"They were our neighbors," Laurin said yesterday.

Police investigating the deaths were trying to piece together what happened, but suspect Samortin may have gotten into trouble in the water and Kumagai drowned trying to save her.

Honolulu Police homicide Detective Larry Tamashiro said Kumagai's brother told him that Samortin "was a very weak swimmer, and that his brother did swim but wasn't a real strong swimmer, either. So it appears she probably fell in and he went in after her."

"Yesterday the tide was low, but you know there's a strong current along the coastline," he said. "It's very sad."

Tiffany Chan, who looks after the apartments for her grandfather and building owner, Joseph Dung, said both

Kumagai and Samortin had lost their spouses in recent years.

Samortin's husband, Manuel, died in October 2001, and Kumagai's wife, Aida, died in July 2003.

Jaime and Emecita Laurin said both couples had been close friends.

Jaime Laurin said the couple often fished at Lahilahi Point. Like virtually everyone at the apartment building, the Laurins described longtime resident Kumagai, a City Taxi driver, as "a really nice guy" and excellent fisherman who generously shared his catch with everyone in the building.

While Kumagai had lived in the building for more than two decades and was a fixture in the neighborhood, Samortin, a relatively recent arrival, wasn't as well known.

"They were both good neighbors," said Luz Laurin, a relative of Emecita and Jaime Laurin who lives in the apartment directly beside the unit where Kumagai and Samortin resided. "They were nice people."

Lani Correa, a sales clerk at Paradise Isle Souvenirs in Makaha, said she had been buying gas at the Makaha 7-Eleven just before 3 p.m. on Thursday when she overheard a telephone conversation an older man was having on one of the store's pay phones.

"He was saying two kids across the street at the beach found a dead body," said Correa, 28, who went across the street to investigate.

"I saw a woman's body laying on the sand, not moving."

Correa said the two boys were still there, and people on the beach told her the boys had spotted the body in the water and pulled it out.

Tamashiro said two seventh-graders who live in the neighborhood had been riding their bodyboards after school when they noticed something in the water in front of the restrooms at Lahilahi Beach, directly across from the 7-Eleven store on the corner of Farrington Highway and Makaha Valley Road.

"They saw a hat and then when they looked out in the ocean about 30 yards away they saw a female. And then they went in and fished her out."

He said a police helicopter spotted Kumagai's body floating in the water about 35 minutes later near Lahilahi Point, several hundred yards from where Samortin's body was found.

"Apparently they fished quite often," Tamashiro said. "One of the beat officers out at the scene said he always sees their car there. And he has gone diving around that area and he's always seen them fishing there."