kids, my wife, and went down there.
And they had the Volkswagen on the car carrier loaded up and then asked me if I would go down there and talk to them. And I was like, okay, but what? So they said, oh, I'll just talk to you down at the station.
When Sean first arrives at the Hawaii Police Department, accompanied by his father, Jerry, he isn't 100% sure what is going on, until detectives start questioning him. If I knew who Frank Pauline was, and if I heard about Dana Ireland, stuff like that, I remember seeing it on the news, and that was it.
I was like, oh, I never gave it a second thought. I mean, I was like, bummer.
Next, they ask Sean what he was doing on December 24th, 1991. I was like, are you fucking serious? When you know what this first start happened, I thought, these guys gotta be fucking joking.
This isn't a joke. You guys got to come to your senses at some point and figure out that it ain't us.
But no, I guess not. It's if you want it, you want it.
You're going to you're going to push to have it. Sean tells investigators that on December 24th, 1991, he was at home.
He says that he can't say for sure where Ian was, but he knows for a fact that he himself was home, because that's where he always spends his Christmas Eves. Investigators also talk to Sean's dad, Jerry, and when they ask him about why the Gonsalves would implicate his sons, he tells them everything we not trusting the machines, but later changes his mind, offering to take the test a different day so he can get back to caring for his children.
We have the three kids already. The kids, my daughters are babies.
Next stop was Sean's brother, Ian. Three days later, the Hawaii Police Department gets a hold of him while he's living in Kauai working

in health care. To those who know Ian, like his sister-in-law Tridi and Randy Roth from the Hawaii Innocence Project, this work suited Ian.
He's working in a hospital, CNN. I'm sure he would have been an LPN, an RN, and I'm sure he couldn't have been a doctor, as smart as he is.
Yeah, that's what he would have been, I would have thought. He had been working as a nurse, which once we got to know him, just seemed like a perfect occupation for him.
And like Sean, Ian remembers hearing about the murder of this young woman in Vacationland, but didn't give it a ton of thought at the time either. I definitely remember it, but I don't think I really thought of it, like, thought too much about it.
When I was working at the hospital and stuff, it's like the average person, you know, they get caught up so much in their life, you know, just work, pay bills, take your kids this, boom, boom, boom. And you don't really think too much of the judicial system or you really don't want to have time to even hear about it, you know, until it affects you or one of your family members.
Oh, yeah. And then you'll learn what the system is really by.
I got caught up, so caught up into the simple life,

I actually lost my simple hustle, you know, of legitimate hustle,

like, you know, extra spare job on the side and stuff.

Because you get comfortable.

Ian remembers pretty clearly where he and Sean were at on December 24th, 1991.

We were in Paradise Park, Hawaiian Paradise Park, and my cousins and my uncle, who I was working for at the time, I was going to get my own paycheck. He owed me money.
And then it was Christmas. Going over there with family.
We went over there, we ate. He was in the house with the cousins, and I was outside drinking with my uncle.
I was pretty much underage, but I was drinking some beers with my uncle. Merry Christmas.
And then we had to be home at a certain time because our niece was at home, and she was like three, I think, and she was going back to her mom. So we had to, you know, be there for the, you know, goodbye.
They came up and pulled me out, yeah. Come, got me, took me to the police station, questioned me.
In Kauai. In Kauai.
I was kind of tripping, you know, I was like, you know, I was in shock a little bit, a little bit blank. But I just like, I just couldn't believe it.
Regardless of their whereabouts that day, the biggest mystery of all is how could Frank claim they were all in Ian's 57 VW Bug that day back in 1991, when Sean and Ian claim they didn't even own it until 1992. Don't forget, don't leave data.
We all were in this car that I didn't have possession yet at the time of the crime. Ian and Sean's father tells investigators that the purchase wasn't made and the title wasn't transferred until sometime in February 1992.
So remember, Frank and I was telling the story years later, so they don't know exactly when Ian purchased the Volkswagen. They're assuming he had it at the time that Dana was killed, but he didn't.
You follow what I'm saying? So Ian kept trying to say, look, I didn't purchase the Volkswagen until after.

Then it couldn't have been. One, it wasn't the Volkswagen, but two, I didn't own it.
That should clear everything up, right? How could police believe Frank's story if it wasn't even possible for the Schweitzer brothers to be driving the VW that day? They even had the title paperwork to back it up. On top of that, the forensic results from the car didn't show any traces of blood or connection to Dana Ireland.
It's moments like this where you'd think detectives would realize they were driving down the wrong path. But tunnel vision and confirmation bias sets in.
Take my case, for example. I had an alibi, there was zero trace of me found in the room where my roommate Meredith was murdered, and my boyfriend Raffaele and I had no connection to the man whose DNA was all over the crime scene.
But the investigation was biased by misinformation early on, and it led authorities to ignore these huge problems with their theory and press on regardless. That's just what detectives did with Ian and Sean Schweitzer.
They felt they were close to a big break, and it blinded them. They weren't letting go.
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Restrictions apply. USAA! Thanks to Frank Pauline's confession, detectives feel they can now confidently clear their original three suspects, Roy Santos, Anthony Torres, and Frank Nassario.
But as far as new suspects go, they're trying to keep that close to their chest. They're continuing to dig deeper into Frank, Ian, and Sean.
But despite the numerous rumors about them now swirling around the island, detectives aren't ready to release their findings. But Frank Pauline? He's tired of waiting.
It's been about six months since his first interview with detectives, and he's starting to think they may be using him. It seems like he was expecting more in return for his confession.
So, Frank goes to the media. I'm Kirk Matthews, and this is the news for Sunday, the 11th of December.
A possible witness has come forward in the Christmas Eve murder of Dana, Ireland, nearly three years ago. A former Big Island resident, now serving a prison sentence on Maui, claims he was there when Ireland was brutally raped and left for dead.
Nalani Blaisdell talked with the alleged witness, Frank Pauline, by phone from the Maui Community Correctional Facility. He turned and he looked, he said, oh, he hit the girl and stuff.
He ran over her several times. Then they both went out trying to put her inside like the trunk and stuff her in there.
Next, Pauline says the brother smoked more crack cocaine and drove to a deserted junkyard.

Pauline says he observed all this from within the car.

They wouldn't let me leave, you know what I mean? It was either I stay in the car and leave, or I jump out of the car and die. Frank's initial jailhouse interview starts a press tour for him.
Each interview offers up something new, much of which he hasn't even shared with police. 21 year old Frank Pauline Jr.
says his dreams of Dana Ireland and her murder on Christmas Eve of 1991 wouldn't go away. Like her coming to me, she was like all bloody kind, like coming to me and telling me, help, just help.
You mean me, help her? I guess she wanted to rest in peace, really. What was she saying? Did she say anything? No, she was half dead.
I just was telling them, you know what I mean? You guys sick. You guys can do different stuff.
Take me home. Just telling me, shut up.
You better not say nothing. I couldn't stop nothing that was going on.
Because if I would have tried, I would have ended up being right next to her. I don't care about the money.
First I'm concerned, they can't have the money. All I like is those two guys going in jail and they suffer.
Money? Oh yeah. There is a $25,000 reward offered up in regards to Dana's case.
And remember? Frank Pauline also has family members in jail and would love to see them

released. Here's Ken Lawson again.
Hey man, you know what? One thing I tell my students about criminal offenders, I mean, you have a lot of fun with some of these people, man. You never meet, they're not the same and they're always personnal.
So John's like, hey, why don't you help get the family out of trouble.

Why don't you

say that

Ian and Sean, that you got information on the Ireland case, that Ian and Sean tell them you were there as a witness and help us get everybody off the hook. Now, Gonzalez also knows at this time, John, that there's a $25,000 reward, I believe, being offered from the Ireland family.
He ain't mentioning that. I don't know what he told Pauline, but I don't think he would have told Pauline.
So Frank calls the police. And so when Frank initially tells the story, they really don't jump on it because they got these other suspects out there where the evidence is pointing to when no suspects take the fifth and don't want to give any statements and stuff like that when that happens they go back to Pauline right we're all dried up over here and we're getting all these pressures and arrest somebody what was that story Frankie was telling us a couple of weeks ago yeah so now Frank is and he wants things in exchange Frank is um well, he's known as a liar, right? But he's not stupid.
You know, if I'm going to give you a story, I want something in return. I mean, most inmates do.
As Frank's story is reverberating throughout Hawaii, Dana's family is devastated and angry. With the world's eyes now on them, detectives are pushing to gather just enough evidence for an arrest, but they're not moving all that quickly.
I do not understand, though, if everything that these guys say, that this guy said is true, why they haven't got these SOBs off the street, why they haven't locked the other two guys up. And it's very, very darn frustrating for us to sit back here wanting these guys off the street.
Major Richard Carter, perhaps best known for collaring underworld figure Henry Hui Hui, asked for the public's understanding. It's just going to take some time.
Hopefully everybody will be patient with us. They spend the first half of 1995 continuing to interview anyone with information about the Pauline Gonsalves family and or the Schweitzers.
But it's hard to distinguish the truth from island rumors. At this point, detectives have collected samples from the VW, mouth swabs, hairs, and dental impressions to compare to the bite mark left on Dana's chest from all the suspects, Ian, Sean, and Frank.

I think they took like 50 hairs here, and they had my mouth spread wide open, chewed out.

They turned to Dr. Norman Sperber, a forensic odontologist, to compare the bite marks.
We now know that bite mark evidence isn't scientifically valid, but even then, Dr. Sperber finds that none of the impressions match the bite mark.
More importantly, there aren't any matches to the DNA. Frank's story also continues to change, and theories start to swirl around John Gonsalve's initial call to the Hawaii Police Department and Frank Pauline's confession, and maybe how they benefit from it.
In November of 1993, about seven months before John made his phone call, John and his mother Pat, alongside his cousin Timmy and a few others, were tied to the largest cocaine conspiracy case in Big Island history at the time. And the family was in real trouble.
They were facing charges of conspiracy to promote a dangerous drug in the first.

Eight pounds, money laundering, tax evasion, welfare fraud.

The mom had same charges.

So, people are starting to think that Frank's initial confession was designed to benefit the Gonsalves.

Especially when, in the spring of 1995, John Gonsalves agreed to a plea bargain with a reduced sentence, probation and 90 days in jail. Their mother's charges were dropped too.
The war between the Schweitzer family and the Pauline Gonsalves family is now on display for the public to see. Sean spoke to the media at the time while all this was unfolding.
I have no idea. I don't even know him, you know what I mean? This is all, like, sudden and really disturbing and stuff, yeah.
Did he have a grudge? Was he out to get you? Yeah, yeah. What was that about? A grudge.
Basically, they're lowlifes. And, you know what I mean, they're lowlife kind of people.
And they hate to see people do good. And by April 1995, Frank continues to change his story.
And on the 21st, he makes his fifth statement to the police. Frank calls up Detective Guillermo and now says a fourth person was involved.
Frank says he saw his brother, Wayne Gonsalves, sexually assault Dana Ireland. And he immediately decided to run away and didn't return until 30 minutes later.
So he can't really speak to anything else that happened during that time. But of course, when investigators take Frank out the next day for another reconstruction, asking him to recount everything again now with this fourth person, Wayne, involved, his version of the story keeps changing and just gets more confusing.
Frank's mom, Pat, who is no longer facing any criminal charges, says that despite what Frank is saying, he didn't have anything to do with the murder. She even gives him an alibi and says Frank was home at the time of the crime, but his drug use is the reason he believes he was at the scene.
When detectives talk to Wayne, he denies being a part of any of this. He thinks Frank implicated him to avoid taking the blame alone and thinks he probably just wanted company in jail.
Frank is obviously a reckless dude, and he hasn't thought through exactly how all his little stories wouldn't just ruin the Schweitzer's lives, but his own life too. Because he may just be a pawn in an even bigger chess game.
I mean, John Gonzalez is the mastermind behind it all. I mean, I hope you guys can really research and dig and find out how much deals the prosecutor gave out.
Okay, I got to get some stories straight over here. They still named me in the people.
They was not involved. The Switzer's had nothing for doing this.
They kept asking me questions, and you can listen to use it.

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Restrictions apply. USAA! I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
And I'm Anasega Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor. We've each spent decades on the front lines of crime, witnessing the devastation that violence leaves behind.
And for us, the heart of these

cases is the people involved, the victims whose stories deserve to be told and not forgotten.

Every week on Anatomy of Murder, we dissect the layers of a homicide through the lens

of those who know them best, the families, the detectives, and the prosecutors. With experience

that runs deep and access to those closest to each case, we take you well beyond the headlines.

Listen to Anatomy of Murder wherever you get your podcasts.