Posted on: Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Slain woman cited threats by husband
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
In her request for a protective court order, Zaleha DeArmond noted that her husband was physically abusive and "very capable of causing harm."
"He have a violent temper," she wrote in the court document filed May 3. "He thinks everybody is against him and he have a prior conviction for choking his first wife six years ago. He was in jail in San Diego county ... for that abuse.
"I think he is very capable of causing harm due to his nature," DeArmond said.
Zaleha DeArmond, 31, and her mother, 66-year-old Saniah Binte Abdul Ghani of Singapore, were killed June 10, 38 days after Family Court District Judge Karen M. Radius granted the stay-away order against David DeArmond, a Navy petty officer second class who is a hull technician at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
The 32-year-old sailor has been at the Ford Island brig, pending charges, since turning himself in on June 10.
Zaleha DeArmond was beaten to death while her mother, who had been staying with her since December, died of stab wounds to the chest and abdomen.
Their bodies were found in the DeArmonds' Hokulani subdivision home at Leal Place.
Ahmad Kasti came here from Singapore and buried his mother and sister Friday on O'ahu, said Rashid Abdullah of the Muslim Association of Hawai'i.
The Straits Times of Singapore reported that the victim's brother, had recently spoken to Abdul Ghani.
"I was told by my mother that there were squabbles," Kasti told the newspaper of his sister's marital problems. "The husband was an abusive man and I believe my sister had lodged police reports against him."
Navy Region Hawai'i spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell had no comment when asked if military police had responded to any domestic violence complaints at the DeArmonds' home or any violations of the court order by David DeArmond.
Ahmad Kasti declined to be interviewed yesterday but extended his appreciation to the local Muslim community and the association for their assistance, Abdullah said.
In her request for protection, Zaleha DeArmond cited three incidents in which she said her husband threatened or abused her.
"You are gonna pay for everything you did to me," she said he told her Jan. 2. "Die bitch."
On May 1, she said he damaged property by "throwing/thrashing dining table till broken, threw away the Quran, threw away our wedding photo in the toilet bowl."
Her husband subjected her to extreme psychological abuse, Zaleha DeArmond said, by "calling me an alcoholic and unfit mother, coming to my home after moving to the barracks and coercing my 5-year-old son to say things in the microphone while I was gone. Always saying die bitch, taking car and us not having a vehicle for the family or emergency."
She said her husband was "trying to make me scared by threatening to get custody of the kids, coming to my house and playing mind games with my kids, seeing me in the street, giving me evil looks and saying hateful things when he encounter me."
Zaleha DeArmond, who was employed by MWR (Liberty in Paradise) at Pearl Harbor, said her husband came to her workplace "to get info about me."
The couple's three children, ages 2, 3 and 5, are in the custody of Child Protective Services.
According to The Straits Times, Zaleha and David DeArmond met while she was on a trip to the United States and were married in California in 1996. The family in Singapore never met David DeArmond, the newspaper said.
"He was supposed to visit us just after they got married ... but work commitments kept him away," Zaleha's 34-year-old sister, Anisah, told The Straits Times. "My sister was a strong-willed, private person who never mentioned any marital difficulties to me. I had some indication of them only when my mother spoke to me about them.
"When I last spoke to my mother on the phone, she told me to look after my (90-year-old) dad as he is old and ailing," Anisah said.
Kasti told The Straits Times that Zaleha was the youngest of three children and his mother's favorite. "That's why our mother visited her three times in the past three years," he said. He said he last saw his sister in December, when she visited Singapore with her youngest child for the Hari Raya holidays.
After a two-week stay, his parents accompanied her back to Ho-nolulu, Kasti told the newspaper. His father returned home, complaining that the weather was too cold, but Saniah Ghani remained with her daughter.
His mother indicated there were some "domestic squabbles but she did not say more," Kasti told The Straits Times. Saniah Ghani was killed the night before she was scheduled to return home to Singapore, Kasti said.
"I'm not interested in what happens at the trial or what happens to her husband," the newspaper quoted Kasti as saying. "My mission is to settle the burial arrangements and to look into getting custody of the children."
