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A state jury deliberated for just four hours Friday before finding a homeless man guilty of manslaughter instead of murder in a fatal stabbing in Kapiolani Park two years ago.
Karl Forster stabbed Theodore Abraham Jr. on July 28, 2016, near the park’s Diamond Head tennis courts. Abraham, 55, died of a single stab wound to his chest that punctured his heart.
An Oahu grand jury charged Forster, 63, with murder.
Andrea Maggard told the jury last week that she was with Abraham at one of the picnic tables near the tennis courts when she noticed Forster pacing back and forth nearby, mumbling to himself and swearing at her. Abraham lived in his van at the park, and Maggard said she and Abraham had been drinking at the picnic table earlier that morning.
Maggard said when Abraham went to ask Forster what was bothering him, Forster lunged and stabbed him. She told the jury she took out her own knife when Forster started approaching her and blamed her for the stabbing. She then flagged down a Honolulu police officer who was driving on Paki Avenue.
Defense lawyer Alan Komagome told the jury that Forster stabbed Abraham in self-defense. He said before Abraham approached Forster, two of Abraham’s friends had been taunting Forster about securing his belongings. Forster was standing next to his new car filled with everything he owned as he was about to go to the beach.
Komagome said Forster, who weighed 140 pounds at the time and suffered from multiple physical ailments, feared for his safety. In contrast, Komagome told the jury, Abraham weighed over 200 pounds at the time of his death and had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.283, more than three times the legal threshold for drunken driving.
Forster did not testify in his own defense. He faces a maximum 20-year prison term at sentencing in October.
