Khamxath Baccam

Police have said that Baccam walked into the Wahiawa Police Station about five hours after Pacheco's body was found and confessed to the shooting.

Police said that Baccam told them he was driving toward a storage shack the night before and saw a man run from the shed carrying a sack. Baccam told police he turned his van around and headed down the road toward where he saw the man running.

Baccam told police that he stopped when he found the bag lying in the road, that he found his equipment and produce in the bag, and that Pacheco appeared from the side of the road and threatened him. Police suspected that Pacheco was stealing from Kahuku farmers to support a crystal methamphetamine habit.

"Mr. Baccam is a hard-working, sunup to sundown farmer who faced a terrifying encounter and felt the need to protect himself," Todd Eddins, Baccam's attorney, said after Baccam's initial appearance in District Court.

Eddins declined to discuss the specifics of what happened between Baccam and Pacheco but said the shotgun was registered to Baccam. Police have not found the gun.

Baccam, an American citizen, is a "political refugee" who fled Laos in 1975 and first settled in Iowa before moving to Hawai'i in the late 1980s, Eddins said.

Baccam, who allegedly told Wahiawa police officers the day after the shooting that he felt bothered by it "all night long," was charged with murder by omission as well as murder by commission.

The murder by omission charge is brought in cases where a defendant knows that someone has been badly injured and could die from those injuries, but fails to seek help for the injured person.

District Judge Paula Devens allowed Baccam's bail to remain at $25,000 and set a preliminary hearing date of Oct. 12 to determine if Baccam should be turned over to Circuit Court for trial.

An indictment of Baccam by an O'ahu grand jury before Oct. 12 could preempt the preliminary hearing.

The slightly built Baccam stood at the table in front of the judge, dressed in a sand-colored suit with a white shirt open at the collar, and looked sheepish.

He did not talk during the three-minute proceeding.