Family Feud | Chapter 3
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Hi, everyone. I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia D'Ambra. And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings. From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances,

Each Tuesday, we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen to Park Predators now wherever you listen to podcasts.

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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. 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. Yeah.

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, 2, 3 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 freaking 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.

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 Gonsalves.

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, the Gonzales were known throughout the area to be notorious for selling and using drugs. Fast forward.

Almost three years after Linda Schweitzer filed her report against Timmy, 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 Paulings have brother and mother. They all got in trouble for cocaine, federal case. So John Gonzales calls up, you know, talks to Frank while Frank is in prison on another sex crime. In jail, I mean, not prison. And 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 24th, 1991, he was picked up by the Schweitzer brothers in a purple VW Beetle, once owned by his cousin, Timmy Gonzales. 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, you know what I mean? They looked possessed. They didn't look good at all, man. I would say the way she looked to me at that point was like she was dead already.

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 Schweitzer's 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 Schweitzer's took before running into Dana. With the Venmo debit card, you can turn the mini-golf outing your co-workers paid you back for.

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There are some cases so infamous that we have all heard about them. But some of the coldest cases, the most mysterious, are the ones that you've never heard of before. I'm Ashley Flowers, and every Wednesday on my show, The Deck, I dive into the coldest

And that listener could be you. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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 Gonzalds, 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. And his son drove it to high school. Oh, true high school. True high school.

Timmy bought it from them. 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 Gonzales 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 it 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 out 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 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.

own 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. 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 here, the cops are here, they want to talk to you. So I loaded up my three kids, my wife, and we went down there. And they had the Volkswagen on the car carrier, loaded up, and then asked me if I wanted, I would go down there and talk to them. And I was like, okay, but what? So they said, oh, we'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 asked Sean what he was doing on December 24th, 1991. I was like, are you fucking serious? When all this first started happening, I thought, these guys gotta be fucking joking. This isn't a joke. You guys gotta come to your senses at some point and figure out that it ain't us. But no, I guess not. If you want it, you want it. You're gonna 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 currently know. That their families did not get along, and specifically, John and Frank's cousins, Timmy and Wayne, tried to start fights with the family and broke a window at their house.

When Sean's asked to take a polygraph, initially he is skeptical, 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 had 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, Treaty, and Randy Roth from the Hawaii Innocence Project, this work suited Ian. He's working in a hospital, CNA, and I'm sure he would have been an LPN and RN, and I'm sure he could 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. Yeah.

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 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 have time to even hear about it, you know, until it affects you or one of your family members. And then you'll learn what the system is really about.

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 or other 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 them 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 Dana was... It couldn't have been...

One, it wasn't a boss, 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. With the Venmo debit card, you can turn the spa day that your friends paid you back for...

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There are some cases so infamous that we have all heard about them. But some of the coldest cases, the most mysterious, are the ones that you've never heard of before. I'm Ashley Flowers, and every Wednesday on my show, The Deck, I dive into the coldest

And that listener could be you. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks to Frank Pauline's confession, detectives feel they can now confidently clear their original three suspects, Roy Santos, Anthony Torres, and Frank Nasario. 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 they're not sure if they're going to be able to get to Frank.

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.

Next, Pauline says, the brother smoked more crack cocaine and drove to a deserted junkyard. He was biting her all over.

Pauline says he observed all this from within the car. 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 know what I mean, help her. I guess she wanted to rest in peace already. What was she saying? Did she say anything? No, she was half dead, like, I just was telling him, you know what I mean, you guys see...

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 defendants, 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 pressing out. 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 island case that ian and sean killed him 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 by from the island 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 his story, they really don't jump on it because they got these other suspects out there where the evidence is pointing to. When those 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 to arrest somebody. What was that story, Frank, you was telling us a couple of weeks ago? So now Frank is...

And he wants things in exchange. Frank is just, 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.

Major Richard Carter, perhaps best known for collaring underworld figure Henry Huihui, asked for the public's understanding. 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 Gonsalves' 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. 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? Basically, they're low-lifes. And, you know, I mean, there is low-life 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 stay naming the people. They was not involved. The Schweitzer's had nothing for doing this. They kept asking me questions and they wanted me to give them the names that they wanted. That's in Chapter 4, which you can listen to next week. ... ...

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132 rooms, 157 suspects, one dead body, one wildly eccentric detective, one disastrous state dinner, and at the center of it all, a case unlike any other. The new Netflix series The Residence is a screwball whodunit set in the White House. From Shondaland, the series features an all-star cast led by Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, the most sought-after detective in the world. Watch The Residence, March 20th, only on Netflix.