Domestic violence march set for today

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

When her 11-month-old grandson cries for his mother, Huberta Mollena of Ho'olehua, Moloka'i, holds him tight.

"No more, braddah," she tells him. "Just close your eyes and Mommy going be with you."

Olakalani Kaiwi Mollena, 22, the boy's mother, died May 29 at The Queen's Medical Center after she was allegedly punched in the head in a fight at Hotel Moloka'i. Authorities charged Manden Kamai, 24, Mollena's boyfriend and the father of two of her three children, with second-degree murder and first-degree terroristic threatening.

"I feel the loss of never seeing my daughter again ... but I got to be here for them," Huberta Mollena said of her daughter's three children, whom she will raise.

The Hawai'i State Coalition Against Domestic Violence will hold a silent march at 5:30 p.m. today in Honolulu in memory of Olakalani Mollena. The march begins at Honolulu Hale.

On Moloka'i, relatives and friends of the slain woman will have their own march, said Huberta Mollena, who decided to stay home to be with her grandchildren.

Carol C. Lee, executive director of Hawai'i State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said, "Fortunately, we've seen a decrease" in Hawai'i domestic-violence homicides. "In the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, we had about 12 per year. In recent years, it's been three or four a year." Olakalani Mollena's death is the first in Hawai'i this year attributed to domestic violence.