Mom tells of daughter’s
abuse of 4-year-old son

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

The mother of a Kailua woman on trial for attempted murder for abusing her 4-year-old son said she saw her grandson being punched and kicked.

Defendant Kimberly Pada, 29, wiped away tears as she listened to her mother, Nylahmae Freitas, describe two incidents in May 1997 in which Pada beat her son, Reubyne Buentipo Jr.

The boy, rushed to the hospital nearly three months later on Aug. 31, 1997, suffering from bleeding to the brain and burns and bruises over his body, now lies in a vegetative state at a convalescent home.

Freitas, who lived next door to Pada, said she was awakened on May 26, 1997, by Reubyne Jr.'s crying.

When she went to investigate, she saw Pada hitting the boy four or five times to the face and body. Later that day, Freitas said, she saw the boy on the floor and Pada kicking him four or five times.

On both occasions, Freitas ordered her daughter to stop, she testified. The second time, she grabbed Pada's hair to pull her off the boy and began hitting her daughter.

Earlier, Reubyne Jr. and his three siblings were at Freitas' home, and Freitas had given snacks to him, but not to the other children, testified Justine Joao, Pada's niece, who stayed with her aunt during summer 1997.

After the two older children became upset and told their mother, Pada took Reubyne Jr. into the kitchen and began hitting him, Joao said yesterday.

The boy was yelling, "Stop!" but Pada didn't stop, Joao recalled.

When Joao asked her aunt why she treated Reubyne Jr. so, Pada told her she despised the boy's father. "She just had pure hatred for him," Joao said.

Pada, in a statement to police following her arrest, admitted Reubyne Jr.'s father had abused and raped her.

In yet another incident, Joao said, she saw Pada shoving Reubyne Jr.'s face into his own excrement after he had soiled his pants while on her bed. The boy had been suffering from diarrhea.

"She didn't like that he dumped in his pants, so she scolded him and shoved his face in it," Joao said. Pada then grabbed the boy's hands and made him wipe the excrement all over his body before she showered him off.

But instead of toweling him off, Joao said, Pada took him to the living room and made him stand in front of a fan. The boy was shivering and looked "scared," Joao said.

Mary Wong, deputy public defender, said Pada suffers from a substance abuse problem and mental illness and does not deny the abuse she inflicted upon her son.

One of the defenses Wong is expected to raise next week is that Pada's actions were a result of being under extreme emotional distress. Pada, a single mother, had been caring for her four children without support from their fathers.

The trial is expected to resume Wednesday.