THE sad legacy of such publicized family related fatalities as the O.J. Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey cases is that any sensational death now is almost instantly tainted with suspicion that a family member is somehow involved. Shark tale now is
part of our historyWe're seeing some of that legacy acted out in the recent disappearance of Naghid Davoodabai, whose husband says she was attacked by a shark while they were kayaking off Maui last week.
Mark Monazzami told Maui police that he and his wife were kayaking off Lahaina when they were swept into rough seas by high winds. Monazzami said the kayak overturned and the two were in the water when a shark bit off his wife's arm.
He says he held her as she bled to death. Eventually, he was unable to hold on to her body and she slipped away. He was driven onto the rugged shores of Kahoolawe, the desolate island formerly used for military bombing practice, where he eventually found a phone and called for help.
Monazzami was not even out of the hospital before questions about his account of the incident began to be raised. The fact that Maui police did a chemical analysis of the kayak to determine if there were traces of his wife's blood shows that investigators harbored at least a bit of skepticism about Monazzami's story. They later said they have not ruled out the possibility of foul play in the disappearance. They plan to question him one more time before he returns to his Sunnyvale, Calif., home tomorrow.
THIS is a horrible story. If everything Monazzami says is true, it is one of the most horrifying things a husband could go through, especially on a honeymoon. Watching your wife being killed by a shark and then having to survive yourself, alone at sea ... well, it doesn't get much worse than that.
Actually it does. Having to face questions by police who don't necessarily believe your story is worse.
The cops, however, are in a no-win situation. What they have is a missing-persons case. Their job is to try to figure out why the person is missing, where she is and what happened to her. Unfortunately, that means they have to infringe on the husband's grief.
Part of the reason for the skepticism, fair or unfair, is that parts of the story don't seem to ring true to many residents of an island state with deep knowledge of the ocean environment.
After her arm was bitten off, Monazzami said his wife said "my arm is gone" and asked if he could love a wife with one arm. Such stoicism historically has not been exhibited by shark attack victims in Hawaii.
Again, this is not to say it didn't happen. It just shows how cynical people have become in the wake of other unsolved domestic tragedies. The heavy media coverage of the ambiguous outcome of the Simpson case and the still unsolved JonBenet murder have turned everyone into junior detectives.
For his part, Monazzami blames the death of his wife in part on the state of Hawaii for not posting warning signs on beaches. That's a natural reaction. But the state simply cannot be responsible for every visitor who enters the ocean at a thousand different locations every day. The harsh truth is that when you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain.
For better or worse, the tragic disappearance of 29-year-old Naghid Davoodabai off of Maui will become part of Hawaii's ocean history and, like all intriguing sea tales, the subject of continuing discussion.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
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71224.113@compuserve.com.
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