Defendant says
mind went blank

Tyrone Galdones, 31, is
accused of slaying his
ex-girlfriend's lover

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By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com

Tyrone Galdones said seeing his girlfriend of 13 years in bed with another man caused his mind to go blank. He could not remember what he did next, he said yesterday.

"All I know is that I seen one flash and I heard one loud bang and that was it," said Galdones, who took the stand in his defense. "I realized what just went happen, and I couldn't believe what just went happen."

Galdones, 31, known as "Jiggy," is on trial for second-degree murder for shooting James Zoucha, 27, twice in the head as he lay asleep next to Tammy Aiwohi in her bedroom on Aug. 19, 1999.

Galdones said he did not hear anything coming from inside Aiwohi's Hakimo Road home as he fled into his car and drove off.

"I never hear nothing. My ears was ringing."

A friend in the car with him, Prince Tanele, asked him twice, "You shot the guy, eh?"

"I dunno, brah, what I just did," Galdones recalled saying.

Galdones had broken up with Aiwohi about two months earlier but had expected they would get back together just as they had on previous occasions.

The couple had been together on and off for 13 years and had two children together.

Aiwohi testified last week she had broken it off for good but wanted their relationship to remain civil for the kids.

Galdones said he did not know who it was sleeping next to Aiwohi and had no reason to shoot him.

"I just couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Earlier in his testimony, Galdones said he had borrowed a gun from a friend earlier that day because he believed a fight in Waipahu between his cousin's friends and rival gang members was going to happen and that he needed it for "self-defense."

When the rival gang members failed to show up, he had slipped the gun into his waistband, and he and Tanele drove toward Waianae to look up friends in his former stomping grounds. He ended up stopping at Aiwohi's Nanakuli home instead.

The trial resumes today. If convicted as charged, Galdones faces life with the possibility of parole.