Maniac Throws Baby onto Highway in Hawaii

One-year-old Cyrus Belt boy was tossed from an H-1 pedestrian overpass in Honolulu on January 17, 2008.

A freeway video camera showed the tot, who was wrapped in a blanket, being thrown into the air before falling 30 feet onto bustling expressway. Authorities believe the child may have been hit by at least two cars. It is unclear whether or not the child was alive at the time of the incident.

Eyewitness Kraig Henst, who was working in a garage across the street from the overpass, told The Honolulu Advertiser "I saw the baby high in the air." Another witness, Johnnie Bruen, said Higa, clad in green hospital scrubs, calmly walked away after dropping the little boy." Bruen chased Higa as he ran among the houses and buildings near the freeway.

Matthew M. Higa, 23, is suspected of the crime and was taken into to a police station and a hospital. Higa reportedly yelled "Thank you for everything" to television crews present as he was escorted to a cell block.

Though initial reports stated that Higa occasionally babysat the boy, Belt's mother, Nancy Asiata Chanco, said Higa, a neighbor in her apartment complex, was never left alone with her son. Chanco stated that Higa had asked to "hold" her son on numerous occasions.

Commenting on police descriptions of her child as "not moving" after having viewed videotape of the tragedy taken from a freeway camera, Chanco said she believed her son was either dead or unconscious before he was thrown. She believes her outgoing, talkative toddler probably opened the door for Higa while his grandfather, who was babysitting him, was asleep. Higa then took the child from his home and eventually tossed him onto the highway. It is not known what else may have taken place between the time Higa took the baby sometime before 11:40 a.m. and when he threw him.

Roy Seminuk, a resident at the apartment complex where both Higa and Chanco live, described Higa as a loner who wandered around the building, walking up and down the stairs of the apartment building.