A Waipio Valley resource ranger testified Wednesday that the defendant in a fatal shooting two years ago in the valley came to his home to tell him he had found the man’s body.
Darren Gamayo said that in the early evening of March 3, 2016, Wayne Teves arrived at about 5:35 p.m. at Gamayo’s home and said he had discovered 49-year-old Thaine Price “laying in the river” that ran behind Teves’ home. Gamayo said Teves, who is on trial for second-degree murder for the slaying of Price, said Price was “laying there, lifeless.”
Gamayo told the jury he asked Teves, “What you mean, lifeless? Is he dead?”
“Then he said, ‘Yeah, he’s not moving. He’s just laying there, lifeless,’” Gamayo added, saying Teves acted as though he was shocked.
“At that point, I told him to sit right there, and I was going to call 911,” Gamayo testified.
Gamayo, who works for Hawaii County at the Waipio Valley overlook “providing information about the valley to the general public,” said he had picked up Teves in the late afternoon on March 2 and March 3, 2016, and gave him a ride to the driveway of Gamayo’s home. Teves presumably walked from there to his own home in the back of the remote Hamakua valley, about a 15-minute walk, according to Gamayo.
Gamayo said before he dropped off Teves on March 2, Teves asked if he could catch a ride with him to the top of the valley the following morning, and Gamayo agreed, telling Teves to meet him at about 6 a.m. He said Teves didn’t show up the following morning.
Gamayo testified that on the evening of March 2, shortly before dark, he “heard shots coming from the back of the valley.”
“We was thinking, oh, must be hunters, but was unusual the way the shots were fired,” Gamayo told the jury.
Asked by Deputy Prosecutor Joe Lee what was unusual, Gamayo replied, “Just the way the shots came. I heard one single shot and then about five after, repetitious. … Like a short burst.”
Gamayo said he didn’t see the headlights of any vehicles entering or leaving the valley after dark as he might had the shots come from hunters.
According to Gamayo, he was aware of bad blood between Teves and Price, who were neighbors, over the latter damming up the river, which had allegedly caused flooding in Teves’ home.
Gamayo said when he picked up Teves for a ride into the valley March 3, Teves said he hadn’t shown up as agreed that morning because Teves “got home and he saw Thaine messing around with the water-head again near his house, and he didn’t want to get into a confrontation with him, so he just packed up, and he spent the night at the beach.”
“On March 3, 2017, did you ask Mr. Teves about the gunshots that you heard the night before?” Lee inquired.
“He said he didn’t hear them because he was down at the beach,” Gamayo replied.
The trial continues Monday in the courtroom of Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.