Woman describes captivity in alleged kidnapping

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL @STARADVERTISER.COM Anthony F. Pereira II is being tried before a Circuit Court judge for allegedly killing his 66-year-old mother, Barbara Pereira, on June 10, 2016. Pereira also allegedly kidnapped a 48-year-old woman and held her captive three days. He was an OCCC training sergeant at the time.

1 /1 CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL @STARADVERTISER.COM Anthony F. Pereira II is being tried before a Circuit Court judge for allegedly killing his 66-year-old mother, Barbara Pereira, on June 10, 2016. Pereira also allegedly kidnapped a 48-year-old woman and held her captive three days. He was an OCCC training sergeant at the time.

A 56-year-old Waianae woman testified Thursday to the harrowing details of being held captive in June 2016 for three days in the house of a Maili man she had just met.

State’s witness Dodie Guzman appeared fearful as she glanced briefly at her alleged former captor, as she described how he allegedly fired a shot that whizzed past her head, shot his 66-year-old mother, and how Guzman managed to escape.

Guzman says she does not know why Anthony F. Pereira II, now 52, whom she knew as Tony, shot his mother, Barbara Pereira, in the leg and later fatally shot her, but said he was depressed and upset about his wife not being with him.

The testimony came on Day 2 of the jury-waived murder and kidnapping trial of Pereira, who was an Oahu Community Correctional Center training officer in 2016.

Harrison Kiehm, Pereira’s attorney, in cross-examining Guzman, asked whether she recalled Pereira having his wife’s wedding dress hanging in the house.

She said she told Pereira, “Why you looking at that ? It’s only going to make you more miserable.”

Guzman said Pereira repeatedly scrolled through his mother’s phones and looked in her purse, and he showed Guzman dark, scary photos, mostly of “one lady ” that “looked screwed up.”

Kiehm said, “Basically, he was accusing his mother of having killed his wife and daughter.”

Guzman replied, “No, I don’t know. He was just freaking out.”

“Is she dead ?” Guzman asked Kiehm of Pereira’s wife.

He later told the court Pereira’s wife and daughter will testify today.

Deputy Prosecutor Molly O’Neill asked Guzman how she met Pereira.

Guzman said they met at about 10 a.m. June 8, 2016, at the house of Guzman’s friend, who was a classmate of Pereira.

The group jumped into Pereira’s truck, stopped at a 7-Eleven and went to a Waianae game room. Guzman told him she was going to walk home since she didn’t have money to gamble.

“He said, ‘We go my house and come right back.’ I figured he was fine. We were talking. He said he was going to pick up something. Everything seemed all right.”

She said after parking his truck, he locked the gate with a combination lock, then later a padlock, which she thought was strange.

Guzman said that first day, Wednesday, he was “still good ” and shared about the stress of his marriage. But after hours passed, she kept telling him she needed to go home, and he would say, “Sister, just wait. I take you home.”

“I didn’t know what was going on—something with his wife and his kids, ” who were not around, she said.

While Guzman was there, she said, he talked with his daughter by phone.

Guzman’s phone had died, and her family was out of town. Pereira kept talking until late that night, and she ended up sleeping on one bed and he on another, but he didn’t really sleep, she said.

On Thursday morning, June 9, 2016, Pereira’s mother briefly stopped by and returned at about 3 or 4 p.m. with chicken. She spoke with her son in the garage, while Guzman remained in a studio portion of the two-story house.

The mother then told her, “He has his guns out. Can you please talk to him ?”

“This was getting weird with the mother, the guns, ” Guzman said. “I trying to keep busy. I never like freak out. I just wanted to comfort him, too, because I didn’t know what was going on.

“I tried to calm him down … but never happened, ” Guzman said. “He would go back and forth ” between the garage and the studio.

Guzman said Pereira had three guns, and identified photos of an AR-15-style rifle, a Glock pistol and a Smith and Wesson revolver, and kept all three and a knife close to him.

Guzman said he “wasn’t the person I was talking to that (first ) night. He was a whole different person. … Something made him click.”

When Pereira’s mother tried to grab her things to leave, he shot her in the thigh with the Glock, Guzman said.

“I yelled, ‘What are you doing ?’ He said, ‘Shut the f—up, ’” Guzman said.

On Friday morning, June 10, 2016, Pereira put a cut water bottle filled with bullets between Guzman’s legs. She told him if he shot it, she’d be dead.

Guzman said he then shot once at or near her head and that it “felt the wind, like whoosh, ” as a bullet passed by. “I thought I was going to die. I prayed. I get two beautiful kids, ” she said.

Also on Friday, Guzman said she saw Pereira light a pipe, and after sniffing the contents of a wine jug, he “went into one whole different zone.”

She repeatedly asked to get his mother medical help, and he finally allowed Guzman to take the mother to the hospital if she found his keys.

She found the keys, drove his truck up close to the garage, but the mother passed out.

Pereira told her to shut the garage door and he would take care of it, Guzman said. She then asked, “What you going do, you going cut her leg off ?”

Kiehm asked Guzman, “He even told you to finish his mother off ?”

She said she told him, “‘You might as well kill me right now, ’ because I never could have.”

Guzman said at that point Pereira wasn’t going to let her escape, so she put the truck in reverse, broke through the gate and drove as fast as she could, ignoring red lights, to the Waianae police station.

“He shot his mom. You need to get help, ” she told police. “I was so afraid he was coming after me.”

By that time, she said, the call came in for a shooting. Barbara Pereira was found shot in the head, in a pool of blood in the garage.