{"id":227515,"date":"2016-05-12T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T20:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=227515"},"modified":"2016-05-12T06:00:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T20:00:07","slug":"uncle-ids-hawaii-kids-police-say-killed-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uncle-ids-hawaii-kids-police-say-killed-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle IDs Hawaii kids police say were killed by their dad"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU<\/strong> (AP)\u2014An uncle of two Hawaii children police say were shot to death by their father was given the grim task of identifying their bodies, police said Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to avoid that,\u201d Hawaii Police Capt. Robert Wagner said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lasting impression.\u201d <\/p>\n

But with limited dental records available\u2014none for the younger child\u2014police asked their mother\u2019s brother for help even though it would be traumatic for him, Wagner said. <\/p>\n

Police said they were 7-year-old Clara Hoffman and 5-year-old John Hoffman. <\/p>\n

Their father, John Ali Hoffman, remained held on $2.75 million bail and is also charged with murder in the death of his wife. Earlier, police used fingerprints to identify her as Aracely Hoffman, whose name before marriage was Aracely del Carmen Monroy Urruela. Documents found in their home show they were married in 2008, police said. <\/p>\n

John Hoffman called police early Friday saying three to four intruders entered the house and shot his wife, according to court documents. Officers who arrived about 1:30 a.m. saw Hoffman driving away in a car with headlights off. They pulled him over, saw a handgun in the front passenger seat and blood dripping from the trunk, police said. <\/p>\n

Inside the trunk, police said they found Aracely Hoffman dead with a gunshot wound to her head. The children were dead inside the house, also shot in their heads, police said. <\/p>\n

A hearing is scheduled for June 14 to discuss findings of a panel of doctors ordered to evaluate Hoffman\u2019s mental health, said his court-appointed defense attorney Brian De Lima. <\/p>\n

Aracely Hoffman immigrated to Hawaii\u2019s Big Island from El Salvador with her brother in search of a better life, said Rose Bautista, an attorney on the island who helped her with immigration issues and went to Mass with her at Malia Puka O Kalani Catholic Church. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe came however often as she could come,\u201d Bautista said, noting that the Hilo church is about 25 miles away from the rural Puna neighborhood where the Hoffmans lived. She appreciated fellow Spanish-speaking parishioners on an island with only a small Salvadoran community, Bautista said. <\/p>\n

Her husband wouldn\u2019t allow the children to be baptized in the Catholic church, Bautista recalled. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know there were some language difficulties,\u201d Bautista said. \u201cThat\u2019s why she sought comfort in coming to a church … where she could speak the language.\u201d <\/p>\n

A bigger source of stress for the couple was her immigration problem, Bautista said. <\/p>\n

Married to a U.S. citizen, Aracely Hoffman would have been eligible for permanent resident status, commonly known as a green card. But there were some challenges to obtaining that status, which Bautista declined to discuss. <\/p>\n

Bautista met John Hoffman when the couple first began dating and the couple went to her office after they got married. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always angry at the world,\u201d Bautista said. \u201cAngry at the system.\u201d <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t seem to direct that anger at his wife, Bautista said, and she never discussed problems in the marriage. <\/p>\n

She kept a lot of things to herself, Bautista said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing with her, no matter what her situation was at home- which you knew wasn\u2019t the happiest\u2014she always smiled,\u201d Bautista said. \u201cShe was always smiling . but you could see it was a painful smile.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (AP)\u2014An uncle of two Hawaii children police say were shot to death by their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11464,11465,367,11466],"class_list":["post-227515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-aracely-hoffman","tag-carmen-monroy-urruela","tag-honolulu","tag-john-hoffman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}