Trial starts with grisly account of vacuum salesman's death

By William Cole
Advertiser Staff Writer

Family members of Melchor Tabag heard anew the grisly details of his death in 1999 as the trial of Michael Lawrence, the man accused of killing the vacuum cleaner salesman, got under way yesterday in Circuit Court.

Michael Lawrence is on trial for the murder of vacuum cleaner salesman Melchor Tabag. Prosecutors say Lawrence killed Tabag during a sales call at the home of Lawrence's parents. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Instead, he was met with death, dismemberment and destruction at the hands of Michael Lawrence," Takata said.

Takata said Tabag, 41, of Kane'ohe, gave a sales demonstration to Lawrence at the Waialua home of Lawrence' parents on March 27, 1999, and ended up in a pool of blood on the laundry room floor.

Later, outside the courtroom, Lawrence's lawyer, deputy public defender William Jameson, said he said he will raise the insanity defense.

"Michael was really sick — he had a very serious (mental) illness," Jameson said. "All the careful analysis done in this case suggests it was probably schizophrenia."

Lawrence, 25, faces life in prison with the possibility of parole if he is convicted of second-degree murder. If acquitted by reason of insanity and deemed dangerous, he would be committed to the state hospital.

The first prosecution witness in the nonjury trial before Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall was Carolyn Lawrence, who testified she saw her son, wearing sunglasses, calmly standing over a man's immobile body, and raising a hammer in his hand.

She retreated to her bedroom and lock the door, and police later found Michael Lawrence in Tabag's car in Hale'iwa. In the trunk was a hammer, a hunting knife and a bloody meat saw Law-rence's father, Frederick, used to cut up pigs from hunting trips, Takata said.

Tabag's body never was found. Takata said Lawrence dismembered the body and discarded the pieces.

Tabag's sister, Elisita Crisostomo, sobbed and put a hand to her face.

"It really hurts," she said later of seeing Lawrence again in court.

Tabag's three sisters, a brother, his mother and other relatives were among those present for the murder trial that could run for two weeks. With them was a framed picture of a smiling Melchor Tabag and two pots of flowers brought in his honor.

Carolyn Lawrence, who avoided looking at her son, testified she was the only other person home during the vacuum cleaner demonstration. He was with the salesman in the laundry room off the kitchen when she went into the room and saw the salesman lying on the floor face up in a pool of blood, immobile and with his eyes open, she said.

The man "tripped and fell," her son said, and then raised a hammer and looked at his mother, Carolyn Lawrence testified.

She ran to her bedroom and locked the door "because I was afraid of being hurt," she said.

Sometime later, Michael Lawrence told his mother to "mop it up," she said.

Five to 10 minutes later she discovered the body and her son gone, and she soaked up a puddle of blood in the laundry room with towels.

Carolyn Lawrence said her son, who went to technical school on the Mainland after graduating from high school in 1993, was a changed person in 1999.

"Much of '99 he was very quiet and he stayed home," she said. "(In) '93 he was very sociable, very respectable."

Lawrence is being held at the O'ahu Community Correctional Center medical unit.