State sheriff’s deputies helped negotiate the surrender of Ewa Beach murder suspect Patrick Tuputala through a confidential source shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday.
Deputies worked to arrange Tuputala’s surrender at a location near the airport. Tuputala was taken to the sheriff’s Keawe Street office before police took him into custody and arrested him on suspicion of second-degree murder.
Tuputala, 34, had been wanted in connection with the fatal shooting Thursday morning of a 57-year-old resident manager in the parking lot of a housing complex in Ewa Beach.
At about 8:30 a.m. Honolulu police officers and paramedics were sent to the Palm Villas townhouses on Puamaole Street in Ewa Beach to attend to a male gunshot victim. The man was treated at the scene before being transported in critical condition to a hospital where he died, according to police.
The man worked as a resident manager overseeing rentals at the property where he was killed.
Witnesses told police that the victim was arguing with another man when he was shot. Tuputala allegedly fled in a silver 2013 Kia Rio.
“This does not appear to be a random act,” said HPD Lt. Deena Thoemmes of the department’s homicide detail. “We do not know the circumstances yet.” This is “one of the first murders that we’ve come to” in this area, she said.
Henry Moses Singletary Jr., an Army infantry veteran whose ground-floor home fronts the crime scene, identified the victim as “Phil.” A “Phillip Huth” is listed online as one of two rental managers at the Ewa by Gentry property, and identified as such in a 2014 Honolulu Star- Advertiser report.
Singletary said that after hearing gunshots he came out of his house and saw the victim lying on his back behind his golf cart, arms and legs outspread, his mouth and eyes partially open. “He didn’t respond, so I just went into CPR mode,” Singletary told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser. Blood then pooled around the victim’s breastbone, he said.
Singletary’s neighbor Gabriel Ramirez was walking his dog when he heard three gunshots. As a service member in the Army Reserves, Ramirez recognized the sound “from training,” he said. Ramirez then put his dog back in his house, grabbed his military medical kit and came to Singletary’s side to take over performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“He wasn’t really breathing,” Ramirez said, adding that he saw one wound in the victim’s chest and an exit wound in his back. “Phil was the nicest guy ever,” Ramirez said. “He was always making me laugh,” he said. “Just saw him yesterday, getting parking passes.”
James Lupo, a sheriff’s deputy who lives on the floor above Singletary, said a shooting in the development seemed unprecedented. “Nothing ever happens here,” Lupo said. “All the neighborhood kids, that’s their play area,” he said.
