Photo: The late Theresa Cachuela.
Husband shoots wife dead in front of their 6-year-old daughter
Theresa Cachuela, a 33-year-old mother of three, a popular influencer and owner of House of Glam Hawaii LLC in Waipahu, U.S, has been shot in the head and killed by her 44-year-old husband, Jason Cachuela, in front of their 6-year-old daughter.
Her daughter, who witnessed the shooting that took place in the parking lot of the Pearlridge Center told police that her dad pulled the trigger and killed her mum.
Local media reports said Jason shot himself dead shortly after fleeing the scene in a grey Mazda.
Police are investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide, which occurred two weeks after a judge granted the deceased’s petition for an order of protection against her estranged husband.
“This was not a random act, as the victim and suspect were involved in a relationship,” police Lt. Deena Thoemmes said before her husband was found dead, according to the Hawaii Tribune.
“We do know that there was a TRO from the Court that was served on him, which is why this case was classified as murder in the first degree,” she said, referring to a temporary restraining order.
When police served Jason with the TRO, they recovered his five registered firearms, the outlet reported.
“Her youngest daughter is the one that tragically saw everything,” Cachuela’s mother, Lucita Ani-Nihoa, told Hawaii News Now.
“She’s traumatized. She has so much faith, this little girl. She just … started praying.”
She added: “She doesn’t believe it. She doesn’t believe her mom is gone. I don’t believe it.”
According to the petition for the TRO, Cachuela had threatened to kill himself in front of her.
“He then took me alone to Waikiki and held a knife to his neck traumatizing me and scaring me.
“The next morning, he showed up to my house early in the morning to apologize. I tried to help him and talk to him but he kept threatening to kill himself again,” she wrote.
Cachuela’s mother described the tragic shooting on a GoFundMe page, saying her daughter, whom the family called “Tita,” had planned to have breakfast with her last Friday morning.
“I wanted to give her and my grandkids their Christmas gifts,” Ani-Nihoa wrote.
“My daughter did not deserve this. She was trying so hard to get help, but the Justice system failed her,” she wrote.
“We are so devastated with the loss of our beloved Tita. This has been so difficult for our family, which we were not prepared for,” the grieving mother continued.
Ani-Nihoa said her daughter Cachuela told relatives that she had been abused by her husband and filed the TRO due to his continued harassment and stalking.
“She wanted to leave him but he wasn’t accepting it. He tried to control her with, with everything … where she would go what she would do,” Ani-Nihoa said, adding that her daughter had recently filed for divorce.
In the days before the killing, Jason repeatedly threatened to commit suicide, reports said.
He was only permitted to contact Cachuela for child custody, KITV reported, adding that they had been married for 10 years.
Jason’s attorney, Michael Green, said the couple had agreed to visitation of the children, according to HNN.
Green told local media outlet, the Star-Advertiser, that his client has never threatened violence against Cachuela and the kids.
He told the outlet that the TRO was sought to help keep Cachuela from killing himself and that he had arranged for a psychological evaluation before the couple agreed on the terms of the TRO.
Ani-Nihoa said the shooting could have been prevented had her daughter’s requests for police help been taken more seriously.
“She’s been trying to tell the cops about all the issues that were going on about the gun that he pulled on her a couple of times already,” she told the outlet.
“He threatened to kill her. They never arrested him, knowing that he had guns, knowing that he tried to threaten, he threatened to kill the kids and her in her own garage. The court wasn’t there for her,” Ani-Nihoa said.
“The system failed her — and now she’s gone,” she added.
