Hilo judge orders mental tests
By Kevin Dayton and Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writers
HILO, Hawai'i — Douglas John Fathke met police outside his Na'alehu house Sunday with his arms outstretched, urging officers to arrest him for shooting his 8-year-old daughter, according to court records.
Fathke, 44, yesterday rested his head on a table and sobbed at his arraignment in Hilo District Court on charges of second-degree murder.
Court records say Douglas John Fathke on Sunday asked police to arrest him for shooting his daughter, Kelsie Fathke.
An unshaven Fathke, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, muttered in response to questions from Judge Sandra Schutte Song.
"He does not appear to me to be fit to proceed," said Song, who ordered that he be examined by a panel of three mental health experts.
Fathke's neighbors in Na'alehu said he appeared to be a devoted father to his daughter, Kelsie, but his ex-wife has said he had a history of mental illness.
According to the arrest report filed in court, officers who responded to a call Sunday morning about gunfire at Becky's Bed & Breakfast were met by Fathke, who extended his arms and said, "Take me."
When an officer asked what had happened, Fathke replied that he had shot his daughter.
Police found Kelsie Fathke shot in the head in a bedroom of the bed-and-breakfast, which was operated by the suspect.
Fathke also is charged with terroristic threatening and attempted murder for allegedly choking and threatening to kill Robert "Bobby" Dahl, a 16-year-old boy who was a guest at the house with his father, Robert Dahl Jr.
The elder Dahl said he is struggling with the memory of what he saw that morning.
"I've been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out the question everyone needs answered: Why?" he said yesterday. "I just don't know. All I know is we were in the middle of it and it was quite an ordeal."
Dahl, a 42-year-old building contractor from San Diego County, is building a home in nearby Green Sand and stayed at the Na'alehu house several times. He knew Fathke and his daughter well and described them as happy, loving people. Fathke was a man with "a big heart" who would help anyone in need, Dahl said.
On that Easter Sunday morning, Dahl had hidden plastic eggs for Kelsie. When she found one with a dollar bill inside, she was thrilled.
Dahl was with his son, who was nursing an infected tooth, when he heard a gunshot and ran outside to see what happened. There he encountered an agitated Fathke.
"He was screaming at me, 'Go in the bedroom, go in the bedroom!' " Dahl said. "He said, 'If my daughter is dead, I will shoot your boy'."
Dahl found Kelsie in her room and yelled to his son to get out of the house.
That sent Fathke racing into the home where he cornered the teenager in the dining room where Fathke began choking the boy.
Bobby Dahl punched Fathke in the face and escaped. The Dahls ran across the street to the B&E 76 gas station to call police.
Robert Dahl Jr. said he has barely been able to sleep since the shooting. The Dahls spent Sunday night in the bed-and-breakfast and flew back home to Fallbrook, Calif., the next morning.
He said Fathke had been acting a little different since Friday, preaching and quoting the Bible, but it wasn't frightening behavior, just "real odd."
"I am trying to put it together ... It is just too hard," Dahl said. "I don't know if he was going to shoot his daughter and my son. I don't know what was going to happen and don't want to know. All I know is we made it out alive."
