Family complaint may have provoked shooting in Waianae that left 4 dead and 2 injured

WAIANAE (HawaiiNewsNow) – The man who shot five people, killing three of them, in Waianae on Saturday has been identified by his family as 58-year-old Hiram Silva.

Silva was killed after the shooting by a 42-year-old local resident, whom police arrested for murder but released on Monday without charge or explanation.

The victims' families gave friends further details about what happened before the murders.

The incident may have begun when people attending a graduation party at the Silva estate left tires smoking on the narrow driveway shared by several properties along Waianae Valley Road.

Members of the family, holding their own meeting, went to the Silvas' residence to confront them.

According to police, Silva used a front-end loader with fuel drums in the bucket to push cars into the covered porch of the neighbor's home on Waianae Valley Road. After causing about 45 seconds of destruction, he began firing between 15 and 20 shots.

The incident was over in about two minutes. Three residents of the house were dead, two others injured, and Silva was shot by the 42-year-old male resident.

The coroner has not yet publicly released the identities of the three women who died. They were aged 34, 36 and 29, and friends say they all lived on the property, which includes at least two houses next to farmland.

A 31-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman are still in critical condition in hospital.

Philip Ganaban, a member of the Waianae Neighborhood Board, was on site Monday and said he is a friend of the family and knows the Silvas.

“Hiram was a really quiet guy and he always had his own way of doing things that were not kosher or whatever you call it,” he said. “He would fire his gun, get drunk and fire his gun, but he never fought back and pointed it at people.”

When identifying Silva, his family said he was a family man and loving father.

Silva was known for his past as an illegal garbage dumper with his company, SER Trucking. His large property at the end of the driveway includes a large factory building that he rented out for sometimes wild parties even when gatherings were banned during the pandemic, leading to numerous complaints from the family he attacked.

“According to the family, he was very intimidated, but he never spoke up and did anything,” Ganaban said. “He fired his gun, made noise and shone his spotlight on the property, but he never spoke up and said, 'I'm going to kill you, I'm going to do this to you.'”

The shooting is the latest and worst in a season of gun violence in Waianae that has left the entire community on edge, including local resident Cathy Kaaaina.

“I'm prepared. You know, there was a bat on one door, another on the other,” she told Hawaii News Now. “If people know there's a dispute, then they need to get counseling. They need to get counseling.”

On Monday morning, the family sat on the damaged porch of their home, receiving a steady stream of visitors and politely declining to comment to reporters.

The 42-year-old man whom police wanted to charge with Silva's murder was released by police without explanation.

Ganaban said the family still feared reprisals, but had been denied any protection and there was no sign of police on Monday morning.

“That's the fear right now, you know what I mean?” he said. “The father was shot on their property for what he did, and he has a lot of children and grandchildren, right? So they don't know.”

Police declined to comment Monday and did not make anyone available to answer questions about one of the worst shooting incidents in Hawaii's recent history.

In addition to the tragedy of mourning three fatalities and waiting for the recovery of two more, the family faces a very practical problem: The front loader remains stuck under the roof of the covered porch, and they are not sure who will remove it without causing further damage to the house.

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