Waipahu care home operator recalls events leading to attack

Oscar and Emelyn Anunciacion said they tried to have their troubled foster care client transferred elsewhere but never felt that their lives were in danger.

That changed, they said, when 44-year-old Jonathan Laronal walked out of his room and attacked Oscar Anunciacion with a steak knife as he lay sleeping.

Anunciacion, 55, was cut numerous times, including on his chest, shoulder, arm, back and face. The wounds, while requiring stitches, were superficial, and he was released from the Queen’s Medical Center and back home within four hours.

"Good thing he didn’t cut me in the right place," Anunciacion said.

The attack happened as he lay on an air bed in the living room of their home at the Ewa end of Apowale Street in Waipahu Gardens at about 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Laronal was being held at the police cellblock pending a charge of second-degree attempted murder.

The Anunciacions own Family Foster Care, a skilled nursing, community care foster home for adults with physical care needs.

The couple said they hope that after the close call they had, the state Department of Human Services will tighten up its evaluation procedures for those with mental disabilities. They said they don’t think Laronal should ever have been allowed to stay with them and that while they requested he be moved elsewhere, no other accommodations could be found for him.

Laronal has been diagnosed with schizophrenia but would not have qualified to stay there had he not also been diagnosed as diabetic, Oscar Anunciacion said.

"I wish they would do better," Emelyn Anunciacion remarked.

Kayla Rosenfeld, DHS spokeswoman, said the department is reviewing Laronal’s case.

"If he’s mentally unstable or violent, these homes are not the right place for him," she said.

The Anunciacions said they first noticed something odd about a week after Laronal moved into their facility three months ago.

They had noticed food and other items missing and couldn’t figure out where they had gone, they said.

Then they found Laronal cooking with a gas stove on the porch during early mornings. Laronal denied taking the items.

They found more items missing and then finally caught him cooking in the middle of the night.

"I went outside and seen him cooking raw meat," Oscar Anunciacion said, noting that he recognized the packaging was from meat the family had purchased.

When padlocking their refrigerators didn’t work — Laronal broke the locks twice — Anunciacion began sleeping in the living room that separates the clients’ rooms from the kitchen.

Oscar Anunciacion said Laronal grunted but said nothing during the attack.

"I felt he was striking me with something, but I didn’t see the knife inside his hand until I called my wife and she turned on the lights."

Emelyn Anunciacion and their 16-year-old son, Deion, heard the commotion from the second floor and ran downstairs to help. It took all three Anunciacions to restrain Laronal and put him up against a wall, where they wrested the steak knife away from him, Oscar Anunciacion said.

Afterward, Laronal went into his room and locked the door, Oscar Anunciacion said. Police arrived a short time later and arrested him.

Oscar Anunciacion said he is pushing for charges against Laronal because he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to another caregiver.

"I don’t want him, again, to hurt somebody else," Anunciacion said.