Slain mom had order against her boyfriend
Zenaida N. Dumaslan had obtained a restraining order against her boyfriend that expired in March 2005. Sixteen months later she was found dead in a pool of blood at her Pearl City apartment.
Charged with her murder is the boyfriend, Ronante G. Aquino, 39, formerly of Kalihi, who turned himself in at the Pearl City police early Saturday and confessed to killing her.
Aquino made his first court appearance yesterday in Honolulu District Court, charged with second-degree murder. He was ordered held in lieu of $150,000 bail, pending a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
According to court records, a temporary restraining order Dumaslan petitioned for against Aquino in October 2004 was granted. Despite her request to dissolve it at a Jan. 12 hearing, Family Court Judge Lillian Ramirez-Uy continued the court order and ordered that it remain in effect until March 31, 2005.
Dumaslan, 39, had requested to withdraw the complaint against Aquino, saying, "(I) personally believe he is no longer a threat for (sic) my peace." At the time, she was living at a Waipahu address.
It was also noted at the hearing that Aquino was short one of seven classes in domestic violence and had undergone a substance abuse assessment but had yet to participate in treatment.
Alcohol apparently played a role in the couple's relationship. Dumaslan had written in her Oct. 25, 2004, petition seeking a restraining order that when Aquino is drunk, "he don't know what he is doing."
She said he had hurt her by pushing, grabbing and shoving her and forcing her to have sex. He also called her a "b--," promised that "we see each other in hell" and told her to "enjoy and have fun, then you gonna see what I'm doing," she wrote.
Earlier in the year, she said he had cut up her plants and broke the side mirror of her car.
Dumaslan said she believed she was in immediate danger from Aquino and felt he would do something to her and to her then 3-year-old son. At the time, the couple had been seeing each other for two years and three months.
At a hearing Nov. 8, 2004, Dumaslan asked that the court take no further action and that the order expire on Jan. 23, 2005. But Family Court Judge Karen Radius refused and ordered that the order be effective for a year.
Aquino showed up at the Pearl City Police Station shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday and confessed to killing her. Escorted by police, he took them to Dumaslan's Hooli Street apartment, where her body was discovered in a large pool of blood in her kitchen.
Her 5-year-old son and her father, who had just arrived for a visit from the Philippines, apparently were asleep when it happened. Relatives had seen her just the night before at a family party.