A 50-year-old Kauai man killed his 48-year-old girlfriend by stabbing her in the upper thigh, then killed himself using the same method.
The autopsy findings confirm what Kauai police said appeared to be a case of murder-suicide.
Police on Thursday identified the couple found dead Nov. 1 in a Poipu condo as Catherine Angeles and Derek Stokes, both of Kilauea.
Domestic violence experts say murder-suicides are all too common. This marks the sixth case from Sept. 30, 2018.
“It’s pretty common,” Domestic Violence Action Center Deputy Director Marci Lopes said. “The fatality list has quite a few murder-suicides.”
“Typically, abusers will threaten suicide as a means to keep victims with them,” she said. “When victims are finally leaving, that’s when most homicides happen — within six months of ending or leaving a relationship.
“Leaving is very dangerous,” Lopes said. “People (in the community) just don’t know that. They think they should just leave.”
Those with the domestic violence center, when doing safety planning with victims, will ask whether the abuser makes suicide threats. That, she said, is a “lethality indicator,” meaning the person might kill the other.
Another indicator of lethality is if the perpetrator has strangled the victim. The term strangulation is a term used in the legal world because choking means you have something stuck in your throat.
Strangulation is when the perpetrator cuts off air or blood flow, Lopes said.
“Domestic violence is a crime, so we would love people to take it seriously,” she said. “If a family member was damaging property or stealing valuables, people would call police, but for some people, they have a hard time taking domestic violence seriously and reporting it like they should be.”
She said that for other family members to say to the abuser, “‘I think you’re abusive,’ it’s not what an abuser wants to hear and may take it out on the person calling them out.”
Lopes says if a person is not strong enough to confront the abuser, at least provide the victim with support by directing them to services such as the Domestic Violence Action Center.
The center has a help line, and long-term advocates work with victims still in relationships and assist them in trying to figure out how to leave, to get the kids out, where to go, and help to get a restraining order. It even has funding to help with expenses.
Recent cases
>> An Ewa Beach couple, who have not yet been identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office, were found dead Oct. 2. The speeding truck struck head-on a concrete pillar supporting a section of rail guideway in Ewa, causing the truck to burst into flames, burning their bodies so they were unrecognizable.
>> On Sept. 9, Marcos Villaspir fatally shot his ex-wife Imelda Villaspir, who had divorced him in August, then turned the gun on himself.
>> On March 14, Candace Kanoelani Yoshida, 65, was pushed off an eighth-floor balcony at the Tradewinds apartment complex in Waikiki by boyfriend Brian Barling, who then jumped to his death from the same floor.
Neighbors heard the 65-year-old pleading for her life.
>> Tia Obrero, 26, was found dead Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, from blunt force injuries and strangulation along the shoreline known as “Kitchens” in Wailua, Kauai.
Police said her husband, Michael Blackstad, 26, killed her.
Blackstad was found on the rocky shoreline dead from drowning behind Kauai Beach Resort in Wailua.
>> Xandro Pillorato on Sept. 30, 2018, stabbed his girlfriend, Sylvia Barron, multiple times in the torso. She was found unconscious in her apartment but survived.
Pillorato committed suicide by jumping off a building.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACTION CENTER
>> Legal-help line: 531-3771
>> Neighbor islands: 800-690-6200
>> Email: dvac@stoptheviolence.org
