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Kauai slaying suspect
ruled competent
for trial

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By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- Howard Giddens has been found mentally competent to stand trial on charges that he stalked a Kauai County park and then his neighborhood with a shotgun and gunned down two people, one of whom died.

Circuit Judge Clifford Nakea said yesterday all three psychological evaluations of Giddens show he understands the charges against him and can participate in his defense.

Nakea did not rule out an insanity defense at the murder trial, set for June 18. Giddens' attorney, Jim Itamura, said he would ask Nakea to make a determination that Giddens was insane at the time.

Giddens, 27, repeatedly has claimed the two men were members of a group that had been following, videotaping and planning to kill him and his family for more than a year, first on Oahu and then Kauai.

According to police reports, on Sept. 18 Giddens was driving with his girlfriend and their 7-year-old son in Lihue when he spotted Nelson Cuba Jr. and followed his truck to Hanamaulu Beach Park, where Cuba, a transient, was camping.

Cuba testified at a preliminary hearing that Giddens, whom he did not know, walked up and began shooting, hitting Cuba in the neck and wrist with birdshot. He escaped by speeding away.

Giddens then went to his house in Hanamaulu, telling his girlfriend to drive to the Lihue police station to tell police he was defending himself. According to testimony from neighbors, he then began walking the street in front of his house.

He spotted his next-door neighbor, Colan Fernandes, waiting in his carport and shot him several times at close range, killing him. Giddens fired at another neighbor but did not hit him, witnesses said.