Jumping into this new case, we’re going to learn that the world is cruel. It’s harsh and sometimes justice comes at a massive cost, and sometimes it’s completely underserved. In the case of seven-year-old Peter Boy Kema, justice never really came. The case itself is horrific, and I would suggest before going any farther if you are sensitive to abuse, and harming of children, you consider what you are digging into. This is a horrific case of everyone failing. The parents. Child Protective Services. Any other concerned adults. It has left a horrid taste in my mouth just even looking into it to discuss it.
Peter Boy or Pepe as he was affectionately called was born on May 1st of 1991, and his childhood was not a good one. He was one of several children in the household at the time. There were four living, and three that had died in infancy. The youngest, Lin, was his biological sister, and he had two older half-siblings, Chauntelle and Allen Acol had to live through what happened as much as he did.
Going Back To The Start
To truly explain just how evil this case is, and just how much the adults around this six-year-old failed him, we have to go back to the start.
Born to Jaylin Acol-Kema and Peter Kema Sr in May of 1991, Peter Boy was only 3 months old the first time that he was taken from his parents. His mother had taken him to the hospital, and x-rays revealed old injuries and new ones alike. Including fractures to his arms, legs, and ribs. The parents had done their best to explain away the injuries, however, authorities stepped in to stop what was turning out to be a horrific situation for the infant. Not only was he removed, but there was also already a child abuse case open against the two parents for the older half-siblings due to the violence they had experienced in the household.
Peter Boy Jr was sent to live with his maternal grandparents at this point, along with his siblings, and from 1991 until 1995, all the children thrived. James and Yolanda Acol were loving, supportive grandparents that were just as hurt over the damage that had been done to their grandchildren. They protected these children, raised them to thrive instead of merely survive, and it seemed as if this was a good ending for everyone. The children were getting the support they deserved after so much horror in such a short amount of time.
Until the caseworker that had been in charge of their case retired. Previous to retiring the caseworker had warned Child Protective Services and any authority that she could about the dangers of returning any of these children to their parents. Unfortunately, it was a time when it was federally enforced to have families reunited, under any circumstances possible.
In 1995, Peter Boy Jr and his siblings were removed from protective custody and under the care of their extremely supportive grandparents. They were returned to Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr. From here, it all starts falling apart again.
The Next Two Years
From 1995 until the spring of 1996 the abuse of Peter Boy Jr continued. According to hospital records and later released CPS files, every horrific thing possible happened to this boy in his very short life. Broken bones, black eyes, and sprains were just the start. It was reported by witnesses that Peter Boy Jr was treated the worst out of all four children.
He was chained to walls, tied up to his bed, and forced to sleep in hallways and on floors. Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr barely fed him, and when they did, he was forced to eat off of the floor. Any time the two adults would take the children out, Peter Boy was forced into a trash bag and placed in the trunk, regardless of the humid heat of Hawaii. There was one occasion where it was reported that he was forced to eat dog feces. The boy was beaten and left to sleep outside. There was no peace in the home for Peter Boy Jr or his siblings. They were forced to witness the horrors and experienced some of their own.
Hospital records from before his disappearance show that he had breaks that were caused by his limbs being twisted until they snapped. Speaking of breaks, they were numerous. Some are left to heal on their own without medical assistance. Despite having insurance, neither parent took Peter Boy Jr to the hospital.
By spring of 1996, all had gone quiet. The grandparents, James and Yoland, stopped hearing from Peter Boy Jr. Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr would make excuses for where he was, and what was going on with him. The last time anyone had seen him, they’d noted what looked to be a break or sprain of his arm and a black eye. Then nothing.
James and Yolanda alerted authorities and did everything possible to get CPS involved. They were under the impression that Peter Boy Jr was merely being kept from them, that this was some sort of plot. They had no idea what the next few months were going to drag to the light.
Peter Boy Jr Is Missing
As 1997 continued onwards, and spring became summer, the growing concern for Peter Boy Jr grew. However, there would be no real change of information until January of 1998 when CPS forced Jaylin to file a missing person report on her child. At this point, no one had seen or heard from Peter Boy Jr for months, and it was only by constant pushing of the grandparents that Child Protective Services finally told Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr that they had to present the child or face charges.
Jaylin admitted at this point that she could not produce a healthy, living Peter Boy Jr because he had been gone since around August of 1997. She hadn’t even seen her child in nearly six months.
When the missing person report was filed, Jaylin and Peter Kema Sr were very talkative to the police, cooperating with all efforts. The issue is that the police smelled the lies. The authorities were aware that stories and evidence as to where Peter Boy Jr had ended up weren’t adding up.
When asked about his location, detectives were first told that he was staying with relatives. Then Peter Kema Sr changed his story, saying that he’d passed Peter Boy off to a woman in an illegal adoption. The adoption supposedly took place in June or July of 1997, although a letter later revealed was dated September of that year. Only then did it start to become clear that the woman was not real, and despite efforts by police to plaster a poster of her depiction all over the islands, she would not be found. Nor did Peter Kema Sr have a real explanation for the differences in dates.
It seemed that at every turn the parents of this little boy had an answer, or an excuse, for why Peter Boy Jr was not seen, could not be found, and would not be revealed to officers and the public as being alive and healthy. The momentum grew so much in the public eye for finding this boy that he became the poster boy for a Missing Children’s group in Hawaii, with stickers and posters of his face being placed everywhere for anyone to see.
The unfortunate part of all of this is that nothing came of it. Peter Boy Jr was never found, no part of him was seen again. He was immortalized on those stickers, but there was no closure for those that did love him.
The other siblings were sent away, the two half-siblings were sent to the mainland to live with their father while the youngest was sent to live with her grandparents once more.
What Happened From There?
As 2000 came and went, the other siblings were being raised in healthier households, kept away from the horrors and abuse that they’d been subjected to for years. However, it was in 2000 that there were some changes made to the case.
For the first years of the case, there had merely been a Missing Persons classification, however, after eight years with no movement, this was when it was changed to a homicide investigation. The police at the time were not naive, they understood that without a body it was going to be harder to get a conviction. But it wasn’t impossible.
This is where it became a challenge of gathering as much evidence as possible. With that was the release of the CPS records in 2005 that showed how the system utterly failed him. There were over 2,000 pages of documents that revealed he should have never been handed back over to those people. He was in danger, and everyone knew it. The law at the time was all about reuniting families, however, and so that was the goal. Regardless of the risk.
Reports of pellet guns being fired at him, the other children witnessing him being placed into garbage cans, bare naked to the world. Holes in his skin, bruising, broken bones. The list goes on, and this won’t be the last time that these injuries, ongoing for his very short life, will be mentioned. Because it can not be understated just how badly he was treated before his so-called mother and step-father dumped him like actual garbage.
It wouldn’t end here, however. The two atrocious humans that committed this crime were still left walking free for another eleven years. First, a reopening case in 2014, and then finally the two were arrested in 2016.
From 1996 to 2016 is how long it took to finally reach any form of justice. And in all of this time, there was no evidence of a body. They never found Peter Boy. Not even a trace of him.
In 2016, the court finally handed down the long overdue indictments on the Kemas. The biggest piece of evidence that the prosecution had going for it was the key witness testimony. This included the siblings of Peter Boy. All expressing the abuse they had endured, along with the abuse they’d witnessed their brother suffering. There were other family members as well that could recall the countless things that went into Peter Boy going from a happy, sweet boy to memory.
In December of that year, Jaylen Kema plead guilty to manslaughter. She cut a deal, testifying against Peter Kema Sr, claiming that it was fear of him that kept her from doing what was needed to protect her son.
It would be April of 2017 before anything came of Peter Kema Sr, however. This came with him also cutting a deal with the prosecution. Agreeing to plead guilty to manslaughter and hindering the police investigation. The key piece of this deal was the recovery of Peter Boy. Either Peter Sr had to reveal the location of the body, or pass a polygraph if no body was there to be recovered.
Eventually, Jaylin did die in prison. In 2019, she passed away of renal failure, despite having the shortest sentence of the two. She never saw the light of day. Peter Kema Sr is still in prison. He will likely never see the light of day again.
This is one of those cases that is hard to swallow. There were so many points during the very short life of this child where things could have turned out differently. He had been thriving in the care of his grandparents. He had been healthy, and happy, and that’s where this could have ended. Instead, due to laws and regulations, he did not get that outcome. He was forced back into a family that did not want him. Forced to be with parents who did not love him. The ones that did love him were merely forced to watch him suffer.
It seemed that he took the worst of it too. The others were suffering, and being abused, but there was something about the poor boy that the parents targeted. Making this devastating. There was no one to protect him. No one to defend him. No superheroes were swooping in to take him from the horrors that he was witnessing and subjected to.
Instead, there was CPS. Who has, historically, failed more children than it helped. They had over 2,000 pages on file that proved these two people were not fit to be parents. The red flags and warnings were there, and they were far too busy trying to meet a quota.
This case has angered me, and in turn, it’s taken me way longer than I would like to admit to complete. There was a total failure of the system here. Plenty of adults in his life were concerned, but a fractured and barely functioning system left them with their hands tied. Unable to do anything other than sit and watch a beautiful child left to ruin, hoping that someone will do something eventually.
I will admit that cases, where children are involved, tend to mess with me the most. It’s so clear the system is fractured, and most times barely functioning. These children are not any safer in some cases than they’d been in their original environment. Yet, we do nothing to change it. We do nothing to make it better. Not until after it’s well too late. Peter Boy is a great example. Only after the horrors of his case did
Seeing Red 