The 41-year-old man who was charged Monday in the murder of Mary Beth San Juan lived for 11 months at a Palolo Zen Buddhist center until early this month.
Vernon Baker was living at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, where he was paid a small stipend for performing maintenance, but was asked to leave several months ago when his health failed him and he was unable to perform his maintenance duties.
"He is very, very sick physically," said Michael Kieran, a teacher at the center. "We’re not equipped to take care of somebody" who has a debilitating disease, and "we gave him some latitude."
"We’re all horrified," Kieran said of Baker’s arrest Saturday and his being charged Monday with second-degree murder and drug offenses. "We just had no clue. … He seemed to be a gentle person. I was shocked."
Baker moved out of the center July 2. San Juan was not known to the members at the Zen center, Kieran said.
Police Maj. Richard Robinson has said robbery is believed to be the motive in the case. Baker was arrested Saturday at Ala Moana Center.
San Juan’s body was found by her ex-husband on the night of July 23, bound, gagged and wrapped in a rug in her Punahou Street driveway next to Shriners Hospital.
Her 2013 Mercedes-Benz was found Wednesday, and her wallet was later found in a trash bin on Lemon Road in Waikiki. Police arrested Baker Saturday after receiving tips from the public.
Police released a video from 12:30 a.m. July 22 of a man disguised in women’s clothing withdrawing cash using San Juan’s ATM card from a machine at the Manoa Marketplace First Hawaiian Bank.
San Juan’s acting coach, Scott Rogers, said, "She was getting into spiritual stuff, studying meditation, and he preyed on her."
A fellow acting student, Z Zoccolante, who last saw San Juan at a workshop three weeks ago, said Baker was San Juan’s Facebook friend but not someone San Juan ever mentioned to her and other acting friends.
San Juan was interested in and looked into other religions and meditation, and was part of spiritual communities, Zoccolante said.
"I’m super grateful that they found him," she said. "I can’t imagine anybody ever wanting to hurt this person. I’m honestly shocked."
Zoccolante questioned robbery as a motive.
"If you needed something, she would have given it to you," Zoccolante said. "She was a warm, generous, caring, kind person."
She added that when she last saw her, there was nothing strange or different about her.
"She was just her happy self," she said.
Kieran said Baker practiced Zen Buddhism but "dabbled in a lot of things." He first came to the center in 2002, practiced for a short while, disappeared, would come by every once in a while, lived on the Big Island and the mainland, and returned to Honolulu in 2011, he said.
He moved to the center in August.
According to his application, he grew up in California, where he attended school.
