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Strangling suspect
calls it self-defense

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By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

Kennard Montez said he didn't want to kill Henry Paoa on April 2 but he wanted to leave his apartment alive.

Paoa, 47, was found strangled in the apartment where Montez had been staying.

Montez took the stand yesterday before Circuit Judge Virginia Lea Crandall. He is charged with second-degree murder for beating and strangling Paoa in the Ena Road apartment, where he'd been staying.

If convicted, he faces life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.

Montez, 38, a licensed attorney in Arkansas, is pleading self-defense.

"I feel very bad about it," he said, explaining that at the time, "I thought I was going to die."

Montez testified that he met Paoa for the first time outside Evolution nightclub, where Montez had been denied entrance. He had already had five mai tais and a few beers. Paoa invited Montez to meet some stripper friends.

Montez said Paoa came to his apartment three times that night: to drop off his backpack, to retrieve his backpack and with a prostitute.

Montez said Paoa smoked a pipe during the second visit, saying he thought drugs were in the pipe. Montez said he asked Paoa to stop, but Paoa kept lighting more matches and relighting the pipe.

Paoa then left and returned with a woman who "looked somewhat unwholesome" and had "personal hygiene issues," Montez said.

Paoa said the woman would have sex for $300, but Montez, who admitted to visiting prostitutes in the past, said: "I was just not at all interested."

Montez said Paoa then demanded money for bringing the woman up, and when Montez refused, Paoa "seemed edgy and apprehensive," then "angry, growling almost."

Paoa then got an empty Coors bottle out of his backpack and struck Montez in the mouth. The two then struggled before ending up in the kitchen where Paoa was killed. Montez said he called out for help and pounded on the floor trying to get neighbors to call the police.

By time they reached the kitchen, Montez said he was scared and exhausted.

"I was out of gas. I wasn't able to breathe. My head was throbbing. I couldn't go another round," he said.

He said he tried strangling Paoa and when that didn't work, put his hands around the sides of Paoa's head, applied pressure to Paoa's eyes with his thumbs and thrust his head against the floor until Paoa stopped moving.

"That was kind of the end of the fight," he said.

Police arrived shortly after.

Closing arguments for the case are expected to begin Tuesday.