A California couple is lucky to be alive after a harrowing robbery left them scrambling for their lives up a scorched Hawaii volcano — where their attacker “hunted” them with a drone and guns for nearly a day.
Justina and Alex Lucero, musicians from Santa Cruz, were visiting Maui for work in early June when they took a trip to Haleakalā National Park on a day off.
“Everybody was wonderful. All the locals and all the tourists that we ran into were great,” Alex told KHON, explaining how they were advised to visit the black sand beach near the end of the 64-mile Road to Hana, a remote but popular scenic route that follows the northeast coast of the island.
Upon nearing the beach, they encountered a “Road Closed” sign that had been knocked over but thought nothing of it, as locals had advised them it was no longer closed and that they were free to pass.
“We weren’t suspicious of anything like that,” Justina said. “We were told that the locals there will use the same road, and if they come up behind you, just pull off to the side and let them pass because they’re going to be not looking at the same scenery the way that you will.”
So when a truck came up behind them, the couple thought nothing of it and pulled over as it drove past — but after rounding a turn, they found it blocking their path, and a masked driver leapt out.
“[He] jumps out and comes right at us with the gun and stops us in the middle of the street,” Justina said, recalling how he demanded they get out of their rental car, a silver Mustang.
Alex said the criminal barked, “Leave all valuables, leave the keys.
“Empty your pockets, leave everything in the car, and start walking that way now.”
The couple did as they were told and began slowly walking away, but when they heard their car start and speed toward them, they took off running into the brush.
“Now he’s coming towards us. So we very, very quickly went from a fast walk to a sprint up this gulch,” Alex said, explaining they decided in a second to run for higher ground — straight up the ashen face of Haleakalā Volcano.
“He’s yelling for us to show ourselves. ‘Yeah, I’ll find you! I’ll find you!’ And at some point he counts down from, I don’t know if it was 10 or I heard him at five. And at the end of it, he shot the gun off,” Alex said.
Justina added, “At that point, we knew it was loaded. We knew he meant business.”
As the couple pressed on and the sun began to set, their pursuer was joined by two more cars, and they could see people searching the area with flashlights.
A drone was even deployed and scanned the landscape with a spotlight, which brought on a new wave of terror in the Luceros.
“This feeling of being hunted and not knowing the extent of, you know, what they would do, what they wanted and who he had at his fingertips to help,” Justina said.
Alex said, “I had mentally come to the conclusion that we were going to die.”
The couple kept moving throughout the night, drinking from a waterfall as the air grew cold, and come daybreak saw men on horseback riding with dogs. Unsure if the men were friendly or their hunters, the couple kept moving.
Finally, they came across a shelter where a park ranger was stationed, and more than 24 hours after they’d set out to the National Park, their nightmare was over.
Police quickly determined the nature of their ordeal fit behavior of a known suspect, who police described to the pair as a “menace.”
A week later, suspect Christopher Helmer was arrested by the Maui Police Department on unrelated terroristic threat and kidnapping charges — but he also had been caught riding in the Lucero’s rented Mustang and had allegedly tried to use their stolen credit cards across Maui.
Days later, Helmer was indicted for firearms, robbery, car theft and drugs charges connected to the Luceros’ incident.
“His victims have endured harrowing experiences, and we look forward to bringing him to justice,” Maui prosecutor Andrew Martin told KHON.
Police also noted Helmer had been “implicated in multiple incidents across the island.”
“With Helmer in custody, we want to reassure our residents and visitors that they can take comfort in knowing that this individual is no longer a threat to public safety,” MPD said
