Jury finds Kalihi man guilty of murder

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

A Circuit Court jury deliberated less than a day before finding a 53-year-old Kalihi man guilty yesterday of second-degree murder in the September 2001 stabbing death of his wife.

Florencio Garperio, an unemployed cook, will face a term of up to life in prison with the possibility of parole when he is sentenced April 30 by Circuit Judge Richard Perkins.

During a weeklong trial, Garperio never denied stabbing his 47-year-old wife, Mercy, but claimed he was under extreme mental or emotional stress at the time of the incident at a home on Bannister Street.

Garperio took the witness stand in his own defense Thursday and said he confronted his wife about concerns that she might be pregnant and that the father of the baby he thought she was carrying was another man.

Garperio said he could not remember stabbing his wife.

His lawyer, Dale Bennett, argued that Garperio, who had lost his job a week before the stabbing, was overwhelmed at the thought of having to support another child and should be found guilty of no more than manslaughter.

But city Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado said Garperio was capable of controlling his actions and could tell right from wrong when he stabbed his wife.