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Stress led woman
to kill husband, her
lawyer says

---

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

On those few occasions that she saw her aunt and uncle, Jojan Barrett saw no outward signs of domestic violence.

So when she learned her aunt Sabrina Fiaai had stabbed her husband to death, it came as a shock.

"I'm not saying he was an angel -- both weren't angels," she said about Abe and Sabrina Fiaai. "But I wish they had sought help sooner."

Had family members recognized the signs or had the couple asked for help, family members would have intervened, Barrett said.

Whether the couple did not seek help out of pride or fear, it's the couple's six children -- between ages 24 months to 19-years -- and surviving relatives who suffer, she said.

"We need to stop the violence," Barrett said. "It breaks homes, it breaks hearts and it breaks lives."

Sabrina Fiaai, accused of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing her husband, Abe, nearly a year ago as he slept has avoided life in prison by pleading guilty to a reduced charge.

Fiaai, 37, yesterday pleaded guilty to manslaughter based on extreme mental emotional disturbance, punishable by 20 years imprisonment.

Deputy public defender Todd Eddins said Fiaai agreed to plead guilty because she wanted to spare her loved ones, particularly her children -- one of whom witnessed the stabbing -- from having to testify.

One of the couple's older sons was sleeping on a couch near his father, who had been asleep on the living room floor, when he awoke to see a knife sticking out of his father's neck.

Fiaai admitted that she did kill her husband on Feb. 7, 2000, but did so under extreme mental emotional disturbance.

"She basically lost control," said Deputy Prosecutor Rom Trader.

But while the couple were having problems, "it did not excuse what Mrs. Fiaai chose to do back on Feb. 7," he said.

Eddins said Fiaai is "extremely remorseful," but it was a combination of factors that led her to stab her husband in the neck as he slept at the Makakilo home of relatives.

While Abe Fiaai had been convicted twice of domestic abuse and his wife had sought five restraining orders against him in the past 10 years, their abusive relationship was not the sole reason she did what she did, Eddins said.

The stress of homelessness, unemployment, having to care for four children and the couple's abusive relationship was weighing on Fiaai, Eddins said.

Substance abuse also had a lot to do with what happened, Barrett said. "I was hoping they'd make right choices for their kids and don't do drugs and alcohol."