A Kapahi woman said the man accused of fatally stabbing his 68-year-old mother at First Hawaiian Bank in
Lihue on Thursday was
pacing back and forth —
disheveled, shirtless and barefoot — before he was apprehended.
Police arrested Louis
E. Landsman, 34, on Thursday afternoon on suspicion of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Charlene Landsman of Kapaa Kauai. Kauai Prosecutor
Justin Kollar said charges are pending. Landsman remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail.
Police said Landsman, who is from Moloaa, Kauai, walked into the bank with a large hunting knife at about 1:15 p.m. and approached his mother, who was employed there. He then stabbed her and fled on foot. Police and medics responded to the scene. Medics treated and transported Charlene Landsman to Wilcox Hospital in critical condition where she died.
Kiyoko Burns, 26, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that while she was sitting in her car parked on the side
of the Lihue bank with her 3-year-old daughter, she saw a man later identified as Landsman about 6 feet away pacing back and forth.
“He looked really angry and lost and out of it,” Burns said.
He was disheveled, shirtless and barefoot, she said. At one point Landsman “was smiling and grinning at me.”
According to Burns, he then looked down, shook
his head and walked toward the bank parking lot, bypassing yellow police tape.
Police officers yelled at him to put his hands up and
apprehended him.
After officers put him inside a police vehicle, Burns said Landsman had a screaming fit. “He was shouting and yelling.”
Burns said she had been at a Head Start office near the bank to speak to officials about enrolling her daughter in preschool when a lockdown was initiated. “I just heard that there was an altercation and that a person ran off.”
“I thought there was a fight,” she said.
Burns requested to leave the office with her daughter to retrieve her cellphone from her vehicle parked near the bank.
While in the car, Burns said, she saw Landsman pacing.
It was only when she reached her home that she learned of the fatal stabbing and that the man she saw was the alleged assailant.
In retrospect, Burns said, “I honestly made a bad decision to leave that place when it was on lockdown.”
Though Burns didn’t personally know Charlene Landsman, she said she is heartbroken that the victim died at the hands of her son, whom she brought into the world. “That’s like honestly devastating.”
“It makes no sense,” she said.
The bank remained closed Friday in the wake of the stabbing. In an emailed statement, spokeswoman Susan Kam said Charlene Landsman’s death “was a tragic loss of life.”
“We mourn the loss of our team member and we will be working to provide support to all of our branch staff during this difficult time,” she said.
Anyone with information on the stabbing is asked to call Detective Michael Nii at the Kauai Police Department at 241-1682.