A tenant in Daniel Schuster’s Honomu home told police that Schuster fatally stabbed Joshua Trickel after Trickel stabbed Schuster first.
A police affidavit filed in Hilo District Court also indicated that the 30-year-old Trickel was the “boy/girl friend” of the 49-year-old Schuster.
Schuster made his initial court appearance Tuesday. Hilo District Judge Harry Freitas increased Schuster’s bail from $54,000 to $104,000 and ordered Schuster to appear Thursday afternoon for a 2 p.m. preliminary hearing in Courtroom 2B.
The court document said that Trickel was found early Sunday morning in an upstairs hallway in Schuster’s two-story home on 28-1111 Pua Street “face down in … a pool of blood coming from the right side of his abdomen.” According to the affidavit, Trickel did not have a pulse and medics “reported that Trickel had expired” at the scene.
The affidavit states that Schuster suffered an injury to his left forearm.
The document indicates that statement that Trickel stabbed Schuster first was made by 49-year-old Laura Serene, who identified herself to police as Schuster’s “downstairs tenant” and an “acquaintance.”
Schuster was charged Monday night with second-degree murder. He was also charged with third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Another police affidavit stated that police served a search warrant at Schuster’s home and found “two glass pipes with a white residue inside along with a small clear plastic ziplock bag with white residue inside.” The document said the residue in the pipes tested positive for methamphetamine.
Schuster filed for a temporary restraining order against Trickel last Sept. 22, alleging that Trickel had trashed Schuster’s home in a rage the previous morning, an account corroborated by Trickel’s live-in girlfriend, 34-year-old Sarah McCann, who also filed for a TRO the same day.
Schuster also alleged that Trickel had punched him in the stomach on March 11, 2011, rupturing his spleen and causing liver damage.
Those TROs were both dissolved on Oct. 4 at the request of Schuster and McCann.
Police Lt. Greg Esteban of the Hilo Criminal Investigations Section told the Tribune-Herald on Monday that that police recovered “edged instruments” from the crime scene in the upstairs area of the home, but did not elaborate on what those instruments were. There was no mention of those instruments in the court affidavits, but Esteban said they were to be tested to determine if they were used during the incident.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com