PARK CITY — A year ago this month, her brother was shot and beaten to death at a nightclub. But Lupe Garcia says the pain of her loss is just as raw today as when she first heard of the murder.
Garcia, who is Tongan, denounced the man who admitted guilt, Finau Tukuafu, and questioned how he could attack and kill a fellow Tongan.
Tukuafu, 26, pleaded guilty to criminal homicide by assault, a third-degree felony, for his role in killing Kautoke Tangitau, 30. The slaying occurred during a melee Oct. 14, 2003, at Club Suede, a Kimball Junction nightclub.
"Are you proud now that you killed a man?" Garcia said this past week in a lengthy and impassioned victim-impact statement. "When I came into the courtroom, I expected to see a monster, but I see you — one of my own kind. How can you live with yourself?"
Garcia said the coroner's report noted a bullet hole in her brother's torso, as well as many bruises and footprints on his head and body. Her brother did not deserve such a lonely and degrading death — and his wife, two young daughters and seven brothers and sisters do not deserve to be deprived of Tangitau's company so early in life, she said.
Garcia also criticized those who would characterize this as simply a gang fight or "another Polynesian thing" because she said her brother's life had great value, and he will be deeply missed.
Third District Judge Bruce Lubeck, citing Tukuafu's previous criminal history, said prison was deserved. He sentenced Tukuafu to zero to five years in prison and ordered the sentence to run consecutively with any others Tukuafu may receive in other cases.
"No one looks at this as just another Polynesian fight," Lubeck said. "This case is what it is."
Defense attorney David Shapiro took issue with certain parts of a pre-sentence report and asked the judge to give credit for the year Tukuafu has already spent in jail. However, Lubeck said he would simply note the jail time that had been served.
Prosecutor Robert Adkins said Tukuafu, while on probation or parole, has been involved with drugs, firearms and contact with gang members, as well as failing to make court appearances.
"I believe the defendant is a danger to society, and society needs to be protected from Mr. Tukuafu," Adkins said. "Hopefully, incarceration will impress upon him the need to change his life. He's still young."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com