A man who died Monday after a scuffle at a Waikiki hotel was on a family vacation with his wife and three children, the man's mother said yesterday.

Humberto Murillo, 33, allegedly took two 12-packs of beer without paying for them from an ABC Store at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort & Spa shortly before 9 p.m. Monday night. Murillo died after a struggle with the store manager and a tourist who came to the manager's aid.

"This is all so weird," said a woman who identified herself as Murillo's mother after being reached by telephone at his home in San Fernando, Calif.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said Murillo worked as a construction laborer.

She said her son "worked hard to save money for the trip" to Hawai'i and was looking forward to it very much, as were his wife and children.

"I cannot understand how this could happen. He had the money — he was staying there at the hotel," she said.

Francisco Castro, a reporter with the Spanish-language newspaper Hoy in Los Angeles, said friends and neighbors of Murillo described him as an avid traveler who, whenever he had the extra money, liked to show the world to his son, 9, and two daughters, 11 and 7. But they said the vacation trip to Hawai'i was going to be his last because of the recession.

"The story I read — that's not the Humberto I know," a longtime family friend, Rose Candelaria, told Castro. "He doesn't even drink. So it's really odd."

Hyatt officials have said Murillo was not a registered guest of the hotel.

An autopsy was performed on Murillo Tuesday morning, but the results were inconclusive. Lt. William Kato, of the Honolulu Police Department homicide unit, said the autopsy did not reveal any physical injuries that would have resulted in Murillo's death.

Witness accounts of the struggle vary, with one group telling investigators that Murillo appeared to be unconscious when the store manager and tourist released their grip on him, and a second group saying that Murillo was talking and responsive after being released to hotel security guards.

City paramedics arrived at the scene at 8:50 p.m. and took Murillo to Straub Clinic and Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Kato yesterday said it may take four to six weeks for the results of toxicology tests that were done as part of the autopsy.