Local News

Witness hears suspect say ‘go to hell,’ then hears a ‘pop’

Murder charges are upheld against Lyons

WAILUKU -- On the night a 77-year-old man was fatally shot in his Napili house, his 70-year-old housemate was heard yelling just before a gunshot sounded, witnesses said Tuesday.

John Lyons Jr. also was hitting the walls in the bathroom, said Javier Burgo, 69, who was about to watch a movie in his room when he heard the commotion at about 8 p.m. April 14.

Testifying Tuesday at a preliminary hearing for Lyons in Lahaina District Court convening in Wailuku, Burgo said he could hear "boom, boom, boom" coming from the bathroom next to his room and muted his television while staying in his room with the door locked.

"I heard John continue to scream," Burgo said.

He said he couldn't make out what Lyons was saying as he made his way out of the bathroom and into the living room, where Frederick Bacolini stayed.

Burgo said the last thing he heard was Lyons saying, "Go to hell," which was immediately followed by a "pop."

Robert O'Brien, 66, who lives in a detached ohana on the property at 85 Ikaika Place, said he was watching television when "I hear a gunshot."

A man, who was camping in the backyard, "came to my door and told me that John had just shot Fred," O'Brien said. He said he ran into the main house, began taking Bacolini's pulse and called 911.

Bacolini was sitting in a chair, O'Brien said. 

"He has a hole in his head," he testified, pointing to the top right side of his head. "It's oozing, and he's starting to convulse. His pulse was rapid and thready. There was a lot of blood on the floor."

O'Brien stayed with Bacolini until medics arrived.

O'Brien said he didn't see Lyons, but could hear him in his bedroom "screaming at the 911 operator."

In a recording of the call played in court, Lyons says, "We had an accident. I'm sorry, and send out the coroner."

Questioned by officer Angela Dutro-Ponce, who was working as a call taker, Lyons eventually says, "The accident is my landlord is dead."

"So your landlord is dead. Did you hurt him?" she asks.

"I'm not answering that question over the phone," Lyons replies.

He hangs up after being told emergency workers are on the way.

When Dutro-Ponce calls him back to get more information, she asks where the gun is. Lyons says he has the gun.

"I shot my landlord," he says in the recording. "He was assaulting me, and it wasn't the first time, and I told him not to do that to a disabled veteran. And I finally got really f---ing pissed off, so I put a bullet in him."

Lyons tells her he's in his room.

"I am not going to hurt anybody else," he says.

Arriving on scene at about 8:15 p.m., Lahaina patrol officers had their guns drawn as they approached the house at the end of a cul de sac, said officer Emiterio Alvarez.

Two men walked down the driveway and reported a roommate had shot another roommate and was inside, said officer Michael Ryan. Within a couple of minutes, a light came on in the garage and Lyons, who was wearing only black underwear, came down the driveway in a wheelchair, Ryan said. He said Lyons was handcuffed with his arms behind the wheelchair.

While other officers went into the house to tend to the victim, Ryan stayed outside with Lyons.

Ryan testified that after 20 or 30 minutes, he advised Lyons of his constitutional rights and again advised him not to make statements.

"He continued talking quite a bit," Ryan said. "He would say things like he did his best to keep peaceful, he wasn't proud of what he did, he was protecting himself, he was abused and accused . . ."

Alvarez said he had entered the house to clear it when he saw a small revolver on the counter in a bedroom.

Bacolini was medevaced to Maui Memorial Medical Center, where he arrived shortly after 9 p.m. and was treated in the emergency room, said Detective Jonathan Kaneshiro of the Lahaina Criminal Investigation Division. He said Bacolini was pronounced dead at 10:38 p.m.

In a search of the residence on Ikaika Place, Kaneshiro said police found a .22-caliber revolver that was cocked in a position ready to fire on a bedroom counter. The gun was registered in 1994 and reported stolen in 1995, Kaneshiro said. He said no firearms are registered to Lyons in the state.

Lyons initially declined to make a statement when detectives contacted him in the Lahaina Police Station cellblock the morning of April 15, Kaneshiro said. But after 3 p.m. that day, when detectives gave him a copy of the search warrant and receipt for items taken, Lyons asked if he could get copies and Kaneshiro said copies would be left in his property.

"He said, 'I'm not going to get out. A crime like this is terrible, you know.' And then something to the effect of 'I haven't shot someone since Vietnam,' " Kaneshiro said.

Burgo and O'Brien said Bacolini had invited them to stay on his property when they needed a place to stay.

Burgo said he was homeless when he met Bacolini at a mall in Honokowai at the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015.

"I was sleeping inside of a truck, and he helped me by taking me to his house and gave me shelter over there," Burgo said.

He and O'Brien said they had seen Lyons and Bacolini arguing before.

Asked by Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Teshima about the relationship between Lyons and Bacolini, Burgo said it was "hostile, not good, they never got along."

"It seems that they didn't like each other," Burgo said. "But Bacolini was very difficult because he was the type of person that I would describe as arrogant and right all the time."

Burgo said the men's relationship seemed to have worsened over the past three years.

"They were fighting all the time," Burgo said.

Over the past year, "I have been thinking it's going to happen, it's going to happen. This guy is going to kill him," Burgo said.

When he would get in the car and go to the store with Lyons, "John keeps repeating, 'I'm going to put a bullet in his head. I'm going to put a bullet in his head. I'm going to put a bullet in his head,' " Burgo said. "In the end, when it happened, my brain does not accept what happened, but I go, 'Oh, yeah, it happened.' "

Forensic pathologist Dr. Rachel Lange, who performed an autopsy on Bacolini on April 16, said he died of a gunshot wound to his head. She said the entrance wound was on the right side of his forehead, with the bullet traveling through his skull, fracturing it, and perforating his brain before leaving the skull and lodging just below the left side of his scalp.

Based on the lack of stippling or tiny fragments of unburned gunpowder on Bacolini's skin, the muzzle of the gun would have been at least 2.5 to 3 feet away when the shot was fired, she said.

Asked by Deputy Public Defender Ben Lowenthal about the bullet's trajectory, Lange said it was from front to back, right to left and slightly downward.

Judge Blaine Kobayashi found there was probable cause to support charges of second-degree murder, using a firearm in the commission of a separate felony and failing to acquire a firearm permit against Lyons. He is also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.

Lyons is being held in lieu of $552,000 bail at the Maui Community Correctional Center. He is set to be arraigned April 29 in 2nd Circuit Court.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.