This Common Precursor To Murder Is Too Rarely Prosecuted On Maui

Last October, Janinekara Sturgeon’s boyfriend grabbed her by the neck and shoved her up against a wall. 

“I could not breath (sic) or yell for help,” the 43-year-old Maui mother wrote in an application for a temporary restraining order filed on Oct. 22. 

Four months later, she was found stabbed to death in her Kahului apartment. Her boyfriend, 41-year-old Danny Freitas, is charged with her murder. 

Victims who survive being strangled or choked by their abuser are at a much higher risk of being killed by them later, prosecutors say.   

But in Maui County, where the rate of domestic violence is higher than any other county in the state, prosecutors file charges in only about half of the strangulation cases referred to them by police. Even fewer result in conviction.

Domestic violence cases are some of the hardest to prosecute because victims are often unable or unwilling to testify against their abusers. But these cases can also be deadly. About a quarter of all homicides in Maui County are domestic violence-related.

Following two high-profile killings of women — including Sturgeon — that shook Maui earlier this year, Maui County Prosecutor Andrew Martin said he wants his office to focus on prosecuting strangulation cases to prevent more deaths. His goal is to increase prosecutions, even without the cooperation of victims, by improving evidence collection, implementing a countywide protocol for how to handle investigations and increasing bail for people in high-risk domestic violence cases.

He’s applied for a Department of Justice grant to hire a full-time forensic nurse to collect physical evidence from strangulation victims soon after their injury. He also wants to create a new position in his department for a domestic violence resource prosecutor assigned solely to strangulation cases.

“We want to focus on these strangulation cases to be able to give them the look that they deserve,” he said, “to be able to have the impact that we need.”

‘Calling Card Of A Killer’

Strangling someone is the most extreme way to exert power and control short of killing them, said Gael Strack, CEO and co-founder of Hope Alliance, a national nonprofit that supports domestic violence survivors and provides training on how to prosecute strangulation crimes.

But it wasn’t until a study published in 2008 showed that prior non-fatal strangulation increased a woman’s odds of being killed seven-fold that prosecutors really began to pay attention to the issue, she said. 

“We’d been missing it for many, many years, not realizing strangulation is the calling card of a killer,” said Strack, who previously worked as a prosecutor in San Diego. 

In Sturgeon’s restraining order application, she wrote that Freitas held her by the throat and pushed her down onto the couch while her 13-year-old daughter was asleep in the house. 

“I kicked him off of me and my daughter heard this commotion and woke up screaming,” she wrote. 

Her boyfriend was charged on Oct. 23 with abuse of a family or household member under the statute’s section 9a, which deals with applying pressure to the throat or neck in order to cause injury. He was released the next day on $5,000 bail, according to court records. 

He stabbed Sturgeon to death on Feb. 26. 

The changes being pushed for in Maui might not have made a difference for Sturgeon, since her boyfriend was being prosecuted for strangulation at the time of her death. But her case highlights the dangers posed by abusers who strangle their victims and the need for more focus on those types of cases.

Martin is also directing his prosecutors to seek higher bail amounts for defendants charged with strangulation. While prosecutors normally ask for $5,000 to $10,000 in class C felony cases, they are now requesting $50,000 in strangulation cases.

Members of Sturgeon’s family declined to be interviewed for this story because the case is ongoing. 

Despite an increased awareness of the risks, Maui’s prosecution rate of strangulation cases has decreased in recent years.

In 2020, 43 strangulation cases were referred to the Maui County Prosecutor’s Office. Ten of those cases were declined outright and 12 resulted in pleas to lesser charges, such as misdemeanor abuse of a family or household member. 

In 2024, the same number of cases were referred to prosecutors, but 22 were declined. Four have so far resulted in pleas to lesser charges and the rest are pending.

To analyze Maui’s prosecution rate for strangulation cases, Martin’s team combed through domestic violence records case by case to pinpoint which ones involved strangulation. That data isn’t publicly reported in other counties.

It’s difficult to say why more cases are getting declined, Martin said. The primary reasons prosecutors don’t file charges are lack of cooperation by the victim or of documented injuries or other evidence.

Improving Prosecution Rates

One of Martin’s goals is to improve his office’s ability to charge strangulation cases when victims won’t cooperate. That will require more advanced evidence collection at the start of an investigation.

About half of strangulation victims don’t have obvious external injuries, like bruising. A forensic nurse would need to examine victims for subtle signs of strangulation, like petechiae — tiny red or purple spots on the skin from burst capillaries.

The nurse could also ask victims questions that could indicate they were strangled, like whether they lost consciousness, if they urinated or defecated themselves or if their voice is more hoarse than it was before the attack. Victims of strangulation can have difficulty remembering clearly what happened to them because of trauma and lack of blood flow to the brain.

If he doesn’t get the $750,000 federal grant to help pay for a forensic nurse and prosecutor for three years, Martin said he’s going to ask the county for approval to fund the efforts through his office’s budget.

“We want to find the funding for it no matter what,” he said.

Strack said counties should have protocols for responding to strangulation incidents, including training dispatchers to recognize signs of strangulation over the phone, such as a victim gasping for breath, coughing or speaking with a raspy voice. Dispatchers should also collect spontaneous statements from victims that can later be admitted as evidence in court.

Strack’s organization did a two-day training on Maui last year for prosecutors, police, advocates and other professionals.  

Many victims, especially those with no visible injuries, do not report what happened to them or seek medical attention, she said. But they can suffer extreme physical consequences, including brain damage or a stroke. 

“Focusing on strangulation is really about homicide prevention,” she said. “With proper training and investigation and training for prosecutors, these cases can be prosecuted and won.”

Defendants convicted of strangling a family or household member, which is a class C felony, can face five years in prison. When in prison or out on probation, Martin said, offenders can access rehabilitative services or be monitored in ways that could make them less likely to reoffend.

Highest Rate In The State

In Maui County, nearly 18% of adults reported experiencing domestic violence, the highest of any county in the state, according to the Hawaiʻi State Coalition on Domestic Violence. The rate in Honolulu County was the lowest at 12%. 

Sanoe Ka’aihue, executive director of Women Helping Women, a Maui advocacy organization for domestic violence victims with offices in Hana and Lānaʻi, questions the accuracy of the numbers and believes they may be artificially high. But domestic violence rates in the county do appear to be growing.

Crisis calls to Women Helping Women’s hotline alone have more than doubled over the past six years. The hotline received 990 crisis calls in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, and 2,260 calls this past fiscal year. 

It’s difficult to analyze trends because the sample size is small and people call for many different reasons, Ka’aihue said. For example, after the wildfires in August 2023, calls to the hotline spiked, but many of them were from people searching for their loved ones. 

Sturgeon’s killing, which happened only a month after authorities said a 68-year-old great-grandmother was choked and beaten to death by her husband in Haʻikū, shook the Maui community, Ka’aihue said.

According to her obituary, Sturgeon had four children and had almost completed an associate’s degree in business and accounting when she was killed. 

“She took great pride in having an outstanding grade point average,” the obituary said. “She was a true gem in our family who will always be cherished and remembered.” 

Freitas was charged with one count of second-degree murder on March 7. He is now being held without bail. Danielle Sears, deputy public defender with the Maui Public Defender’s Office — which is representing Freitas — declined to comment on the case. 

Martin also doesn’t know why the data shows Maui County has the highest rate of domestic violence, but “it’s not an area where you want to lead the state,” he said. He’s pulling together a coalition of organizations that work on domestic violence issues, and plans to hold a summit later this year to discuss strategies for preventing domestic abuse.

“If we’re really going to make a difference,” he said, “it’s got to be community-wide.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

By. Madeleine Valera