An American charged with murder in Tonga arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday for initial extradition proceedings in U.S. District Court.

According to an arrest complaint, Dean Jay Fletcher was charged by indictment in the Kingdom of Tonga last month with murder, manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm in connection with the death of his wife, Patricia Linne Kearney, in July.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Butrick told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth J. Mansfield that Fletcher fled Tonga and was later taken into custody in American Samoa in connection with other offenses. He said U.S. Marshals Service deputies arrested Fletcher a few days ago on an extradition warrant.

According to information provided by Tongan officials, three witnesses saw Fletcher beat Kearney by punching and kicking her in the head, neck and body one day before Fletcher reported that his wife died after slipping and falling down the stairs on their yacht. A fourth witness reported later seeing Fletcher with a bloody bedsheet and that Fletcher attributed Kearney’s death to a nerve disease and being drunk.

Tongan police arrested Fletcher. They then recovered the bloody bedsheet in the Neiafu Port of Refuge harbor and found Kearney’s body on the couple’s yacht. Tongan officials said Kearney died from “excessive blood loss and intracranial hemorrhage as a result of multiple blunt impacts to the head, chest and abdomen.”

Three days after he was taken into custody, Tongan officials say, Fletcher ran out of the police station after asking for permission to use the toilet. He was taken back into custody after a foot chase.

Tongan officials say Fletcher made a successful escape from the Neiafu Police Station on Sept. 29, fled the kingdom on his yacht and disappeared. Police pursued him but abandoned the chase over safety concerns for the pursing officers.

Fletcher reappeared aboard his yacht in Pago Pago, where American Samoa officials took him into custody.