A former Oahu Community Correctional Center training officer, indicted eight years ago on murder and kidnapping charges in the 2016 fatal shooting of his 66-year-old mother and kidnapping of a 48-year-old woman, made a last-minute request Monday for a jury- waived trial in Oahu Circuit Court.

Anthony F. Pereira II, who was 44 years old at the time of the June 10, 2016, shooting, was scheduled to stand trial this week before a jury on charges of second-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree terroristic threatening, along with drug and firearm charges.

Instead the now 52-year-old Maili man asked for and was granted a bench trial before Judge Rowena Somerville, which is set to begin today.

Proceedings toward trial were halted after Judge Colette Garibaldi determined on Feb. 8, 2017, that Pereira was unfit to proceed to trial after consideration of reports by three mental health experts. During the suspension of the proceedings, he was committed to the custody of the Department of Health director and placed in the Hawaii State Hospital.

He underwent another examination in the summer of 2017 by a group of mental health experts.

On Jan. 24, 2018, Gari­baldi, after considering the findings of the experts, found him fit to proceed to trial.

Pereira was transferred to OCCC, and bail was reset at $1 million.

On July 11, 2018, then-Judge Glenn Kim reduced his bail to $200,000. Pereira’s attorney said his client had no convictions, arrests or warrants and was never in custody.

On Feb. 8, 2023, Somerville granted Pereira’s motion for mental examination by three psychologists after Pereira filed a notice of intention to rely on the defense of physical or mental disease, disorder or defect excluding penal responsibility.

On May 17, 2023, Somerville took notice of the rec­ords and files, and the psychologists’ letters, and found the defendant to be penally responsible to proceed with trial, meaning he can be held criminally responsible or accountable for any of his actions that may be criminal.

Other delays that prevented the case from going to trial sooner included numerous changes in counsel over the past eight years.

Pereira had been a training sergeant at OCCC at the time of the June 10, 2016, shooting at his Maili home but had not shown up to work since April 10, 2016, and was placed on unpaid leave, the then-Department of Public Safety reported at the time. He had worked for the department since 2002.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to a request for Pereira’s employment status by press time Monday.

Police found Pereira’s mother, Barbara Pereira, dead from apparent gunshot wounds to the head inside Pereira’s house at 87-436 Farrington Highway, and officers persuaded the suspect to surrender, police said.

Police said the responding officer found Pereira holding an AR-15 assault rifle, and recovered a Glock semiautomatic pistol and a .357-caliber revolver.

A 48-year-old woman told police Pereira met her June 8, 2016, held her captive in his house for three days, was high on drugs and hadn’t slept in three days, a deputy prosecutor told a judge at a court hearing in 2016. It wasn’t until Pereira’s mother stopped by that the 48-year-old woman said she was able to flee, the deputy prosecutor said.

When his mother asked to leave, Pereira shot her in the thigh, and refused for hours to allow her to be taken to the hospital, and instead kept her in the home bleeding for several hours, the deputy prosecutor said.

Pereira allegedly fired a shot at the 48-year-old woman’s head and told her that he would finish off his mother, cut her up and make soup out of her, the deputy prosecutor said.

When Pereira finally agreed to allow his mother to be taken to the hospital, the younger woman fled in a pickup truck and went to the Waianae Police Station to report the shooting and that he was coming after her, the deputy prosecutor said.