By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer

A 38-year-old Waikiki exotic dancer was fatally stabbed today in her Kahala apartment. Police searched for her ex-boyfriend, who fled the scene, but he later turned himself in.

Isabelle Yim-Mortier was stabbed to death inside her second-floor bedroom at 4178 Keanu St., Apartment 1, shortly before 4:45 a.m.

Her ex-boyfriend is accused of breaking into the Kahala townhouse through the back door just before the stabbing. Three people were inside during the break-in, including Yim-Mortier’s 8-year-old son.

According to the woman’s roommate, the ex-boyfriend “apparently broke into the room and stabbed her,” said Honolulu Police Department homicide Lt. Bill Kato. The roommate heard a struggle and yelling upstairs, Kato said.

The woman was found dead on the floor next to her bed, Kato said.

Yim-Mortier’s son didn’t see the stabbing but went to a nearby off-duty police officer’s apartment for help, police said.

Yim-Mortier worked as a massage therapist and an exotic dancer at Deja Vu Showgirls in Waikiki, said friend Anna Han, who lives in the townhouse complex.

Han said she believed Yim-Mortier met her ex-boyfriend at a club. She said the two had an on-and-off relationship.

“I can’t believe that it happened to her,” Han said. “She told me they broke up. They tried to get back together.”

Yim-Mortier was living with a male roommate, Han said, whom the suspect may have thought was her boyfriend.

Han said her friend was a “real good mother” who abstained from smoking or drinking.