Prosecutors charged a 33-year-old man accused of killing his 74-year-old mother and her dog in her apartment in Mililani.
Jamil H.J. Hart hung his head as he stood before Judge James Kawashima at his initial appearance at Honolulu District Court Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder, first-degree cruelty to animals and second-degree
attempted burglary.
New court documents identified his mother as Gwendolyn Hara-Hart.
Hart’s bail is set at
$1 million.
Police responded to a
report of suspicious circumstances at Unit 17B at the Waipio Gardens Apartments at 95-24 Waihau St. sometime after 8 p.m Sunday.
The property manager
reported to police that the apartment door was left open and she observed blood inside.
Once police entered the unit, they found blood on a mattress in the living room and a large streak of blood on the floor leading to a
bedroom, court documents said.
Police found the victim later identified as Hara-Hart in the bedroom with fatal blunt trauma injuries to her head and face. Her small dog was also found dead next to her.
Police said a neighbor heard a woman scream but was unsure where it was coming from.
Another resident, Brenda Dixon, had said she was in her apartment when she heard what sounded like glass breaking. She opened her front door and saw a man on the second floor of a separate building across from her unit.
He had one leg over the balcony and appeared belligerent and intoxicated.
Dixon also told police that it appeared he had thrown bottles into the parking lot from the second floor.
She called 911 and at some point the man fled the area.
A surveillance camera showed a man leaving Hara-Hart’s unit holding a laptop. Police recovered a silver laptop that appeared to have blood on it from a drainage ditch next to the apartment complex.
Officers followed a trail of blood drops from the area where they located the laptop and spotted a man later identified as Hart at a church parking lot on Waimakua Drive, court
documents said.
Police said Hart tried to break into the church before officers apprehended him.
Police called Emergency Medical Services to treat cuts to Hart’s hands before they took him into custody.
It was not immediately clear how Hart got the cuts. Officers executed a search warrant at the apartment and recovered a knife at the scene, according to Lt. Deena Thoemmes of the
Honolulu Police Department’s Homicide Detail.
Hart has a criminal record of two petty misdemeanor convictions for operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant in 2008 and 2018.