StarBulletin.com

Booze and gun play big parts in murder case


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POSTED: Sunday, August 30, 2009

”;Back in the Day,”; appearing every Sunday, takes a look at articles that ran on this date in history in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. The items appear verbatim, so don't blame us today for yesteryear's bad grammar.

Murder and booze went hand in hand last night when S. Kaluahine was shot to death at his home on Asylum road, near School Street, by a man thought to be H.K. Lonokapu, who is now in jail.

It was only one more of the many cases where the nefarious practise (sic) of irresponsible persons carrying dangerous weapons, absolutely unrestricted, this time coupled with the liquor evil, led to the inevitable results.

Given a loaded revolver and filled with gin, a man ran amuck, threatened to shoot his wife, fired three wild shots and finally brought down a man against whom apparently had no grudge.

The police say that Lonokapu is a well-to-do rancher on the island of Hawaii and came to Honolulu only yesterday with his wife to place their little boy and girl in school. Stopping at Kaluahine's house, the day was spent drinking and about 11 p.m. came the tragedy.

Kaluahine is said to have argued with Lonokapu about the Bible, long after a number of guests had departed. According to the police story Lonokapu became enraged, rushed into his room for his revolver, threatened his wife when she tried to keep it from him, ran out and opened fire with fatal results.

Policeman George Kilia heard the shooting and hurried to the scene to arrest Lonokapu. Deputy Sheriff Asch, Detective McDuffie and Police Surgeon Ayer were then called.

Dr. Ayer says the man died almost instantly with a bullet through his heart. The two other shots went wild.

Dr. L.L. Patterson, assisted by Dr. Ayer, made a postmortem examination of the body at the morgue this morning.