From golf king to isolation prison, what meth did to Kyle Quilausing

By Nile Hosni –

After three years and two weeks in windowless isolation, Kyle Quilausing was moved in with the other 179 high-risk inmates of Hawaii’s most infamous prison, nicknamed Tanda Dome because of the constant fights.

“When these men look at you, they pierce right through your soul,” Kyle recalls. “They wanted to find out if I was prey or predator. That’s what they do to every single person that comes in.”

As soon as he went to his cell, two big brutal guys smashed him, a punch to the face that knocked him down, then a heel drop on his mouth that busted his teeth.

He was prey.

Kyle had never learned to fight. He was raised in a good family, to respect, help out. As a child, he competed in golf against Tiger Woods. But a flareup of arrogance in his senior year of high school got him expelled and lost him his full-ride scholarship to college.

Family and neighbors didn’t hold back, incessantly calling “stupid” for destroying his future on the PGA Tour. The shaming was more than he could bear, so he fled to Alaska.

When he came back to Hawaii a few years later, he found that all his old buddies were addicted to crystal meth. The island was awash in the epidemic.

It wasn’t long before he tried meth himself.

“When I blew out this crystal smoke for the first time, I blew out everything that was instilled in me as a child, all my love, all my respect, all my etiquette, all my morals, every ounce of goodness in my body – with that one hit of crystal,” Kyle says. “I instantly became an addict.”

To support his habit, he turned to crime. He committed a lot of crimes against a lot of people. In fact, he became famous for crime. The six-time state junior golf champion became “Hawaii’s most wanted.”

With the public’s help, they arrested Kyle. In his first two weeks in jail, he ate and slept, something he never did while on meth. At 29, he had dwindled down to 98 pounds because of meth.

While his body recovered, his mind still craved meth, so he staged an escape from prison. He ripped sheets and fashioned a rope, which he slung over the light fixture high up, climbed it, broke a small skylight, squeezed through and was free.

Never mind that it was 40 feet drop. Crystal meth was clamoring. He stole a Toyota truck and got crystal meth.

It was one of Hawaii’s biggest jail breaks. Cops immediately launched to track him down. After three high speed chases, they caught Kyle 12 days after his escape.

This time, he was immediately transferred to Hawaii’s high risk facility, Honolulu’s Halawa. It was nicknamed the Tanda Dome for the constant fights. Kyle didn’t see a fight for three years and two weeks, the time he was in isolation. He never saw humans or the sun. In his 7’x7’ cell, he paced endlessly back and forth.

Isolation was driving him crazy.

“The voices of isolation was yelling at me,” he recounts. “Kyle you was a six time state champ. You was ranked fourth in the world. Look where you stand in a seven by seven cell, losing your mind.”

The voices told him to run and ram his head against the wall and kill himself.

It sounded logical. But something kept him from doing it. Instead, he dropped to his knees and prayed to a God he never knew.

“God, my name is Kyle, I sorry for what I did to all those people,” he prayed. “If you really are out there, help me. Bro, I need help.”

“I rose off my knees to my feet, I stand a new creation,” Kyle tells. “The voices of isolation was gone. I felt this feeling that I never did experience in my life, the most beautiful feeling I ever felt in my life.
Inside my body, my spirit and my soul I am free.”

He still paced in his cell. But he paced with a smile.

One day, two burly guards opened his door. He hadn’t seen humans for three years. They took him to the hall where all the other prisoners were kept. It was the fighting hall.

From the first moment, he got smashed.

Every day, he got beat up. He didn’t know how to fight. He knew how to golf.

Finally, his cellmate taught him to toughen up. The 6’6” 210-lb cellie toughened him up by slapping him as hard as he could twice.

“I seen you play basketball,” his cellie told him. “I see you play handball. You can move, but you got to fight bro. Don’t ever forget where you’re staying.”

The next day when the bully who always stole his breakfast again attempted to snag it, Kyle grabbed his arm. “Come to cell 9, we’re gonna scrap,” Kyle told him.

It was the first time he stood up for himself. Seven fights later, the others respected him more.

“Before I got there, my heart was like a beautiful tilled garden with one rose coming
out. That rose represented love,” he says. “In prison you got to do things to survive, to avoid getting beat up. I’d go back to myself and pray ‘Sorry Father God forgive me.’ But every fight was a weed planted in my heart. I was getting consumed in weeds and it was choking the love that I had in
me. I was becoming like them so now I get muscles and tattoos.”

One of the darkest moments was when he witnessed a murder but was powerless to do anything.

One day, the guard told him he was going to be released; his 10-year sentence was over.

By now, he knew to not celebrate in front of the other inmates. For celebrating, one inmate was killed by others.

As he left the jail, voices taunted: “We gonna see if he follow Jesus when he get free.” Many relapse.

By now, Kyle has been free from meth for 20 years and out of prison for 10. He speaks to youth about the power of bad decisions.

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