A cousin of Jolene Kapua-Allison described the 54-year-old woman who was shot to death Sunday in what police described as a murder-suicide as “Miss Aloha.”
“Her friends, family and co-workers knew her as ‘Miss Aloha,’ because that’s what she was. She always had a flower in her hair; she had long hair. She was so sweet,” Jodene Aquino Hiu said Monday afternoon. “We grew up together. Her and I were flower girls in our aunt’s and uncle’s wedding. She was the small, tiny gentle ‘Miss Aloha.’ … That was her persona.”
The bodies of Jolene Kapua-Allison and her estranged husband, Hawaii Police Department Officer Christopher Kapua-Allison, were found by police Sunday afternoon at the Kini Street home in Mountain View they once shared. County tax records lists “Christopher Robert Allison” as the home’s sole owner.
According to Jolene Kapua-Allison’s Facebook page, she worked at Roberts Hawaii and J. Hara Store and lived in Hilo. The woman’s Facebook page also contains a long list of condolences, as well as expressions of shock and anger over her death.
Aquino Hiu said her cousin, who had two children from a relationship prior to her marriage to Kapua-Allison, used to work at the downtown Hilo Longs Drugs.
“She worked for Longs for about 10 years, and then she left and worked for Roberts Hawaii seasonal and then J. Hara part-time,” she said.
Aquino Hiu said her cousin had left her husband several months ago because he had insisted on everything being in his name and didn’t allow her to have friends outside his own circle.
“He was controlling and had the money,” she said. “But she was the one who had the love for everybody, that everybody wanted to be around. She was always laughing and smiling. She really was the representative of what Hawaii represents.
“We don’t know why she went back to the house.”
Police issued a media release late Sunday about the murder-suicide, but didn’t name either decedent nor the manner of death. Aquino Hiu said her family was told Christopher Kapua-Allison, who was assigned to the Kona Traffic Enforcement Unit, shot his wife and then himself.
Police Capt. Randall Medeiros of the Hilo Criminal Investigation Division said autopsies on both bodies are scheduled for Tuesday, and police will not have any further statement until then.
According to the Hawaii Police Department website, Christopher Kapua-Allison, then a Hilo patrol officer, and Sgt. George Makua shared East Hawaii Officer of the Month status for February 2010.
Kapua-Allison and Makua were honored after they ended a standoff peacefully by talking a Hilo man who threatened to harm himself into surrendering two large knives.
The officer was twice honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving as a DUI enforcer. He made 30 DUI arrests in 2010, fifth most in the department, earning an award by the group in 2011. In 2013, he was honored again by MADD, this time as their “Top Cop” on the Big Island in 2012, with 104 DUI arrests.
Aquino Hiu said she had been looking forward to a planned reunion with her cousin.
“I’ve been crying, because I missed her so much,” she said. “I just talked to her a week-and-a-half ago, and I was supposed to go to Hilo the first week of May. She was going to pick me up in her new car, her new Renegade, and she was gonna stay with me at my uncle’s because he has two guest bedrooms. We were going to connect for the first time in a long time, because each time I would go over to Hilo, I couldn’t see her, and I didn’t know why.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.