Yesterday, police said the victim, Robert E. Lee, 71, was shot once in the head at about 8:10 p.m. as he walked in the garage area of the building at 1555 Pensacola St. Lee was found lying next to a silver Toyota pickup truck. He was taken to The Queen's Medical Center, where he died a short time later.

The shooting took place outside a three-story apartment building surrounded by high-rises on Pensacola Street, about a block mauka of the H-1 Freeway, near Hassinger Street.

Lee and his two sons owned the apartment building that he lived in. Lee and his wife are retired accountants, police said.

Neighbors said police took a ledger and some other files from Lee's apartment. Lee was robbed a month ago, neighbors said, and a week ago he installed a closed circuit surveillance system around his building. Police said that Lee had reported a theft.

Police are encouraging residents to be wary of any suspicious activity or strangers in their neighborhoods.

Wednesday's homicide was the 26th on O'ahu this year compared with 15 last year. A fatal stabbing in Waipahu yesterday raised this year's total to 27.

Friends and neighbors yesterday expressed sadness at the death of a man they described as pure goodness.

"You know that feeling you get when you give your mom presents," said Nicole Manuel, 21, a friend of Lee's for almost two years. "Rob lived off that."

Manuel, who rents an apartment from Lee, said Lee once gave her $700 to cover the rent she owed him. She said he would randomly drop off heaping plates of fresh grilled fish, steak, and rice. She said she met Lee two weeks after moving into an apartment building next door, where she lived for a year, and said she saw him do something every day to make life easier for someone else.

Cheri Lein, who lives with her daughter next door to Lee, said Lee came up with an apartment for her to rent two weeks after she mentioned to him that she was being evicted from the building next door because the owners had sold it.

"He was just a really, really nice guy," she said.

Lee, who owned the building he lived in alongside 16 tenants, was always in his ground floor garage, never far from a small folding chair with a green pillow, where neighbors say he always sat. Lee had converted the garage into a small woodshop where he made chicken coops and cupboards for his building.

Manuel said Lee always played cards with his friends in the garage but would always stop the game to say hello or help out.

"Rob had everything; all he wanted was to help everybody," Manuel said. "He knew he had already made it."