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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Brother says Nofoa told him of killing

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Toi Nofoa listens as witnesses testify during his preliminary hearing in District Court.

Photos by GREGORY YAMAMOTO | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Richard Taifane, right, younger brother of Toi Nofoa, testifies that Nofoa told him that he had shot Royal Kaukani. Standing is prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado; seated next to Nofoa is his attorney, Craig Nagamine.

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Toi Nofoa, 31, accused of murder, was bound over for trial following a hearing yesterday that included eyewitness accounts of the slaying as well as testimony from Nofoa's brother, who said Nofoa admitted killing Royal Kaukani in a telephone call shortly after the crime.

Richard Taifane, Nofoa's brother, said everyone in his family loved Kaukani, describing her as a woman "who wasn't scared of nobody — she had a big heart."

Taifane testified that he was on duty at a Kansas army base when Nofoa called him both before and after the March 17 shooting.

In the first call, Nofoa said he had seen Kaukani with another man, Taifane testified. In the second call, "He told me, 'I shot Royal,' " Taifane testified.

Nofoa claimed that Kaukani had asked Nofoa to shoot her, Taifane testified, but added that he "flipped out" at Nofoa and "called him a coward."

"I didn't think my brother was capable of something like this," he said.

Nofoa threatened suicide in the phone call, Taifane said, so he kept him on the phone as long as he could and contacted police on another phone.

"We didn't need any more dead bodies," he said.

Taifane testified that he knew Nofoa and Kaukani had a troubled relationship. Kaukani called him at one point and told him "Toi was stalking her" and was "being psycho."

He said Kaukani told him that if Nofoa didn't leave her alone, "somebody was going to shoot him or she was going to do it herself."

He said he called Nofoa and "told him to back off, to leave her alone and let her live her life."

In other testimony yesterday, witnesses said Kaukani, 25, was shot twice as she sat in her car on a residential street in the Ewa by Gentry neighborhood, and that 5 to 10 minutes elapsed between the two gunshots.

The first gunshot grazed the cheek of Kaukani and the second, fatal round was fired into the back of her neck, according to First Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. William Goodhue.

Two witnesses in nearby homes said after they heard the first shot, they saw a man standing outside the passenger window of Kaukani's car, talking quietly to her as she sat in the driver's seat. They said they thought the sound they had heard might have been firecrackers or a motorcycle backfiring.

Witness Renato Pagarigan said he saw the man get in the back seat of the vehicle and paid no more attention until he heard a second very loud bang about five minutes later. When Pagarigan looked over his fence, he saw a woman lying in the street and a man get out of the rear seat of the vehicle with a black gun in his hand.

Pagarigan said the man put on a motorcycle helmet and drove away on a dark motorcycle.

Pagarigan was unable to identify Nofoa in court as the man with the gun.

Witness Elijah Howe, 17, said he was in his house, using a computer, when he heard the first loud bang and saw a man at the side of the black Hummer vehicle that Kaukani drove. Howe said he didn't know what caused the sound and went back to the computer. Then he heard a second shot 5 to 10 minutes later and saw the same man running from the car and driving away on a motorcycle.

Nofoa is charged with first-degree murder because Kaukani was scheduled to be a witness against him in an earlier kidnapping and terroristic threatening case. He is being held in lieu of $4 million bail.

If convicted, Nofoa faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.