Murder suspect disrupts trial
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
A man accused of murdering his estranged wife in a 1992 Waikiki shooting disrupted court proceedings repeatedly yesterday and at one point, bolted from the courtroom.
Circuit Judge Richard Perkins, who is presiding over the jury-waived trial of William J. Kotis, warned Kotis several times that he would be removed from the courtroom if he did not behave.
Perkins denied Kotis' request to have David Bettencourt removed as his attorney and a short time later rejected a request from Bettencourt to be allowed to withdraw as Kotis' lawyer.
Kotis' trial on charges of murder, kidnapping and terroristic threatening began yesterday.
The murder of Lynn Kotis, 29, drew major media coverage because she had worked within the Hawai'i court system to get a restraining order against her husband in hopes of keeping him from harming her and other members of her family.
In addition, police issued a permit to William Kotis on Sept. 3, 1992, to buy the shotgun used to kill Lynn Kotis even though he had a criminal conviction. He bought the gun two days later and used it to kill his estranged wife Sept. 7, 1992, according to a lawsuit filed against the Honolulu Police Department in May 1993 by Lynn Kotis' family.
During his opening remarks yesterday, city Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Maurice Arrisgado said William Kotis, now 39, shot and killed his wife because she had left him and was living in Waikiki with another man.
Arrisgado said Lynn Kotis had just returned with her new boyfriend, Gregory Whittman, from the North Shore to the couple's apartment on Kaio'o Drive in Waikiki, where William Kotis "laid in wait."
After a brief struggle, Kotis went to his rented car, took a shotgun out of a garment bag on the back seat and chased Lynn Kotis and Whittman down a driveway leading to a wall and chainlink gate, Arrisgado said.
Whittman was able to scale the gate but William Kotis cornered his wife, who pleaded with him not to shoot, Arrisgado said. He said Kotis ignored his wife's pleas and shot her in the chest and again as she fell to the ground. Kotis fired four or five more times at his wife as she lay on the ground, striking her at least two more times, Arrisgado said.
Kotis, who had begun sobbing during Arrisgado's description of the shooting, stood up suddenly and ran out a service door leading to the courtroom. He was followed closely by a deputy sheriff.
In his opening remarks, Bettencourt said William Kotis believed the only way he could be together forever with his wife was to kill her and then have police officers kill him.
William Kotis repeatedly begged police officers who responded to the incident to shoot him, Bettencourt said.
Although a judge last fall declared Kotis fit to stand trial, Bettencourt said the case will revolve around Kotis' mental and emotional condition at the time of the shooting.
While the first witness in the trial described the slaying, Kotis blurted out: "She was my best friend in the world, we were supposed to go together. She never did nothing wrong."
