KAILUA-KONA — Families of the couple found dead inside an Alii Drive apartment Friday say the agony of not knowing what happened to their loved ones is compounding their sorrow.
While police haven’t identified the deceased, the families on Monday identified the couple as 48-year-old Joy Mills-Ferren and 56-year-old Brad Wood-Ferren.
“The tears don’t stop,” said Linda Y. Leilani Mills, mother of Mills-Ferren, on Monday outside her late daughter’s Alii Lani apartment. “She was the most dedicated, loyal and loving heart. She had so much to live for and the most beautiful hula dancer I have ever seen.”
Mills-Ferren, an Oahu native who had lived on the Big Island 10 years, was a lifeguard at Laaloa and Kahaluu beaches. She was an avid ocean-goer versed in Hawaiian culture and conservation.
“She was full of life, full of laughter,” Leilani Mills said. “Her neighbors said they could always hear her laughing all the way down, that she had an infectious laugh.”
Wood-Ferren was a Hawaii Preparatory Academy graduate who operated his own brush and weed business and loved teaching Hawaiian culture, as well as participating in conservation efforts such as beach cleanups. He was a father of two from a previous relationship.
Officers arrived at 9:49 a.m. Friday at the complex on the 75-6000 block of Alii Drive after neighbor Susan Olson, at the behest of Leilani Mills, performed a welfare check and came across the bodies in the bedroom. She said Friday that she had not seen activity in the apartment for four days.
Police on Monday said foul play is suspected, and the case remains under investigation. Police are waiting for a forensic pathologists to come in from Oahu to perform an autopsy.
Both families said the uncertainty of waiting and not knowing what happened — or when it happened — compounds the agony.
“That is extremely frustrating,” Leilani Mills said. “Just give us a date … I can’t fathom that, I can’t understand that.”
Annie Ferren, mother of Wood-Ferren, echoed those sentiments.
“That’s having a toll on my psyche,” Ferren said. “That’s all I think about.”
She said if extra forensic pathologists are hired on island to expedite the process for future families, that would be one good thing to come of the tragedy.
“It’s pretty hard on my … heart,” she said about the waiting. “Because there is no closure, everything is so open.”
She said her son was a kind and caring person, with a deep appreciation for the island.
“He loved life, he loved to be involved in the community,” she said about the man who, with his wife, was part of the Thirty Meter Telescope demonstrations on Maunakea. “He loved to be involved in the culture, the Hawaiian culture.”
Leilani Mills said the couple’s relationship was strained at the end. Olson described it similarly Friday. Ferren on Monday, however, said the relationship seemed normal.
“I understood it to be a normal marriage with the normal ups and downs,” she said, “but mostly ups as they loved the same things.”
She said she hopes the couple is remembered for their love for the land.
“Their love of the aina,” she said.
Mills-Ferren leaves behind a sister and brother.
“She was all about giving and caring, there was not a bad bone in her body,” said her sister, Yvonne.
She described her younger sibling as talented, someone who could do anything she wanted. Mills-Ferren was a hurdler in high school track, rhythm dancer and artist with a degree in graphic art, among other things.
Anyone who might have information about this incident is asked to call the Police Department’s nonemergency line at 935-3311 or contact Detective Dominic Uyetake at 326-4646, ext. 228, or dominic.uyetake@hawaiicounty.gov.
Email Tom Hasslinger at thasslinger@westhawaiitoday.com.