By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A 49-year-old Honomu man in police custody for allegedly stabbing a housemate to death early Sunday morning requested a temporary restraining order against the victim last September.
In the TRO petition dated Sept. 22, Daniel Schuster alleged that the previous morning, 30-year-old Joshua Earl Trickel trashed Schuster’s home in a rage, an account corroborated by Trickel’s live-in girlfriend, 34-year-old Sarah McCann, who also filed for a TRO the same day.
Schuster also alleged in his TRO petition that Trickel had punched him in the stomach on March 11, 2011, rupturing his spleen and causing liver damage.
Court documents state that both restraining orders were dissolved on Oct. 4 by Hilo Family Court Judge Anthony Bartholomew, at the request of Schuster and McCann. Had those restraining orders remained in effect, Trickel would have been barred from Schuster’s home.
Police Lt. Greg Esteban of the Hilo Criminal Investigations Section said Monday that Trickel sustained “at least one stab wound … to the upper body area” and added that police recovered “edged instruments” from the crime scene in the upstairs area of the home.
“Those items will be analyzed,” Esteban said, to determine whether they were used in the fatal stabbing. According to a written police statement on Monday, an autopsy on Trickel’s body is scheduled for today.
Schuster had not been charged as of Monday afternoon, Esteban said. Detectives were still investigating a possible second-degree murder charge.
“We still have some time,” Esteban said. “… (On Tuesday), we’ll have a more definitive answer to whether he’s charged or not. We’ll have to confer with the prosecutors.”
Esteban said the stabbing resulted from a “domestic incident.”
A written police statement on Sunday said that officers and Fire Department personnel who responded to a 6:18 a.m. call found Trickel with “no apparent signs of life.” Esteban said that the call was made from within the home at 28-1111 Pua St., but that neither Schuster nor McCann made the call.
In his TRO filing, Schuster claimed that Trickel “broke three lamps (which) were destroyed, broke a leg of a wooden table, destroyed a sofa couch, a crystal vase, koa bowl, Tiffany lamp broken into pieces, food from refrigerator was all over the place.” Schuster claimed that Trickel moved the stove and when Shuster turned off the gas, Trickel “threatened to kill” him.
Trickel was arrested and charged with criminal property damage for the incident and with violating conditions of his release the following month. Court records indicate that he wasn’t convicted of either charge.
McCann wrote in her TRO petition that Trickel “was drinking the night before” and “has bipolar disorder.” She wrote that she and Schuster went to the farmer’s market on the morning of Sept. 21, and when McCann returned to the car, she had “threatening messages” from Trickel on her phone. McCann stated that when she and Schuster arrived home, “the house was destroyed.” She wrote that Trickel “locked himself in our room.” She said she and Schuster broke down the door because Trickel “was suicidal.”
“Him and Daniel got into it and I kept getting in between,” McCann wrote. “Joshua then picked up the gas stove and threw it, breaking the gas pipe. We went to turn the gas off outside, while Joshua threatened to blow the place up. He emptied the fridge and threw the food all over, stuck a knife in the wall, broke all the chairs and couches, and destroyed other things in the house.”
McCann stated that Trickel told her to “pack up” her “s—-” and “clean up his mess.”
“He told me not to cry, kissed my forehead, and said that now he can kill himself,” she wrote, adding that police came and took Trickel to the hospital.
Both Schuster and McCann checked boxes on the TRO petition forms indicating that Trickel “may be mentally ill” and “may use illegal drugs.”
McCann also stated that she had taken out a prior restraining order against Trickel in Portland, Ore., in April 2010.
“He was drunk and I was leaving our apartment and relationship,” she wrote.” I was going to bed, when he told me that I wasn’t going to leave him. He cut himself with a piece of mirror. He then wrestled me (for) the phone and said that if I called the police, he would kill himself. I ran upstairs and the police were called.”
McCann stated that she was granted a TRO the following day and that Trickel was arrested later that month for violating the court order.
Court records state that Oct. 2, 2006, Trina M. Mikhael also filed for a TRO against Trickel in Honolulu Family Court. Her petition was denied.
Trickel has three convictions on petty misdemeanor charges in Hawaii, all on Oahu. On July 22, 2009, he was sentenced in Honolulu District Court to four days in jail for harassment and two counts of fourth-degree theft.
A check of court records turned up no prior criminal convictions in Hawaii for Schuster.
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-
herald.com.
