After visiting the gravesite of her father, George Cabral, at the Koloa Public Cemetery last Sunday, Colleen Louis and her husband drove away angry and outraged. They were appalled by what they said was the desecration of Cabral’s headstone —
After visiting the gravesite of her father, George Cabral, at the Koloa Public Cemetery last Sunday, Colleen Louis and her husband drove away angry and outraged.
They were appalled by what they said was the desecration of Cabral’s headstone — the removal of a ceramic cowboy hat and cowboy boots that had been affixed to the tombstone in memory of Cabral, who loved country and western music and things western.
Cabral died at the age of 65 on June 8, 1998, following a two-year battle with terminal intestinal cancer.
The vandalism of his headstone has stunned Louis, her two sisters and other family members who have had more than their share of personal grief.
They are mourning the death of Louis’ grandmother two weeks ago. At the same time, Louis and other family members on Kaua’i and O’ahu are trying to put behind them a heinous crime last year that took the life of their sister, Miulan Aguiar, 39, of ‘Ele’ele.
Aguiar’s husband, Gregory Manuel Agiuar, 50, set her afire at the couple’s home on March 12. Burned over 70 percent of her body, she died later in a Honolulu hospital. Gregory Aguiar was sentenced this month to life in prison.
“All these things are like an attack on the family,” Louis said. “This has not been an easy time for us.”
Following Cabral’s death and in his memory, his family had the outline of a guitar and musical notes in country western motif etched onto his headstone at the cemetery.
During a ceramics class they took together, Louis and her son, Bryston, now 14, fashioned a pair of 12-inch cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. The family first attached the boots to the headstone in June 1999, the first anniversary of Cabral’s death.
Three months later, family members were surprised to find the boots had been pried off and taken away, Louis said. But a week later, the boots returned as mysteriously as they had disappeared.
Feeling somewhat assured the boots were not going to be taken away a second time, the family had the cowboy hat attached to the tombstone, as well.
The theft of both ceramic figures last Sunday has rocked the family again.
“I don’t, for the life of me, know how they pried the hat and boots off. And why?” Louis said.
Cabral, a lifelong Kalaheo resident, was a friendly man, and his love for country and western music went back to his teenage years in the 1940s when, following the footsteps of five brothers, he assembled his own country western band, Louis said.
She said Cabral sang live on Kaua’i radio station KTOH in the 1950s and was a lifelong friend of Patrick Victorino, Kauai’s only country radio disc jockey.
Cabral knew all the country western artists, “every song they sang,” Louis said. His favorites were Charlie Pride and Hank Williams Sr.
Cabral enjoyed country songs because “they told a story,” Louis said. “I didn’t like listening to it when I was growing up, but as I got older and he got older, I learned to love what he loved.”
Although divorced early in his life, Cabral was a devoted family man, Louis recalled. She said he showed his love for Louis and her sister, Lillian, and brother, Chad, with gifts of county western clothes and paraphernalia.
“When my sisters and I had children, he became very close to them, as well,” Louis said. “He adored his four grandchildren.”
Cabral worked as sugar plantation employee for at least 15 years but had to find other work after he was hurt on the job and became disabled.
Cabral was highly religious, a lifelong parishioner of Kalaheo Catholic Church. During his bout with cancer, Cabral sought out God for strength, Louis said.
During his final years, Cabral also took comfort in having built a strong relationship with her and her son, Louis said.
She and other family members visit his gravesite every other week, each time bringing fresh flowers — and too often finding it vandalized.
Louis said she plans to file a police complaint and will seek prosecution of those who stole from the gravesite.
“If there are others who have had this done to them, I want to know,” Louis said. “This shouldn’t happen to anybody.”
Kaua’i County deputy prosecutor Bryant Zane said the damage to the Cabral headstone is “bizarre” and that his office has not prosecuted many cases like this one. But the full weight of the law will be applied on the person or persons responsible for the vandalism, Zane said.
A person convicted of desecrating a burial site could face a maximum one-year prison term and a maximum $2,000 fine, Zane said.
A slew of other charges — theft, criminal property damage and criminal tampering – also are possible, Zane said.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
