Posted on: Saturday, July 28, 2001

Woman feels effects of another's death

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Valerie Paracuelles, of Hale'iwa, began getting telephone calls yesterday from friends and family asking her if she were dead.

She later found out why: A woman killed in a traffic accident in Wahiawa early Thursday was identified by the medical examiner's office as Valerie Paracuelles.

With her uncommon last name, people who knew her naturally thought she was the dead woman.

"They're like, 'Val is that you on the phone? Are you alive?' "And I said, 'yeah,'" Paracuelles said.

She said the news sent many in her family into a panic.

"Someone called my brother and he came running over to the house. And his wife was like flipping out," Paracuelles said. "My sister-in-law called me and said it was in the paper, and I was like, wow."

The mystery was solved last night when Paracuelles' father found out that the traffic accident victim, Valerie Paracuelles, 45, was recently married to his nephew. Police said the woman was struck by a car early Thursday while walking on Kamehameha Highway near the Karsten Thot Bridge.

Valerie Paracuelles, 40, said very few family members knew about the marriage.

Paracuelles said she's sorry for her cousin's loss, but she also wants people to know that she was not the one killed in the accident.