The mother of Jared Elizares, a 25-year-old man on trial for attempted murder in an unprovoked knife attack on a stranger in the men’s restroom of a popular Kapolei restaurant, testified Tuesday regarding his and his family’s trauma and mental health issues.
Zachalyn Elizares said she suffers from a major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Her son’s biological father, Chandler Ramos, committed suicide when Jared Elizares was about 5. His brother, Brandon, committed suicide at age 16 when Elizares was 12. And his sister has a form of depression.
Elizares’ attorney, William Harrison, said his client doesn’t deny stabbing Robby Bounkanha, also
25, on Oct. 3, 2023, at the Taqueria El Ranchero in Ka Makana Alii with a small folding knife, but argued that he didn’t intend to kill Bounkanha.
On Tuesday the state rested, and the defense presented its likely final witnesses in this jury-waived trial. Judge Kevin Souza will instruct Elizares today on his right to testify.
Zachalyn Elizares said she tried to shield Jared Elizares, the youngest of her three
biological children, from the trauma but could not prevent him from seeing her reactions to what was going on due to her PTSD.
She left Ramos because of his violent behavior toward her — the cause of her PTSD.
The morning after Ramos’ suicide, his family called Zachalyn Elizares, and she brought the three children to the house, not knowing his body was still there.
At age 12, Jared Elizares found his brother Brandon dead in his bed, and reacted by staring blankly, his mother said.
Zachalyn Elizares said Brandon had a personality disorder and was being tested for schizophrenia.
She took Jared Elizares and her daughter to a psychologist, but they refused to speak to the therapist and were never treated.
Jared, the youngest, was a good child who never broke the rules and was a good student and athlete, but he changed after going to Grand Canyon University, where he planned to major in business, she said. Instead, he communicated less and less with her, began partying a lot and said he wanted to be a rapper.
In 2020 he got into trouble for bringing girls into the dorm. He returned home but stayed just two days and left.
A year and a half later, he got in trouble with the police, and his mother allowed him to return home at the beginning of 2023.
He was working two jobs, and she noticed he had “manic” stages of being very energetic, then down the next day. She tested him for amphetamine and alcohol use, but he tested negative, she said.
Zachalyn Elizares learned about the stabbing on social media, then found her son on the police arrest log.
She drove to the mall and searched his car for large Japanese kitchen knives given to him when he became a chef/cook at The Cheesecake Factory in
Kapolei. Instead she found empty cans and bottles of
alcohol.
Marvin Acklin, a defense expert witness in forensic and clinical psychology, testified he did not see any external provocation in this case, which is found in cases of extreme emotional or mental disturbance.
Deputy Prosecutor Kyle Mesa asked him whether the defendant lacked penal responsibility at the time of the offense.
“The first consideration would be whether or not the individual lacked criminal responsibility, and I ruled that out,” he said.
Acklin did not find that Jared Elizares had what would constitute an extreme mental disease, order or defect that would qualify as something that would affect someone’s ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his or her conduct.
Elizares told Acklin he was happy going to work Oct. 3, 2023, at The Cheesecake Factory, where he had just gotten a raise. He bought alcohol and drank it on his way to work, but when he arrived the boss told him to go home because he was inebriated.
Instead, he went to the bar at Taqueria El Ranchero and continued drinking.
Acklin said Elizares told him he “felt like sh—,” was ashamed and saw it as an event that “confirms or reinforces that he’s a worthless person.”
He said, “He told us he was drinking and taking
cocaine at the time.”
Elizares told Bounkanha, “I’m sorry,” before leaving the bathroom, which meant “he knew what he was doing and realized what he did,” Acklin said.
Elizares, apparently agitated, began talking aloud, prompting a recess.
Acklin said Elizares told him he took out the knife because “I want someone to feel as bad as I feel,” and said he struck Bounkanha’s head against a urinal just as someone did to him in fourth grade.
He said alcohol acted
as a disinhibitor of self-control.
He said Elizares’ adverse childhood experiences, the family trauma, caused “a history of self-defeating behaviors, and found “he’s chronically depressed but does not have a major psychiatric condition.”
