New details emerge as FBI searches Kaaawa home of suspect in Trump assassination attempt

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The FBI descended on a Kaaawa home Tuesday, looking for evidence against Ryan Routh, who is suspected of attempting to kill former President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, more stories are emerging about Routh’s strange behavior with customers of his company.

The FBI evidence collection team arrived at his house about 8 a.m., an FBI Public Information Officer would only say that they were conducting “court approved activities,” apparently executing a search warrant issued in Florida, where Routh is in custody.

The evidence experts spent about six hours at the home a search that was expected sooner because Routh was arrested Sunday. But retired Special Agent Tom Simon said the delay wasn’t surprising.

“It’s not uncommon for that to take a little bit of time, and it also depends on what’s the likelihood that evidence inside that house is going to be destroyed,” he said, “There’s probably no one in that house who’s going to destroy evidence, including this guy’s wife at this point, because she must have a sense of self-preservation herself.”

Because Routh is reportedly not cooperating with authorities, Simon said evidence in the house could be crucial.

“Even if a defendant has not confessed to the FBI, it doesn’t mean they haven’t confessed to other people or in their written works, such as a manuscript that might be found in the home. So those are the types of things the FBI is going to be searching for in a search warrant of his Hawaii house.”

Meanwhile, many in Hawaii are searching their own memories for interactions with the now-infamous Kaaawa Carpenter who built tiny structures for a living.

One of his customers is Saili Levi, who farms Vanilla in Laie and sells the extracts. He hired Routh to build a display box for his vanilla products at farm fairs, but Routh was hard to pin down.

“He said he was in Ukraine, trying to help with the war there, against Russia, and so that’s about the extent of what he was telling me. I didn’t want to get too much into it with him. I just wanted him to get started on my project,” Levi said.

In an angry review on the Camp Box Builders Facebook page, Levi said the project was a mess, and after paying $3,800 he wanted Routh to fix many defects which he refused.

Levi was out $3,800 and Routh kept the box, but Levi doesn’t expect to ever see that money.

“Well, at this point, I don’t, I don’t think I would ever get it back,” he said.

What he did get back was a perplexing email rant from Routh, which said: “I spent 5 months in Ukraine last year and 3 months there this year, and 2 weeks in DC and 2 weeks in Taiwan this year volunteering and trying to supply thousands of Afghan soldiers to help win the war and I spent thousands of dollars supporting freedom, human rights and democracy around the world and I come back to bull---- such as this.”

“China and Russia will certainly win at this rate. You disappoint me as a human,” he said.

The message made Levi realize Routh had issues.

“Definitely the email kind of helped me step back and be like, it’s not worth it,” he said.

“I didn’t feel threatened by him. I mean, he’s an older gentleman, but looking back at it now, with this whole, with, you know, this whole story in like, it’s a good thing that maybe I didn’t pursue him, you know, because maybe it could have been different,” Levi shared, saying he could have been the one to set Routh off.

The results of the search are not expected to be revealed until Routh is charged with additional crimes.

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