KAILUA — The trauma was still fresh yesterday in the neighborhood where Janel Tupuola was viciously beaten to death Wednesday in full public view.

Many who saw the slaying refused to discuss it.

Most who would speak were so frightened they would only do so on condition of anonymity. Even then a number were at a loss for words to describe it.

Kimi Werner, 27, who lives near the crime scene and had come out to check on the noise, said that even before she neared the intersection of Maluniu Avenue and Kawainui Street and saw the woman's battered and bloodied body, "there was just commotion and energy and fear in the air — I don't even know how to explain it."

"You could just feel the fear — and it just felt like tragedy before you even knew what was happening."

Alapeti Siuanu Tunoa Jr., 30, of Salt Lake, Tupuola's former boyfriend, has been charged with murder in the death of the 29-year-old Kailua woman. The crime occurred about 5:45 p.m.

A middle-aged woman was cleaning her kitchen stove when she heard Tupuola's screams. The woman rushed outside to find Tupuola clinging to a stop sign pole at the intersection while the suspect repeatedly struck her in the head with the butt of the shotgun.

"I saw him beat her to death," said the woman, adding that she wasn't able to sleep after it happened. "Every time I closed my eyes last night, I saw it again.

"I wouldn't have wanted to survive that," she said. "When you see someone bleeding from their ears and eyes and nose, you know that there's brain damage."

SUSPECT DROVE AWAY

The HPD incident report was succinct: "The suspect saw his estranged girlfriend and began chasing her with his car. He slammed her several times, which disabled her car. He pulled her out and began to beat her with a shotgun."

When Tupuola's screams ended and she was no longer moving, witnesses said, the suspect got into the black Ford Explorer he had used to ram the woman's white sedan and drove away.

Honolulu police Lt. David Eber, who arrived at the scene a short time after the beating, said the 6-foot-2, 340-pound Tunoa was apprehended by police in Kane'ohe about an hour later.

WITNESS 'WHACKED'

Eber said an off-duty police officer who lives on Maluniu Avenue, a few houses from where the beating took place, was performing CPR on Tupuola when he arrived. An ambulance had just arrived, and a firefighter was assisting the officer, Eber said.

Tupuola was taken to Castle Medical Center, where she died at around 6 p.m.

"There were apparently a lot of witnesses who wanted to get involved," Eber said. "But when they saw how big the suspect was and the fact that he was armed with a shotgun, they were hesitant to get involved."

However, one 69-year-old man who lived nearby did try to intervene, and he was knocked unconscious by the suspect, according to witnesses.

"He went up and was trying to say something to the guy beating the woman, and the guy just whacked him in the head with the shotgun, and this man went over backwards," said a witness, who wouldn't give her name.

The 69-year-old man's son, who identified himself only as Byron, said his father received a concussion and numerous lacerations and was back home yesterday. He said his father preferred to remain anonymous.

"He's recovering," his son said. "He has a bunch of stitches and staples in his head. My father doesn't feel like he was a hero. He just wishes he could have done more."

Throughout yesterday, people came to the site of the beating, stood quietly for a while, or placed flowers near the stop sign. A woman who said she knew the victim well wept upon hearing a witness describe the beating. The friend said Wednesday's incident wasn't the first time the suspect had pursued Tupuola.

"We did everything together," she said. "Have lunch, talk on the phone. I knew this was coming. I warned her."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.