Sia Figiel, an award winning Samoan author has been arrested and charged with murder.
The 57-year-old’s works are well-known in the Pacific and New Zealand.
She turned herself in to authorities at the main police station in Apia on Sunday morning, having committed the alleged crime on Saturday at the village of Vaivase, just outside of Apia, according to Samoan Police Commissioner Auapaau Filipo.
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, but it is understood an argument between Figiel and the victim had broken out before the incident.
Figiel is then said to have left the victim and gone to a friend’s house, and it was not until Sunday that she turned herself in to Police.
Figiel’s 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 and Creative Writing 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.
