Eugene Barrett

Eugene Walter Barrett (June 30, 1931 – November 8, 2003) was an American serial killer who murdered three women he was romantically involved with in Honolulu, Hawaii from 1959 to 1995. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the final murder and died in prison in 2003. He was the first confirmed and one of only three known serial killers active in the state, the others being the unidentified Honolulu Strangler and the Kauai serial killer.

Early life Eugene Walter Barrett was born on June 30, 1931, in Oakland, California, the older of two sons born to Howard and Emily Barrett (née Amorin). Little is known about his childhood, other than the fact that he studied at the Washington Intermediate School in Honolulu until he dropped out in the ninth grade. He later joined the Army and fought in the Korean War, but was dishonorably discharged in 1955 due to his excessive drinking.

At his subsequent trial, Barrett claimed that he could not recall the shooting, as he was drunk at the time. This was contradicted by witnesses, who claimed that he said that she "deserved it". After his arrest, he waived his right to trial and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, was paroled in 1976 and his parole requirements were dismissed in 1982. While there was no confirmed intimate relationship between the pair, Barrett privately accused Kastner of mocking him by dating other men and supposedly indecently exposing herself in front of him. After one such bout, he voluntarily asked to be admitted for psychiatric treatment at The Queen's Medical Center, where he remained until early August 1995. By the time of his release, Kastner had moved to a neighboring apartment across the street, which had angered Barrett, who believed that she would move away from the neighborhood altogether.

On August 11, 1995, just a few days after his release, Barrett spent most of the day drinking beer with his brother and a friend. After he went to get more at the local store, he saw Kastner entering her apartment. Barrett's third murder charge sparked controversy, leading the chief of the Hawaii Paroling Authority, Claudio Suyat, to release a statement claiming a repeat offender with the accused man's record would never be paroled with contemporary laws. This claim was partially granted when the judge revoked his bail, leading to him being imprisoned until his trial would take place.

At the trial itself, Barrett's attorney reiterated that his client's actions were the result of Kastner's perceived mistreatment of him, which eventually led to him snapping and killing her in a fit of rage. The sentence was commended by prosecutor Fred Titcomb, who also stated that his original life sentence should have never been commuted, and that if his daughter had been killed, he would have sued the state for damages.

Death After his sentencing, Barrett was transferred to an out-of-state facility in Oklahoma, where he spent the majority of his prison sentence. He was occasionally contacted by his son's wife, who sent him photos of his grandsons, as his son resented him too much to do it himself. In 2003, Barrett was returned to Hawaii and lodged in the Halawa Correctional Facility, but fell ill and was transferred to the Pali Momi Medical Center in Waimalu, where he died from an undisclosed illness on November 8.