Friends say the man and woman who died Thursday
in what police suspect is a murder-suicide at a Kalihi home were divorced but spent time together at gatherings with mutual friends.
They identified the couple as Marcos and Imelda
Villaspir.
“We just saw them last night,” said a friend who lives nearby and did not want to give his name.
Police got a 911 call at
2:50 p.m. Thursday of possibly three gunshots coming from the downstairs unit of 1429 Kamehameha IV Road.
Police Capt. Robert Towne said the woman, in her mid- to late 40s, appeared to have been injured by a gunshot wound and was rushed to The Queen’s Medical Center, where she died.
The husband, who was about the same age, was found lifeless in the house, he said.
The case is being investigated as a murder-suicide. “We are not looking for anybody at this point,” Towne said.
Angelito Angala, 36, who lives nearby, said, “They both would come to parties,” sometimes held at his home.
He said the couple divorced and that after they sold their Village Park house, Imelda Villaspir and an adult son and daughter moved to the downstairs unit of the Kalihi house where she set up a care home.
A couple living next door heard voices but did not hear the gunshots.
The son “kept calling out, ‘Mom! Mom!’ frantically, for about five to 10 minutes,” said Charlene, who declined to provide a last name.
“He was very upset, very distraught,” said Jeff, who also declined to provide his last name. “The son said they’re always fighting about money.”
He said he heard police say there was more than one firearm at the scene.
“We just stayed in the house,” Charlene said.
Amnadth Hamilton, 32, who lives in the house in front of the Villaspirs’ home, along with his wife, uncle, nephew and sister, as well as about nine tenants living downstairs, were told by police, “You need to get out of here.”
“I did not hear gunshots,” he said. “Police told me one person is dead.”
What happened is “because of the anger and not making the right decisions and using a handgun,” he said. “Life is so precious.”
The house was listed as a care home, and two adult patients were present at the time of the shooting, Towne said. One patient was placed with family. Adult Protective Services was working to find another care home for the other.
A group of friends and family members of the Villaspirs gathered across the street. One woman approached a TV reporter angrily asking why the station’s website reported two dead.
When she was informed that that is what police told reporters, she confirmed it with police and then notified the others.
They began to cry and wail at the news, later asking where the woman was taken and leaving for the hospital.
Friends confirmed that the couple’s daughter, who is in her early 20s, was outside the home with the two patients in wheelchairs.
She asked for the patients’ medication and binders, which police retrieved.
According to court records on the state Judiciary’s online database, Imelda Villaspir filed for divorce May 29. The complaint for divorce was filed with an automatic restraining order.
The divorce was finalized Aug. 7, when a divorce decree was filed.
Marcos Villaspir’s Facebook page says he got married Aug. 22, 2018, and that he worked as a domestic helper and attended Mariano Marcos State University in the Philippines.
His Facebook photo is of the two of them.
Her Facebook page said she was self-employed and worked as a pharmacy technician at Longs Drug Stores/CVS Pharmacy.