Elderly man found dead in Fagatogo stream by the Market Place
Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The market at Fagatogo remained open, and also the Christian Open Air Evangelical Program continued without hesitation despite an incident discovered right next door.
During the early hours of Saturday, August 12, 2023, the body of an elderly man was found lifeless in a stream just about 20 or fewer yards away from the busy market place and church program.
A young woman who had arrived there to set up the loud speaker system for their open air Christian program saw police and an ambulance by the bridge and she started filming the activities live, while a woman was screaming in pity for the victim.
Someone at the market told police what happened, that's when police went next door to the yacht marina to fetch a person that was allegedly identified as a suspect.
The alleged suspect, according to one of the farmers at the market, whose name is withheld by request, says, “The suspect is the husband of the woman that looks after the elderly man.”
Furthermore the farmer said, the victim used to live with the couple and the woman’s husband (alleged suspect) used to go out fishing.
The death is alleged to be a domestic violence incident.
Police took the suspect in on Saturday morning and efforts to get a comment from the Department of Public Safety in regards to any charges and further investigation were unsuccessful.
One of the bystanders at the site of the incident that morning told Samoa News, at first he thought police would cancel the Open Air Christian program and close the Market, “but instead they only blocked the area where the body was found,” and the rest remained open.
Another bystander watching the actions of that morning said he is majoring in Criminal Justice at ASCC and had heard and read of many murder cases, but had never experienced one in ‘real life’.
He said by 7:30a.m the Open Air Christian program ended and people started to go home.
A man was dead — and life went on as usual.