A most scandalous incident, leading to a bitter divorce, involved a Chamorro mestizo by the name of V. E. (Ben) Pangelinan and his wife Amy.
Ben was probably the son of Vicente Pangelinan, also known as Ben, who left Guam and settled in the Big Island. Ben senior died in 1903.
Ben junior worked for the inter-island transport the W. G. Hall. This work took Ben away from his home, where his wife Amy was quite alone. Or so he thought.
Between 10 and 11 o'clock on the night of September 30, 1896, Ben came home, much to the surprise of Amy and her male friend, sleeping in the spot where Ben should have been.
Finding the door of the bedroom locked, Ben kicked it open. Ben had had his suspicions for some time, and planned this unexpected return for just this purpose.
Jumping out of bed, without a stitch of clothing on him, the man, later to be identified as one Arthur Jones, a clerk at a shoe store, tried to escape through the bedroom door. But Ben punched him hard enough to stun him into immobility. Ben then put Jones in a neck hold and proceeded to beat his head till it was bloody. Ben then forced Jones to sit, as naked as the day he was born, on a chair till the police came.
Jones was charged with unlawful entry onto private property. His hearing the next day had to be postponed, as he entered the court room with one eye covered with a leather patch.
Amy was also arrested, back in the day when one could get arrested for something called adultery.
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