Here’s one of those little situations that don’t quite add up to a full story yet, but are worth noting.

This information is drawn from a law enforcement affidavit submitted in support of a search warrant application in August 2018, and is included in several similar affidavits around the same time.

Miske purchased a 37-foot Boston Whaler “Outrage” model fishing boat on June 13, 2016, according to Hawaii’s Online Vessel Registration System. The FBI later estimated it to have been valued at $450,000.

The previous month, on May 6, 2016, Miske registered a new company, Kamaaina Coral Reef Excursions LLC, which was registered at the same address as Kamaaina Termite and other Miske-controlled businesses. This new company was owned, in turn, by Kamaaina Holdings LLC, also controlled by Miske.

Kamaina Holdings already held title to the longline fishing vessel “Rachel,” which Miske had purchased in 2010.

The new reef excursions company appears to have never done any business and never submitted required annual reports with the state’s business registration division. It’s business registration was terminated administratively by regulators after the company failed to file annual reports for three years.

However, the new Boston Whaler, named “Painkiller,” was registered to a different Miske-controlled company, Hawaii Partners LLC.

The purchase was made just six weeks before Jonathan Fraser suddenly disappeared from an apartment he and his girlfriend shared with Delia Fabro Miske, who had been married to Miske’s late son, Caleb.

Caleb had died of injuries received in a high-speed crash just outside of the Windward City Shopping Center in Kaneohe, in which Fraser was also critically injured. Miske mistakenly blamed Fraser for being the driver and causing the accident, despite abundant evidence that it was Caleb who was driving and pinned in the car. He had to be extricated by responders from Honolulu Fire Department using the “Jaws of Life” rescue tool.

Prosecutors allege Miske directed a group of conspirators who carried out Fraser’s kidnapping and murder. Prosecutors appear to believe Painkiller was intended to be used to dispose of Fraser’s body at sea, although it is not clear yet whether that is supported by clear evidence. Miske now faces several charges related to Fraser’s murder that could put him in prison for life if convicted.

Miske needed a place to moor the newly-purchased vessel, and rented a slip in the private Makani Kai Marina in Kaneohe.

According to the affidavit, Miske “and an unknown female,” filled out an application at the Marina office in mid-June 2016.

Miske appears to have edited the application before it was submitted. The name of the “boat owner,” originally “Michael Miske,” was crossed out and replaced with “Hawaii Partners LLC,” according to the affidavit.

Similarly, the address of Miske’s home in Kailua was crossed out and replaced with his business address, 940-B Queen Street. His email address was written out as “miszewskimi@gmail.com.” His great-grandfather’s family name was “Miszewski,” which was later changed to Miske.

The boat was then mis-described as a 14-foot Boston Whaler.

To obtain a gate entry card to access to marina, Miske was required to provide a check for $14. The Marina had a policy of not accepting cash.

“Miske reportedly refused to provide a check and instead gave Makani Kai Marina staff a $100 bill and said to keep the change,” according to the affidavit.

Investigators later learned Miske had filed an insurance claim for damages to Painkiller supposedly caused when the boat hit a reef in Kaneohe Bay on August 7, 2016, just a week after Fraser’s disappearance.

Again, the Miske used the name “Miszewski” when applying for the insurance policy, as he had done for the marina rental, although the “statement of loss” filed with the claim used his own name.

Miske reported the boat had been damaged when “Miske had crashed onto the reef at a low rate of speed after the boat’s electronics had gone down.”

The service manager from the location where the boat was purchased inspected Painkiller at Makani Kai Harbor, the private marina where Painkiller was towed following the incident. The service manager determined that the bottom hull of the vessel was lightly scratched and that one of the propeller shafts and propellers had broken off of one of the three outboard engines. The service manager determined that the main breaker on the 12-volt DC panel had been tripped, cutting the power to the vessel. The service manager flipped the breaker back on and inspected the electrical system for faults but found none.

Does all this mean anything? I don’t know.

But Norman Akau, one of Miske’s original co-defendants in the federal case who pleaded guilty in June 2021, told investigators he had received an offer of cash to assist in Fraser’s kidnapping, that involved delivering him to a location on Oahu’s North Shore.

According to his written plea agreement, filed in Honolulu’s federal court:

In or around 2016, AKAU was also offered $50,000 by Michael J. Miske, Jr., through Wayne Miller, this time to abduct Johnathan Fraser and transport him to the North Shore of Oahu where another individual would commit Fraser’s murder. After thinking over the offer and discussing it with others, AKAU declined to accept the offer because Fraser was “a kid.”

The FBI special agent submitting the affidavit concluded Miske had tried to conceal his identity by removing his name and home address from the marina application in “an attempt to evade law enforcement detection.”

“Investigators believe the timing of Mike’s purchase of Painkiller and the rental of the boat slip at Makani Kai Marina, in mid-June 2016, tend to indicate that Miske planned in advance the murder of Fraser, which investigators believe occurred on or about July 30, 2016.”

In August 2017, the FBI executed a search warrant for the Painkiller, which was then moored in Kewalo Basin.

The search warrant authorized “a forensic search and inspection” seeking evidence relating to the involvement of Honolulu businessman Michael Miske Jr. and others, “known and unknown,” in a murder-for-hire plot. Among items named in the warrant were firearms, as well as trace forensic evidence including “biological matter” such as hair, skin, bones, blood, DNA and fingerprints, evidence of those who had been present on the boat, along with the boat’s navigational equipment and any GPS, radar, or tracking data.

The results of that search have not been publicly disclosed.