Celebrated author Sia Figiel charged with murder of fellow writer in Samoa

Source: NZ Herald

Award-winning Samoan author Sia Figiel - whose works are also well-known in New Zealand - has been arrested and charged with murder.

The 57-year-old is in police custody in Samoa after turning herself in to authorities on Sunday morning.

Samoan Police Commissioner, Auapaau Logoitino Filipo, told local media the incident happened on Saturday at Figiel's home in the village of Vaivase-Uta - about a 10-minute drive from the island nation's capital city of Apia.

Figiel's property also doubles as the local theatre.

Auapaau said preliminary findings showed that the victim suffered multiple stab wounds. A hammer and knife were allegedly used, the Commissioner said.

The circumstances surrounding the death are not yet clear.

However, he said he understood an argument between Figiel and the victim had broken out before the incident.

Figiel is then said to have left the victim at her property and gone to a friend's house about an hour away in the village of Lotofaga.

"It wasn't until Sunday morning while they were having breakfast that [Figiel] told her friend what had happened," Auapaau told media.

The author turned herself in to authorities at the main police station in Apia.

Figiel's works are well-known around the Pacific and New Zealand, where they are published.

Her debut novel, Where We Once Belonged, was a best seller and she went on to win the 1997 Asia/Pacific Commonwealth Writer's Prize for fiction.

Local authorities have identified the victim as Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard; also a respected poet, writer and academic originally from American Samoa.

The 78-year-old, also known as Sina Gabbard, was a professor of English at the University of Hawai'i and was the first Samoan to become a full professor in the US.

She is also an aunt of American politician and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard - the first Samoan-American to reach Congress.