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A scorned 41-year-old Haleiwa man apparently shot dead his estranged wife, 40, the morning after Valentine’s Day at her boyfriend’s Waimea Bay home and then turned the gun on himself, police said.
Friends and neighbors identified the suspect and victim, in what police said appeared to be a murder-suicide, as Chris and Amy Kaufman, who left behind a 4-year-old son, Cooper, and an older boy from the wife’s former marriage.
"Oh, I hope the children are all right," said Kit Leonard, 83, a friend of Chris Kaufman. She said Kaufman was very disturbed after his wife left him a couple of months ago for another man and took their son with her. "He was very upset about losing his son," she said. "This killed him, and it eventually did."
A 43-year-old man who was renting the Waimea Bay home was injured and treated at the scene for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
It was the second murder-suicide on Oahu this week.
On Sunday, a retired police major, Leighton Yasuhara, shot his ailing wife and then killed himself in their Hawaii Kai home.
At 8:45 a.m. Wednesday a passing patrol officer heard a series of gunshots, followed by a break and another series of gunshots, and then a large crash, said police Capt. Britt Nishijo of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Nishijo said the suspect forcibly broke into the 43-year-old man’s home at 59-811 Kamehameha Highway, just past Waimea Bay on the Kahuku side.
The officer found the suspect and the woman lying lifeless on the floor of the 43-year-old man’s carport.
Nishijo could not say how many gunshot wounds the woman had, but said she was found lying face down. He said numerous shots were fired, and police recovered a semi-automatic weapon at the scene.
Nick Pascual, who lives next door, said he heard, "yelling, screaming, glass breaking. There were multiple bursts, anywhere from 8 to 12."
He could not make out any words being said, but said, "It sounded like crying to me. Then there were screams."
Autopsies are scheduled for today. The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office did not release the identities of the dead Wednesday.
Police said the suspect’s vehicle was found parked down the road.
Leonard, the friend, said Amy Kaufman, who cleaned rental houses, became enamored of the man who rented the Waimea home, Ian Anderson, while he was teaching her stand-up paddle-boarding, then left her husband for him.
A next-door neighbor said Anderson had a new girlfriend with two boys, but wasn’t sure whether they actually lived with him. When he heard the shots, he called 911, he said.
Another neighbor, who lives nearby and asked not to be named, said she had just gotten home and saw police arriving. When she walked down the driveway, she said she saw two pairs of feet on the floor of the carport.
She later discovered the dead woman was a member of the North Shore Canoe Club, whom she knew. "She was really well-liked," she said, and recalled when the couple were happily married and would bring their baby boy to paddling events.
Leonard described Chris Kaufman, saying, "This was a mellow fellow. What was he doing with a gun? … That gentle man?"
Leonard said Kaufman, who often dropped by to tell her about his good grades, was a year away from graduating from nursing school, but recently quit school after his wife left him.
She described him as a devoted father and husband, who had also worked part time at Wahiawa General Hospital while attending school.
Anderson, a South African native who works as a T-shirt and surfboard laminate printer, is divorced and has a daughter, a former roommate of his said.