Jade Navor is a woman of faith, and her faith remains intact despite the tragic loss by gun violence of two men she loves.
Her brother, Sheldon Navor, died of a fatal gunshot in 2017, and her partner of 15 years, Ben Davidson — whom she referred to as her husband — was taken by a gunman’s bullets last month in the Puainako Town Center parking lot.
“There’s always good that comes out of it, and I’m just trying to figure out what that good’s going to be,” Navor told the Tribune-Herald last week. “We just started doing family therapy, family counseling. And we keep in contact with our church, because we go to New Hope-Hilo. And it’s helping, because I have contact with the pastors.
“It’s been two years since my brother passed, and I was kind of getting to a point to being emotionally OK. But now my husband is murdered, and it’s just re-started, and I just grieve all over again. You know, it’s just hard.”
Davidson, the 41-year-old father of the couple’s three children, had just arrived for his 4 a.m. shift as a maintenance worker at the Hilo shopping complex when he was shot to death as he sat in his vehicle the morning of Dec. 18.
Navor’s 40-year-old brother was shot once in the head in the early morning of May 12, 2017, at his Hinano Street home in Hilo’s Waiakea Houselots neighborhood. He died three days later at Hilo Medical Center.
Police have identified a suspect and forwarded their investigation to prosecutors, but to date, no one has been charged and the family still awaits justice in his case.
Navor said Davidson, whom she described as “really artistic” and who worked as a house painter on the side, had been employed at the shopping center about a year and “was excited to get the job.”
“He was actually a stay-at-home dad. He was staying at home with our kids so that I could work. And then, finally, he got this job, and I was so proud, he was making his own money,” she said.
Teachers from Waiakeawaena Elementary and Waiakea Elementary, Intermediate and High schools assembled at noon Friday in the Waiakea Elementary School parking lot with Navor and her children to offer their love and support and to release balloons to honor Davidson.
Police on Dec. 20 arrested 30-year-old Jarvis Boots of Mountain View and charged him with second-degree murder in Davidson’s homicide.
Boots also was charged with two counts of attempted murder for a Dec. 2 shooting near the Papaikou transfer station that critically injured 24-year-old Anthony Moniz. Boots also allegedly shot at but missed 50-year-old Juan Lopez during that incident.
“(Davidson) was real,” Navor said. “We loved each other, and he had his own ways of telling me that he loved me. He was very loving father, and sometimes he disciplined them, but it was to make sure that they continued to learn and not give up. He was always positive.”
Asked what she misses the most about her partner, Navor said, simply, “Ben not being here with us.”
“He would cook our meals and go shopping for us. He would pay the bills and get the kids clothes. With our sons, he loves them, and he would help them become men, but it works in our family that our daughter was his favorite,” she said.
“A lot of people have been helpful, and they say, ‘If you need any help, just let us know.’ But the part of me that would ask just doesn’t know what to ask for.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
