Sailor held in deaths of wife, mother-in-law
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
A Pearl Harbor sailor was in military police custody last night in connection with the deaths of his wife and her mother.
US Navy
The names of the victims and the man in custody were not released yesterday. Navy officials said the man was a petty officer assigned to the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the deaths of two women that occurred yesterday in military housing.
Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell said the man walked into a Navy security office at about 11 a.m. yesterday and told officers to respond to an emergency at his home in the Hokulani subdivision just outside Pearl Harbor.
When emergency personnel arrived at the home on Leal Place they found two women dead on the second-floor of the home.
The identities of the victims were being withheld pending notification of their families. Campbell would not say how the two women were killed.
The couple's three children — two boys and a girl all younger than 6 — were not injured. They initially were placed in the custody of the Navy's Family Advocacy Program and then transferred to the state's Child Protective Services.
The city's medical examiner will determine the cause of the women's deaths.
The deaths occurred in military housing and are being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Campbell said. The man likely will face a court-martial and under federal law could receive the death penalty if convicted, she said.
Neighbor Beulah Senoren said the man's wife and her mother were from Singapore and the couple had three children.
Senoren said the family lived at the end of a cul-de-sac on Leal Place for more than two years, and she was shocked to hear what had happened.
Senoren said she exchanged greetings with the family, but they rarely spoke at length. She said she never heard an argument from the victims' home and that the man "always smiled" when greeting her.
Other neighbors described the family as a "happy-go-lucky family" and "quiet, regular people."
Staff writer Brandon Masuoka contributed to this report.
