The Hawaiian gazette., 1903-03-31
One Trusty Shot
Through Bars
of Cell.
From Mondays Daily.)


oner confined there, and then turned
the revolver against himself, put bull
let through his own breast and died
within few minutes.
1t was in the gray of the morning,
before the honest people of the city had
even begun to think of rising to the
duties of the Sabbath day. The men
were both in Jail for murder, and there
had been some ill-feeling between them
in past times because one of them was
the accepted lover of certain Japanese
woman and the other one wanted to
be. But they said. the other prisoners,
that this difficulty had been smoothed
over between the men before the TRACE
dy. 1t is easy for men to smooth over
quarrel about wonderland easy, also,
for bitterness following their quarrel to
shoulder to the point of murder.
At all events Kaapuni, serving a term
Of twenty years for murder in the sec
ond degree, Shot Nahale-a in the city
prison at just 5:45 yesterday morning,
and then turned the revolver against
his own breast and fired a shot that
tore away the big arteries about his
own heart, causing wound from which
he bled to death almost as soon as he
had fallen to the floor of the prison.
ed at a range of not more than one
foot through the iron grating in the
door of cell 10, lay writhing within
while his assassin died in the corridor,
for the bullet from a large revolver
had entered his left breast just below
the heart, and had torn it's way down
through his vitals, coming out at the
root of the spinal column.
AS quickly as possible DR.. Herbert
was called to the prison, and the
wounded man was hurried away to the
Queens Hospital, where the house sur
geon dressed his wounds. 1.-THE man is
perfectly conscious" the doctor said
last night. But it is impossible to tell
whether he will live. He has fright
full wound, and 1 should say the
chances are about one hundred to one
against him."
BOTH MEN WERE DRUNK.
And it was a quarrel over a woman,
though probably that was not the i'm
mediate preteXt for the crime, and both
men were drunk, though they were
long-term prisoners in Jail. That is ac-
counted for by the other fact that they
were TRUSTEES, going to places in the
performance of mental tasks about the
Jail which the other prisoners could not
reach, and so having access to room
in which was kept some okolehao that
had been used as evidence in case in
court and which the officers had as yet /
had no opportunity to destroy.
The story of the killing is a simple |
story, vet sordid in the low life of it.
1t seems that it is the custom of the ,
prison to turn the prisoners out of the /
cells early and put the TRUSTEES at their ,
- pla int nj pa
tory to the business of the day A Jail
is a place that requires lot of clean !,
ing. It was a part of the duty of the
man Kaapuni, murderer and suicide, to
clean up the Sheriff's Office, and the Of
flee of the Deputy Sheriff, and in the
pursuit Of that duty daily he had access
to those offices and to the gun room be-
hind the Sheriff's office. Also, he knew
that there was jug of okolehao in the
gun room. He had put it there himself
on Saturday for safe keeping, in pur-
suance of orders from the clerk in that
office. When Kaapuni was sent up to
the offices to perform his tasks yester-
day morning, he did not stay there, as
was his custom, but went back down
into the jail yard. He had stolen
quart bottle somewhere and filled it
with the decoction of the ii plant, but
none of the officers about the prison
suspected that. Carrying the liquor
down into the prison, where Nahale-a
had been put at his task of cleaning up
the cells and corridors, and calling his ,
fellow murderer into the kitchen of the
was a lifer, serving
sentence for murder-invited him to
drink up the bottle in token Of their .
in the matter of their ,
rip ha
cook of the prison lent his assistance
to the discussion of the bottle. :
After the men had drunk the liquor, ,
went back to his work and ,
Nahale-a went back to his. The latter, :
however, had not so good a head as ,
the other and as his actions soon made .
1t apparent that he had been drinking, =
the turnkey locked him in cell Is pre- g
iminary to an investigat ton as to where }
the liquor had come from at that hour r
in the morning. He was noisy there, +
but nobody paid any particular atten- 6
ton. They are accustomed to noisy r
irunkards at the prison. All the wit i
nesses to what followed agree that
here had been no words and no quar- Il
rel that morning nor the night before @
between Kaapuni and Nahale-a. 10
SHOT AT CLOSE RANGE. II
Be that as 1t may. the man had not Il
1een locked in cell IS more than three I
kicking and yelling, when n
Saapuni came running down from the s
,ffices, holding his right hand in the I
BOSOM of his shirt.
The turnkey on duty at the time, Jim
Supihea, the receiving clerk at the n
prison. j. NJ. MoKinnon, and Henry a
Fan Gieson, police officer. were stand =
ng at the foot of the gangway lead n
ng down into the prison when the man I,
passed them, on the run. They sus-
,eeted nothing. They could look right K
Town the corridor upon which cell 10 q
aced, and they made no move until p
hey saw Kaapuni run down to the 3