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In May 2006, 52-year-old American Miki Kanesaki was reported missing while on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea just off Italy's coast. Lani Kakantis, her ex-husband, sweet-talked her into a romantic getaway to fix their broken relationship. Miki trusted Lani, and after a romantic, wine-filled evening, Miki just disappeared.
Two days later, a vessel performing oceanography research made a shocking discovery. A body, a lonely body floating in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The lifeless and broken-hearted body of Mickey was miraculously found. The investigation quickly focused on Mickey's ex-husband Lonnie.
But with zero evidence found anywhere on the cruise ship, the only hope remained with forensics. Could forensic science find anything on Mickey's body explaining her tragic and permanent romantic getaway? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 62, Lonnie Kakantis and the death of Mickey Kanesaki. ♪♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that covers real, bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some of the cases have been solved with a little help of forensic science, while others have turned cold. The stories we cover each week send a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
If you're interested in supporting the show and getting early access to weekly episodes, bonus material, ad-free episodes, merchandise, and so much more, consider visiting our Patreon page, patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Before we get to the episode, I want to give a huge thank you and shout out to this week's newest patron of the show, Stevie. Thank you so much, Stevie.
Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a positive rating with a review or telling friends and family who also love true crime. Now, let's jump right into this week's story. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for listening and joining me for episode number 62 of Forensic Tales. The case we're covering this week is another local one.
The crime itself takes place on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the coast of Italy. People at the center of it come from right here in Orange County. This is one where even a successful, well-respected lawyer can be motivated by greed and driven to kill. It's a story that proves that without forensic science and without the evidence collected at the autopsy,
A killer might just get away with the perfect murder. On May 21st, 2006, 52-year-old Miki Kanasaki boarded a plane headed to Spain with her ex-husband, Lonnie Kakantis. Miki and Lonnie met while working for the same Los Angeles law firm. Miki was the office's paralegal, and Lonnie was one of the attorneys for the firm.
Shortly after meeting and dating, they made things official in the relationship and got married in 1995. After tying the knot, Mickey officially became Lonnie's third wife. At the beginning of the marriage, things were good. They had a normal, happy relationship together. But the marriage began to turn sour only after a couple years together.
And by 2002, after seven years of marriage, Mickey and Lonnie filed for divorce. By 2002, even though they were divorced, Mickey and Lonnie continued to live together. They shared a home in Ladera Ranch, a middle-to-upper-class city within Orange County, California. They continued to live together. They started taking steps to split up their marital shared assets.
Also by 2002, Mickey developed a rather serious case of arthritis, forcing her to quit her job as a paralegal. To make money, Mickey started investing. And it turned out, well, it turned out she was pretty good at it. She continued making decent money. While living together, Lonnie met another woman, a woman by the name of Amy Wynn, someone he'd met while on a dating website.
It seemed like three ex-wives weren't enough for Lonnie. He was out looking for wife number four. After meeting online, Lonnie and Amy started dating. But Mickey, his ex-wife and roommate, had no idea about this new relationship. Well, Lonnie and Amy didn't just date. While Lonnie continued lying and living with Mickey...
He and Amy took a trip to Las Vegas in 2005 and got married. On paper, Amy Wynn officially became Lonnie's fourth wife. In late 2005, Lonnie moved out of his shared Ladera Ranch home and moved in with his new wife, Amy Wynn. Even though Lonnie remarried, he and Mickey hadn't come to a settlement on their divorce.
Of particular interest was the ownership of their Ladera Ranch home. Lonnie wanted to sell the home. September 2005, while living with Amy, he filed legal paperwork asking the court to basically make Mickey sell the home and give him half the price tag. Small problem. Mickey was the one who actually paid off the mortgage to the house.
The court ruled against him, stating she wasn't required to sell a home that she rightfully purchased. A few weeks after the court denied Lonnie's request, Lonnie decides to move back in with Mickey. Keep in mind, at this point, he's still married to wife number four, Amy Wynn.
It's a situation where Amy Wynn, wife four, knows about Mickey, wife three, but Mickey doesn't know about Amy, wife number four. And sadly, everyone knows husband number one. Now, somehow, I have no idea how we could pull this off.
He managed to tell Amy he still loved her and he doesn't want to break up with her. But he's decided to go back and move in with his ex-wife, Mickey. And somehow, Amy agreed with it. She said okay to Lonnie moving back in with his ex, at least initially. But not surprisingly, this arrangement didn't last forever.
Amy eventually came to her senses and filed for divorce, making her ex-wife number four. A few months after Amy filed for divorce, Lonnie booked a vacation for himself and Mickey. He made arrangements to fly to Spain and embark on a Mediterranean cruise just off the coast of Italy. Before leaving, Lonnie shared his intentions with close friends. The cruise was meant to rekindle their relationship.
He and Micky had planned to remarry. This vacation celebrated their reconciliation. Lonnie and Micky flew to Spain on May 21, 2006. Once they arrived in Spain, they boarded the budget cruise ship and stayed in a room that had a balcony, a room that Lonnie specifically requested. The first two days of the cruise were spent on the ship.
On day three, the ship docked in Messina, Italy for the first all-day excursion off the boat. After spending the day on land, Lonnie and Mickey boarded the ship just before dark. Once back on the boat, they ate dinner and then returned to their room for the night. The following morning on May 26, just before dawn, Mickey is reported missing at about 4.30 a.m.,
Lonnie tells the crew that the night before, he and Mickey had dinner together where they shared a bottle of wine. He said after dinner, they went to the ship's casino and then ended the night by attending a show. After the show, Lonnie said they went back to their room where they took an Ambien and went to sleep. And when he woke up, Mickey was gone. She wasn't in the room. He couldn't find her anywhere.
The first theory about Mickey's whereabouts came from Lonnie himself. After he reported her missing, he suggested to the cruise authorities that she may have fallen overboard from their room's balcony. Maybe she got sick from drinking too much wine and accidentally fell overboard. After Mickey was reported missing, the entire cruise ship went out searching for her. At first, Mickey's disappearance seems kind of weird.
How can someone go missing from a cruise ship? Could she really have fallen overboard like Lonnie suggested? Well, it turns out it happens probably more often than we think. One article reported that since 2000, almost 300 people have gone overboard from cruises and ferries, and another 49 people have gone missing while on cruise ships.
So while not entirely unheard of, someone going missing on a cruise ship is still quite rare. The ship's crew members spent the entire first day searching for Mickey, but they didn't find any sign of her. Nothing seemed to be missing from her room. There was no evidence that she had fallen off the ship. And the ship records every time a passenger leaves and comes back on the ship.
So they had record that Mickey returned on board the ship on May 25th, the night of her disappearance. They also had information from an eyewitness who reported to crew members that they saw Mickey on the ship sometime around 11 p.m. that night. After the first full day of searching for Mickey, the following morning, May 27th, Lonnie flew back home to California. Kind of odd, right?
His ex-wife has gone missing from a cruise ship, and then less than 24 hours later, he decides to jump on a plane headed back home. Well, just as Lonnie arrives back in Southern California, a body's been discovered floating in the Mediterranean Sea. On May 27th, almost two days after Mickey was reported missing,
Crew members of an oceanography research vessel discovered the body of a female floating in the water. The body was pulled from the water. Based on the condition of the body, it didn't seem like she'd been in the water for a very long time, maybe a day or two. The female body was transported to the nearest medical examiner's office in Italy, where local authorities eagerly waited.
The female body matched the description and circumstances surrounding Mickey's disappearance. After a little testing by the medical examiner, the body found floating in the water was positively identified as the 52-year-old missing American, Mickey Kanasaki, identified the same day Lonnie returned to California.
Once Mickey's body was found, Italian investigators needed to determine exactly how she died. Because her body had been found in the water, it seemed likely that she had fallen off the cruise ship. But investigators needed to find out whether she had fallen off the ship accidentally or if there was another possible explanation.
Mickey's autopsy, performed by an Italian medical examiner, discovered some serious injuries on the body. She had a number of injuries to the back of her head, including a broken bone in her neck. The medical examiner believed this type of injury was consistent with, quote, a violent action that was continued on for a period of time, end quote.
Meaning the neck injury seemed to be the result of a repeated attack, not a single injury, like you'd expect to see if she'd fell off the ship and hit her head on the way down. There was also blunt force injuries to her head. Injuries the medical examiner believed were caused by a quote, object with a convex surface, something like a bottle of wine.
The biggest clue for Mickey's autopsy came when the medical examiner examined her lungs. This is crucial because Mickey's lungs would tell the medical examiner whether she was alive before or after her body ended up in the water, which can tell authorities whether this was an accident or foul play.
If she was alive when she went overboard, there would be water in her lungs, indicating a possible drowning. Suggesting Mickey's death was an accident. However, if she was dead before she went overboard, there's a good chance only air would be in her lungs. Dead people don't breathe, and this would suggest that foul play was involved.
When the medical examiner looked at Mickey's lungs, there was no water inside. In fact, not only was there no sign of water in her lungs, her lungs were completely full of air. The first big clue that Mickey was likely dead before floating in the ocean. Mickey's death was no accident.
Following the autopsy findings, Italian and California authorities started to become suspicious of Lonnie's involvement. Officers first became suspicious after discovering that Mickey and Lonnie, a divorced couple, would even decide to go on a romantic Mediterranean cruise together in the first place.
They also found it strange that within minutes of reporting Mickey missing, Lonnie already seemed to have a story about how she may have had too much wine and could have accidentally fallen off the room's balcony. And then finally, they knew that within 24 hours of Mickey's disappearance, Lonnie had already boarded a plane back to California. All of this seemed suspicious.
Even though investigators were suspicious of Lonnie, there wasn't any evidence tying him to Mickey's death. As authorities thought it was strange that a divorced couple would go on a cruise together, Lonnie maintained that he and Mickey had reconciled and were considering getting remarried. As authorities thought it was strange that he so quickly told the ship's crew members that maybe she drank too much wine and then fell over,
Witnesses on the cruise ship saw Mickey and Lonnie that night at dinner drinking wine. And as authorities thought it was strange that Lonnie returned to California so quickly, he maintained he needed to take care of the couple's finances in the event of Mickey's death. On top of the lack of evidence linking Lonnie to any crime, authorities in both Italy and California were faced with one big problem.
They weren't sure that they could even charge Lonnie because Mickey's death happened over international waters. So pretty early on in the investigation, Lonnie was cleared as a possible suspect. After being cleared as a suspect, one of the first things Lonnie did in California was to sell that previously contested Ladera Ranch home.
And because Mickey was dead, he was named the sole beneficiary of the Holmes proceeds. He was also the sole beneficiary on several bank accounts they opened while they were married, assets that the couple were working on dividing just months before the cruise. It turned out that the timing of Mickey's death greatly benefited Lonnie.
That's because just months before the cruise, Lonnie had drawn up new wills for both himself and Mickey, in which the wills gave their assets to one another in the event of either one of their deaths. This meant that Lonnie was the beneficiary of almost every dollar that Mickey had at the time of her death. Even though Lonnie was cleared as a suspect in 2006,
By 2008, he came underneath the microscope once again. This time, he wasn't under suspicion by authorities in California or Italy. He became the subject of an FBI investigation. In 2008, the FBI opened a federal investigation into Lonnie's finances after he attempted to transfer a little over $1 million between multiple bank accounts.
some accounts belonging to Mickey, and some involving his own personal accounts. But the FBI's investigation didn't last long. That's because Amy Wynn, Lonnie's fourth wife, testified on his behalf, basically clearing up any suspicious money deals. Once the FBI closed their investigation, California authorities working Mickey's case seemed to be at a dead end.
The autopsy findings proved that Mickey was killed before she ended up in the water, based on the air found in her lungs, as well as the injuries to her neck. They weren't exactly sure how she died. They had no murder weapon. They weren't even really sure where the crime scene actually was. A search of the cabin on the cruise ship didn't reveal any evidence that a murder took place in there. Nobody saw Mickey on the room's balcony that night.
Nobody in the rooms next to Lonnie and Mickey's heard anything. Besides the autopsy findings suggesting that Mickey was murdered and didn't die from some sort of accident, they didn't have anything linking Lonnie to her death. But that didn't mean that they were going to give up trying to solve Mickey's murder. By 2013, seven years after Mickey's body was found floating in the Mediterranean Sea,
Authorities may not have had any physical or forensic evidence linking Lonnie to the murder. They did have one key piece of evidence, and that was Lonnie's fourth wife, Amy Wynn. Amy may have gotten Lonnie out of trouble back in 2008 when she testified in his defense in the FBI investigation regarding the money transfers.
However, when the Orange County District Attorney picked up Mickey's case and began investigating it, Amy provided authorities with a completely different story. In June 2013, Amy testified in front of an Orange County grand jury that Lonnie had told her about his plans to kill Mickey.
She said Lonnie told her that the original plan to have Mickey killed involved hiring a private investigator, a guy named Bill Price. The plan was to have Bill Price find someone who'd be willing to kill Mickey and Bill would be able to provide him with an alibi. Bill's people were going to throw Mickey in the water on the cruise ship. Then Bill and his girlfriend would be his alibi.
But the plan didn't work out. At some point along the way, Bill backed out. And according to Amy, that's when Lonnie told her that he was going to take things into his own hands. That if Bill Price couldn't find someone to kill Mickey, then he'd be the one to do it himself. During the grand jury hearing, prosecutors were skeptical of Amy's testimony.
They grilled her on why she didn't disclose this information about Lonnie's plan to murder Mickey seven years ago, or at the very least, back in 2008 during the FBI investigation. She admitted to prosecutors that she lied, that she'd known all these years about Lonnie's plan to take Mickey on that cruise ship and murder her.
And when prosecutors at the grand jury hearing asked Amy what the motive would be for Lonnie to murder Mickey, the answer was simple. Money. When we first meet someone, our smile is often the first thing people notice about us, whether that's on a first date or at a job interview. A smile can tell a lot about a person, but you can't just trust your smile with any teeth whitening company.
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He'd left California and was living in Safe Harbor, Florida. It had been over seven years since her death. He rested comfortably across the country after being cleared by the FBI. But little did he know that while he sat in his Florida home, thinking all his troubles were behind him,
Amy Wynn had just provided a grand jury testimony that told her about his plans to take Mickey on that cruise ship and murder her. Just days after the grand jury finished hearing testimony about Mickey's death, Lonnie was arrested over 3,000 miles away and charged with first-degree murder. Nearly seven years after Mickey was found floating at sea,
someone was finally held responsible for her murder. Based on the autopsy findings and now Amy Wynn's testimony, Orange County prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to prove that Mickey's death was not an accident or suicide, but was a part of a murder plot where Lonnie, Mickey's ex-husband, would stand to gain over $1 million.
After his arrest, Lonnie was extradited back to Orange County, California. Even though the murder itself took place over international waters, Orange County would be the place to file murder charges because both Lonnie, the suspect, and Mickey, the victim, were residents of Orange County. Prosecutors also believed that they had the jurisdiction to charge Lonnie, even for murder in international waters.
because they believed he plotted the murder while in California. Orange County prosecutors not only filed first-degree murder charges against Lonnie, they also filed what is called a special circumstance. In this case, the special circumstance for murder was for financial gain.
Prosecutors argued that Lonnie murdered his ex-wife seeking financial gain, which in California is a case that is eligible for the death penalty. Because Lonnie was facing first-degree murder charges with special circumstances, he was held in jail without bail, meaning he would be in jail up until the time his case went to trial, which seemed like a good idea.
Everyone thought that keeping someone like Lonnie Kakantis behind bars meant that he couldn't try to kill again. At least, that's what people thought. Just months after Lonnie was charged with first-degree murder for plotting to kill his third wife for financial gain,
He was charged with an additional two counts of solicitation to commit murder and one count of solicitation to bribe a witness. These additional charges were filed after an inmate in Orange County Jail went to the district attorney's office in April 2014.
This inmate told prosecutors that while in jail, Lonnie approached him and another inmate about doing something for him in exchange for money. Lonnie asked the two inmates if they would deliver a letter to his fourth wife, Amy Wynn. The letter, written by Lonnie, stated that her 2006 testimony in front of the FBI was accurate and
and that she was forced to lie in 2013 when she told the grand jury that she knew about his plans to murder Mickey. The plan was to deliver the letter to Amy, have her sign it, then these men were going to kill her. While sitting behind bars for murdering his third wife, Lonnie was now facing two counts of solicitation to commit murder for trying to have his fourth wife killed.
Prosecutors now argued that Lonnie killed Mickey for the money and now wanted to have Amy killed so she wouldn't be able to testify against him at Mickey's trial. He wanted her to sign a false statement saying she didn't know about the plan to murder Mickey. And then after she signed it, she would become his next murder victim.
If it weren't for those two inmates coming forward to the prosecution, Amy Wynn was likely going to end up dead, just like the wife before her. The trial against Lonnie Kakontis began in February 2020 in Orange County, California. But just a few weeks into the trial, the court, like many other places, decided
was almost entirely shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing the trial to be delayed and picked back up in May. At trial, the prosecution painted Lonnie to be a cold-blooded killer, driven by sex and money. The prosecution argued that Lonnie wanted his ex-wife money, the house, everything, but she wouldn't give it to him.
Growing more desperate for the money, that's when he told Amy Wynn about his plot to hire someone to kill Mickey while on the cruise ship and provide him with an alibi. When that plan fell through, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He booked the plane tickets, booked the cheapest cruise he could find, and specifically requested a cabin with a balcony facing the water.
Three days into the cruise, Lonnie and Mickey spent the night on land for the excursion, came back on the ship, and had dinner together. Sometime after 11 o'clock p.m., they returned to their cabin, and that's when Lonnie murdered her. Using an object like a wine bottle, Mickey was repeatedly struck over the head, causing the injuries that the medical examiner believed were caused by an item with a convex surface.
After Mickey was beaten several times over the head with the wine bottle, she was then likely strangled to death and thrown over the balcony. Prosecutors believed she was dead before she even landed in the water, all based on the medical examiner's testimony of no water found in her lungs. The prosecution said the motive was simple, money.
This was evident based on Lonnie's actions and behavior immediately following Mickey's death. They told the jury about he sold that Ladera Ranch home that Mickey had paid off. The $1 million money in transfers out of her bank accounts and into his. All pointing towards that financial motive. When it came time for Lonnie's defense attorneys to present their versions of events...
they told the jury a completely different story. According to Lonnie's defense, he was innocent. He didn't book the cruise for some murder plot. He booked the cruise as a way to rekindle their relationship, a vacation to celebrate getting remarried. He even took the stand in his own defense to say that they had a perfect time together on the night of her disappearance.
He said they had dinner, had some wine. Then later on, he took an Ambien, fell asleep. And when he woke up early the next morning, she was nowhere to be found. Lonnie's defense attorney argued that Mickey's death was just a tragic, tragic accident, that she accidentally fell overboard. He believed that her injuries, which included a broken neck,
were all injuries consistent with a fall off a cruise ship balcony. During Lonnie's own testimony on stand, he even kind of suggested that Mickey may have even committed suicide. He said he'd stood by her through pretty major periods of depression over the years. He said he'd even gone with her to counseling for her depression.
He ended his testimony by saying that he did everything for Mickey. He loved her. He didn't murder her. In the end, the jury didn't seem to buy Lonnie's defense that Mickey either fell by accident after drinking too much wine or that she may have committed suicide.
After just a few hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of one count of first-degree murder with a special circumstance enhancement of murder for financial gain. The other charges related to solicitation to commit murder against Amy Wynn were dropped after Lonnie was sentenced to life in prison.
In the case of Mickey Konosaki's murder, we're fortunate that authorities could even recover her body. If it weren't for the researchers working in that particular area of the water, we may have never found her body. And without a body, authorities may have never been able to bring criminal charges against her killer.
Because her body was found, an autopsy was able to be precisely determine what happened to her. If it weren't for the medical examiner's findings of air inside her lungs proving that she was murdered before she hit the water, Lani Kakantis may have gotten away with a perfectly romantic murder. To share your thoughts on the Lani Kakantis case,
Be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Let me know if you think he's innocent or what you think about the prosecution's decision to drop the solicitation charges. Also, to check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com.
After each episode, I also put up photos from the crime scene, photos of the victim, the perpetrator, anything I can find on the case. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon.
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