RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Sandra Pratt, fiancee of shooting victim Jason Nam, wept yesterday during a press conference at police headquarters as she pleaded for people to come forward with information about Nam's killing. Behind her were Jacqueline and Ignatius Hipa, her aunt and uncle.
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Shooting victim’s fiancee pleads for closure in case
Police are still looking for three suspects one month after the killing
Sandra Pratt was at work in the KITV newsroom on March 10 when she heard a police scanner call of a shooting in front of the Beretania Street apartment she shared with her fiance, Jason Nam.
Suspects sought
Honolulu police are looking for three suspects in Jason Nam's death.
All three are described as about 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall, in their 20s, weighing about 160 to 180 pounds. The suspect with a handgun had black hair.
All were wearing T-shirts, long pants and red bandannas covering their faces.
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"I called his cell phone; someone else answered it and said, 'Jason's been shot,'" Pratt said.
Yesterday, Pratt, wiping away tears and surrounded by her family, pleaded for help in solving Nam's killing.
"We're all here because we love Jason very much," she said. "We need closure. The only way we can get closure is if these men are brought in to justice."
Nam, 31, was washing his car in the garage of his apartment building at 1709 Beretania St., across from Central Union Church, when three men using red bandanas to cover their faces drove up in a black Nissan Maxima, witnesses said.
One of the men was carrying a baseball bat. There was an argument, and the men dragged Nam into a grassy area where he was shot once in the neck.
The men got back into the car and drove away. It was about 4 p.m. on a Friday.
The Maxima, which was stolen from Kipapa Drive behind Mililani High School on March 2, was set on fire later that night on Makohilani Street near Keekuhiwa Street in Mililani.
Police believe one of the three men in the Maxima, perhaps the shooter himself, called CrimeStoppers with a tip.
They want that person to call back or for anyone else with information to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300.
"He (Nam) had huge dreams," Pratt, 28, said. Nam, an assistant manager at Govinda Fresh Juices, wanted to open a restaurant.
"We had huge dreams together," she continued. "We were supposed to get married, start a family, have kids, buy a house."
The couple had been together for 14 years. "We were high school sweethearts," Pratt said.
He was a bag boy at Foodland and asked Pratt out on her first date.
Since the shooting, there has been speculation that Nam was targeted for various reasons.
"I've heard many rumors through this," Pratt said. "I can't answer because I don't know."
Pratt said the man she knew as a "vibrant and happy spirit" was not involved with drugs or gambling. It is up to the police to come up with the facts, she said.
What she knows and deals with every day is that Nam has been taken away from her and everyone who loved him.
"I go home, he's not going to be there," she said. "I miss his smile, his everything."
