Kauai man calmly
recounts killing

Giddens testifies how he
shotgunned 2 men he was
convinced were harassing him

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By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.com

LIHUE >> "He kept going, 'No, no, no. I don't know what you're talking about.' Right there I started nailing him with my shotgun," Howard Giddens testified in Kauai Circuit Court yesterday about how he shot his Hanamaulu neighbor Colan Fernandes to death on Sept. 18, 2000.

Shortly before he killed Fernandes, Giddens had shot and wounded a transient, Nelson Cuba, at Hanamaulu County Park near his home. Cuba was kneeled over in the cab of his pickup truck, tying his shoes, when Giddens approached with his shotgun.

"When he put his head up, I lift up my gun. He stepped on the gas. But I shot twice before he could get his foot on the pedal," Giddens told Circuit Judge Clifford Nakea, who is hearing the murder trial without a jury. The trial is expected to conclude tomorrow.

Giddens' attorney, Jim Itamura, is asking the judge to find his client not guilty by reason of insanity.

Itamura says Giddens, a drug user and dealer on his native Oahu before he moved to Kauai in 1999, suffers from delusions.

Itamura is not contending Giddens was on drugs at the time of the killings, but that his use of drugs made him so psychotic he could not distinguish between reality and fantasy and right or wrong.

Testifying in his own defense, Giddens, 28, insists that both Fernandes and Cuba were among a group of people who harassed his family and wanted to kill him.

"These guys in Hanamaulu, they all in cahoots," Giddens told the judge. "You could just see the drug action going on in that neighborhood. I never wanted to live there."

There is no evidence either man had ever talked to Giddens. No evidence of drug trafficking in Giddens' neigh- borhood has been presented at the trial. Three defense psychiatrists and psychologists testified Giddens suffers from delusions.

Dr. Daryl Matthews told the court he believes Giddens was suspicious and distrusting in his youth.

"His use of methamphe-tamine raised it to the level of a delusional disorder and the delusional disorder didn't go away," Matthews testified.

Giddens said Fernandes, an elementary school janitor, and Cuba, an occasional farm worker who lived in the park, were among many of his neighbors who spied on him, his girlfriend and their young son.

He said Fernandes used to walk his dog past Giddens' home and peer in the windows. He believed Fernandes was videotaping his family.

Giddens said he once caught Fernandes using a listening device to hear conversations inside Giddens' house.

Similarly, he said he saw Cuba drive past his house very slowly numerous times.

"He particularly wanted to look in the house," Giddens testified. "I seen him smirking like, 'I have you. I'm going to get you.'"

In several hours of calm, lucid direct testimony and under cross examination, Giddens recounted the events of Sept. 18.

"I'm trying to be specific as possible," he told County Prosecutor Michael Soong during cross examination. "If you suspect me of lying, just ask me again."

"On this day, Sept. 18, it was just sickening," Giddens testified. "One sickening day."

He said he awoke about 7 a.m. and, as he often did, went out with a loaded shotgun in his car to make sure the neighborhood was safe.

Shortly afterward, he and his girlfriend attempted to take their son to elementary school but the youngster refused to go in the school so they began to drive him home.

Giddens said he spotted Cuba getting in his pickup truck at a convenience store. "I said, 'This (expletive) is dead.' He grinned at me as he drove by." Giddens followed Cuba to Hanamaulu Park where he shot him.

Giddens then went back to his house, told his girlfriend to drive herself and their son to the Lihue Police Station and tell police he was defending their home.

"I was crazy. I was crazy," Giddens testified. "I walked up the road and looked for anyone I could recognize. I ran into the guy who was the same guy with the camera (Fernandes)."

After he killed Fernandes and shot at another neighbor hiding behind a car, who was uninjured, Giddens said he saw police cars at both ends of his street so went back to his house.

"I was worried whether my family made it to the police station," he testified. "That's when I called 911."

Giddens told police he would not harm any officers who came to arrest him. He surrendered peacefully.

Soong asked Giddens if he was afraid that day.

"I always scared, brah," Giddens told the prosecutor. "Always scared of having to take the law into my own hands. The police won't be there for you."