‘Get out of the house, Doug killed Kelsie!’ NAALEHU, Hawaii >> Moments after Big Island murder suspect Douglas John Fathke allegedly killed his 8-year-old daughter, he told his bed-and-breakfast guest, Robert Dahl, that he intended to kill Dahl's son next, Dahl said yesterday.
A bed and breakfast guest
School to help kids cope
describes how he warned his
son to flee a murder suspectBy Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com
The son Bobby, 16, was lying on a bed in a nearby bedroom, suffering from an infected tooth.
COURTESY OF KITV NEWS4
Kelsie Fathke, 8, is shown at her Big Island home in this undated photo. The girl was killed allegedly by her father on Sunday.
Dahl told the Star-Bulletin that after he saw Kelsie's body, he shouted to his son, "Get out of the house, Doug killed Kelsie!"
Bobby managed to escape, but only after Fathke choked him, and Bobby freed himself by punching Fathke, Dahl said.
Dahl said in a phone call from his home outside San Diego yesterday that he wanted to correct reports that Bobby got into a struggle with Fathke while trying to protect Kelsie.
Police also issued a statement that said, "There was no connection between the death of the girl and the alleged attack on the boy, nor was there an apparent relationship between the two victims."
Kona police charged Fathke yesterday with second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and terroristic threatening in connection with Sunday's shooting death of his daughter Kelsie and the alleged attack on Bobby Dahl.
The incidents happened at Becky's Bed and Breakfast operated by Fathke in Naalehu. Fathke was being held in lieu of $550,000 bail and was to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. today in Hilo District Court.
Dahl said he became aware of the shooting when he heard a noise that sounded like a gunshot but might also have been a piece of metal hitting something.
Then he heard Fathke screaming the name of a friend. The reason wasn't clear.
Fathke, empty-handed, saw Dahl and told him to go into Kelsie's bedroom, Dahl said.
"If my daughter's dead, I'm going to kill your son," Dahl said Fathke told him.
Dahl said he entered the bedroom, smelled gun powder and saw a gun or a gun case. His memory isn't clear on that point because he said his attention was drawn to the body of Kelsie wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, lying on the bed, blood all around her, with a bullet wound in her head.
Dahl said he walked out of the bedroom and past Fathke pretending to be calm, then called to his son to run.
Dahl said Fathke shouted that if Bobby made it out of the house, he would kill Dahl.
Fathke and Dahl were outside, and Bobby almost made it out, but Fathke grabbed him, hauled him inside and started choking him, Dahl said.
Bobby hooked a leg around a doorway and punched Fathke, Dahl said. "My son cocked him just right," and got out, his father helping him across the street to the B&E 76 gas station.
Someone at the station called 911 and police arrived. They later told Dahl that Fathke acted like nothing was going on when they entered the house.
When they asked, "What's going on in the bedroom," Fathke put out his arms to be handcuffed and said, "I shot and killed my daughter," Dahl said.
"I don't know what happened. I know he got a call from his ex-wife that morning. I could see some tears in his eyes. He was like real withdrawn."
Dahl, a contractor building a house for himself in Green Sand subdivision, first stayed at Fathke's bed-and-breakfast in August. When he arrived for his third visit last Tuesday, Fathke was his normal, pleasant self, Dahl said.
But by Friday, he changed in a way Dahl had never seen before. He was preaching in a muddled way, saying things like, "The day is coming," Dahl said. When Dahl asked what he was talking about, Fathke started talking about something else, Dahl said.
A friend of Kelsie said Fathke was angry at his daughter during an outing to a swimming hole on Saturday.
Then his ex-wife called Sunday. "He seemed to be really down after the phone call," Dahl said.
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School to help kids
NAALEHU, Hawaii >> Naalehu Elementary and Intermediate School, which murder victim Kelsie Fathke attended as a second-grader, will hold three assemblies tomorrow to help children cope with the death of their schoolmate, said Principal Peter Volpe.
cope with tragedyThe memorial farewell gatherings, to be held from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., will be held for kindergarten through third-graders, followed by fourth- through sixth-graders, and finally seventh- and eighth-graders, Volpe said.
Each class will select two representatives, who can make any kind of presentation they want, perhaps a poem, a written statement, presentation of a banner, or singing a song, he said.
Counselors and others have gone classroom-to-classroom, explaining Kelsie's death to the children, Volpe said.
When children ask why it happened, the staff answers, "These things happen. We don't know the reasons. We have to go on regardless."
Volpe's own memories of Kelsie are of a sweet girl, nicely dressed, walked to school every day by her father.
The items from the assemblies will be collected to give to Kelsie's mother, he said.
Star-Bulletin staff
