Police officers’ testimony Tuesday provided clues as to what was on the mind of a then 44-year-old Oahu Community Correctional Center training officer after he allegedly fatally shot his 66-year-old mother eight years ago in his Maili home.
“He was apologetic, saying, ‘I’m sorry. I want to see my daughter. I just want to see my daughter,’” said
Honolulu police officer Elmer Dulatre, the first on-scene.
A jury-waived trial began Tuesday for the now 52-year-old Anthony F. Pereira II before Circuit Judge Rowena Somerville, who will decide whether he is guilty of second-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree terroristic threatening, along with
firearm and drug charges.
Pereira, who wore wire-rimmed glasses, was dressed in a white, short-sleeved collared shirt, light brown pants, white shoes and ankle shackles.
Pereira’s mother, Barbara Pereira, went to his home across from Maili Beach Park at 87-436 Farrington Highway, where he allegedly had been holding captive for three days a 48-year-old woman he just met, named Dodie Guzman, court records show.
Guzman managed to flee the home and showed up
in Anthony Pereira’s truck with one flat tire at the Waianae Police Station on June 10, 2016.
Deputy Prosecutor Molly O’Neill first called police officer Jonathan Nobriga to the stand. He testified that Guzman was breathing heavily, was frantic and beginning to shake when she arrived.
Nobriga said the few words Guzman got out were, “He shot her and he’s coming for me.”
At about the same time, he heard a call over the police radio for gunshots fired and instantly thought they might be connected.
Guzman told Nobriga
the man who shot “her” (Barbara Pereira) was
Anthony Pereira and that he lived across from Maili Beach Park. Emergency Medical Services took her to Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, where she was still shaking. “She couldn’t even hold a pen,” Nobriga said.
Neighbor Myrna Peralta testified she heard a “pop, pop, pop” that sounded like fireworks coming from Pereira’s house next door. But when she heard a woman crying, she thought they may have been gunshots, and had her daughter call police.
Dulatre arrived at 3:35 p.m. after getting the 3:32 p.m. call June 10, 2016, and initially heard voices from the closed garage and peered through the open side door to the
garage.
He found Pereira sitting on the garage floor, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, and the body of Barbara Pereira on the floor nearby.
He was emotional, agitated, screaming, yelling, Dulatre said.
When Pereira raised a
rifle, Dulatre said he took cover behind a wall and asked him to put the gun down and “everything will be OK. I’m here to help you.”
Pereira put it down on his lap, continued talking, then raised it again. He then started convulsing, flailing on the ground, so officers secured the weapons, then rendered aid.
Pereira’s attorney, Harrison Kiehm, filed a notice of intent to call mental health experts to testify as to Pereira’s diagnosed mental diseases, disorders and defects “pertaining to his cognitive and volitional capacity at the time of the offense and/or the affirmative defense
of extreme mental or emotional disturbance.”
During cross-examination Kiehm asked Dulatre whether Pereira was crying.
Dulatre said, “He was emotional. … Initially, he looked like he was crying and emotional.”
Dulatre said Pereira was distraught, agitated and
appeared under stress.
When Kiehm asked whether Dulatre saw him as an imminent threat, Dulatre responded that police take all threats seriously, which occurred when Pereira raised the rifle.
Kiehm also asked whether Pereira was talking as if his wife were present.
“I guess,” Dulatre said. “He was asking about his wife and his daughter. He was sorry and wanted to
see his daughter. Maybe he thought his wife was there.”
O’Neill presented a Glock handgun and the AR-15-style
rifle as exhibits.
Officer Arnubi Bruhn Sr. said, “One key thing I
observed was a corrections jacket,” adding he had worked in corrections.
He also saw “the older
female laying on the ground in a puddle of blood around the head area.”
Officer Matthew Goeas testified he accompanied Pereira to The Queen’s Medical Center-West Oahu, where nurses removed Pereira’s clothes. Upon handing them to Goeas, a clear plastic bag with a crystal-like substance inside fell out of his shorts pocket onto the floor. Goeas recovered it and “through training and
experience believed it was methamphetamine.”