2 deaths called murder-suicide
By Karen Blakeman and Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writers
A 34-year-old Waipahu woman was shot to death Wednesday night by her estranged husband, who then took his own life, police said yesterday.
Police homicide Lt. Bill Kato said that the dead woman, Stephanie Reyes, was the manager of Nova Sunset Villas Apartments at 94-207 Waipahu St. and that the shooting appears to be a murder-suicide.
Yesterday, an arrangement of purple and white flowers sat outside the door of Reyes' apartment, where she lived with her children and where her body and the body of her husband, Recardo Reyes, 37, were found after the shooting.
Relatives removed belongings from the apartment yesterday as a security guard stood nearby. They shook their heads and looked away when asked about the people who had lived there in unit No. 119 of Building 30.
Kato said the couple were separated. According to Kato, witnesses said Stephanie Reyes had been trying to obtain a protective court order.
The shooting was reported about 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Stephanie Reyes had asked employees at the complex to keep an eye out for her estranged husband, known as "Rico," said Cisco Fuimanono, a Nova Sunset employee.
Rico Reyes had been caught twice peeking in his estranged wife's windows, Fuimanono said, and she had gone to fill out paperwork for a protective order.
"She wanted to let him know that next time, he'd be arrested," Fuimanono said. "But now there is no next time."
Rico Reyes apparently got into the house while the children were playing nearby, he said.
"The neighbors heard them arguing," Fuimanono said.
"He was yelling and screaming to 'call the police, go ahead and call the police.' "
Then four shots rang out.
A neighbor in the same building went out and collected the three children, he said. Later, Stephanie Reyes' mother and sister came and got them. The children, ages 13 to 16, were not injured.
Reyes was a very nice woman and a strict boss, Fuimanono said. They had been working together on Tuesday and she had been talking about her problems with Rico Reyes — joking, he thought at first.
"But I guess she knew it was coming," he said. "She said, 'This may be the last time you see me.' "
Police said Rico Reyes broke into her home through the screen and sliding glass door leading to her living room.
"He takes her into the bedroom, shoots her and shoots himself," Kato said of the scenario that police put together. They were shot with a rifle, Kato said.
Neighbors called police after hearing the shots.
Violence is no stranger to Nova Sunset Villas.
In July, state sheriff's deputies and police were involved in a five-hour standoff before taking custody of Michael Gaspar, who was wanted on a parole-revocation warrant.
In September 1999, Navy man Richard Donovan shot his 27-year-old wife, Maryjane Donovan, in the head while she held her 15-month-old child, and wounded her alleged lover at the complex before taking his own life.
Nanci Kreidman, executive director of the Domestic Violence Clearing House, said yesterday that nearly a year had passed between the last domestic violence homicide and the Reyes shooting.
"But even when we don't experience a domestic homicide," Kreidman said, "it's important to remember that not a day goes by when women and children are not being hurt. Any day can be the day."
