A Maui woman died Tuesday evening after her estranged husband cut her throat in a supermarket, police and a witness said.

The man then turned on two men who tried to come to her aid, stabbing both, according to police.

Prosecutors charged Stephen B. Schmidt, 45, of Kahului on Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kehau Farias Schmidt, 24. He also was charged with two counts of second-degree attempted murder for allegedly stabbing the two men at the Foodland in Wailuku.

He is being held in lieu of $3 million bail.

Kehau Schmidt received a temporary restraining order March 31 against her estranged husband, but he violated the order about a week before her death, according to a complaint filed April 13, the state Judiciary’s court database shows.

On Tuesday evening, Maui police said, Stephen Schmidt began arguing with a man who was with his wife in the store at 370 Kehalani Village Drive.

After a brief struggle with the man, Schmidt stabbed his wife with a knife, police said.

A 53-year-old Wailuku man tried to intervene, but Schmidt stabbed him, police said. A 34-year-old man, James Reeves, then attempted to stop him, but was stabbed in the chest.

The man accompanying the woman was not stabbed, Maui Police Department spokesman Lt. William Juan said.

All three victims were taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center, where the woman later died.

Both men were in stable condition Wednesday and were being treated for their injuries, police said.

Schmidt fled the store before patrol officers arrived at about 6:13 p.m. Police pursued him to a home on Molokai Hema Street, where they found and arrested him.

He was taken Tuesday night to the Wailuku Police Station, where he is currently being held, police said.

Schmidt was convicted in 2001 and 1995 of third-degree assault. In both cases he was sentenced to probation.

He also was convicted of first-degree terroristic threatening, a felony weapons charge and first-degree burglary, a Class B felony, in 1992, for which he was sentenced to 10 years.

Reeves told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser from the hospital Wednesday that he was stabbed above the eye and in the chest, penetrating the lung.

“It’s just a blessing I am alive,” he said. “He just barely missed my heart. God was watching over me.”

“It’s just a big wound,” he said. “There’s a lot of blood in my chest. They’ve been draining and suctioning me out.”

Reeves was shopping at Foodland on Tuesday when, he said, “I heard the screaming,” and ran to help.

When he got to the woman, he found her bleeding from the throat, then saw her husband.

Reeves, who moaned in pain, could not continue the interview.

His friend, Dan Richards, called him a fearless man and a hero. “He said the knife was huge,” Richards said. “He knew he was going to get stabbed.”