Man testifies he loved wife,
didn’t mean to kill her

By Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin

A teary-eyed Saldy Marzan professed his love for his dead wife, telling a Circuit Court jury yesterday that he only meant to scare her and not kill her the day he took a gun with him to see her in 1997.

"I wouldn't do that to her," Marzan said during his retrial on a second-degree murder charge.

He described and demonstrated for jurors how after his wife grabbed the gun, he tried to yank it away from her during a struggle, causing the weapon to fire.

Marzan, 31, is accused of intentionally shooting his estranged wife, Arlene, on Jan. 27, 1997.

Marzan's first trial earlier this year ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Marzan was separated from his wife on that date, and he was under a restraining order to stay away from her.

He admitted that he abused her and threatened her several times during their eight-year marriage.

Marzan smoked crystal methamphetamine that day and called his wife, who was living with his brother and sister-in-law in a Kalihi Street apartment, for help because the illicit drug made his heart race.

But he said he became angry when she told him she wasn't going over to his apartment. " 'That's not my problem,' she tell me," Marzan testified.

He drove over there in a friend's car and took a gun out of the trunk. He said he didn't know the weapon was loaded.

"I was just going to make my wife scared," he said, comparing it to a previous incident during which he brought out a knife -- but didn't hurt her with it -- to make her listen to him.

His wife walked away from him, and at one point she tried to grab for the gun.

"Then, I went yank 'em away from her hand, and the gun went off," he told jurors.

He said he fled without knowing she was shot because he was afraid to be arrested for a restraining order violation. He found out she died from watching the news.

But Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter pointed out several discrepancies between what Marzan said on the witness stand and what he told other people.

Marzan, who dropped out of the 10th grade and has trouble reading and writing English and his native tongue of Ilocano, spoke softly and slowly at times during his testimony, which took about a day to complete.

Trial continues Monday before Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario.