Relatives of a pregnant Big Island woman left brain-dead after a beating plan to raise her baby if the child survives the ordeal, they said yesterday.

Doctors hope to deliver the baby Dec. 12, and are keeping Sarah Fay on life support to save the fetus, the family said. Fay was seven months pregnant when she was beaten Friday in the Fern Acres subdivision of Puna, allegedly by her boyfriend.

She was flown to The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, where she was declared brain-dead and put on life support.

The Fay family intends to name the boy Josiah, a name Sarah Fay told family members she was considering for the unborn child. Family members declined to discuss who would take legal custody of the boy.

Stacey Fay, Sarah's older sister, said the family spent yesterday morning talking to Josiah, and said the baby was moving rapidly in his mother's womb.

After the baby is born, the family plans to have Sarah Fay removed from life support and cremated, with her ashes taken back to Oregon, Stacey Fay said.

"Words cannot possibly express the deep anger and sorrow our family is feeling," said Michael Fay, a younger brother, at a news conference at the hospital yesterday.

Sarah Fay's 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter are in state protective custody on the Big Island, Michael Fay said. The children's natural father is trying to gain custody.

Michael Fay said he isn't sure if the children know their mother has died, and said the children's father agreed they should not see her because her injuries are severe.

"She looks bad. I'm sure if they saw that it would traumatize them for the rest of their life," he said. "I tried to prepare myself. Once I get into the room ... I was upset, extremely upset. It hurts. This is unbelievable that this could actually happen."

LAST TIME THEY SPOKE

Michael and Stacey Fay said they last spoke to Sarah Fay on Thanksgiving Day, when Sarah, her two children and her boyfriend, Marwann Jackson, were spending Thanksgiving at Jackson's parents' house.

The three told each other they loved one another, then hung up. The following night the siblings learned their sister had been beaten when they received a voice mail message from one of their sister's friends saying she had been hospitalized in Hilo.

Friends and family said they had long believed Jackson was physically abusing Fay, who moved to the Big Island 12 years ago. Fay obtained a restraining order in January to keep Jackson away from her and her two children, but later returned to the relationship, friends said.

MURDER CHARGE

On Wednesday, Jackson was charged with murder after doctors declared Fay legally dead.

Jackson made his initial appearance yesterday in Hilo District Court to face charges of second-degree murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, second-degree robbery and violating a protective order. Judge Barbara Takase ordered Jackson held without bail until his preliminary hearing on Dec. 16.

He is being held in the Hawai'i Community Correctional Center in Hilo.

According to court documents, the 6-foot, 180-pound Jackson worked as a mason, and also received disability payments. Jackson was born in Hilo and attended Waiakea High School, but never advanced beyond ninth grade, records show.

Documents filed by Jackson's defense lawyer in one of his criminal cases show Jackson has suffered from a variety of mental or psychological disorders.

Those include attention deficit hyperactive disorder that was diagnosed at age 11, and depression that was diagnosed at age 13.

He was admitted to a psychiatric facility on O'ahu at age 16, and in 2004 was under the care of a Hilo psychologist who found Jackson disabled for work purposes because of a "psychotic disorder" that caused him to have hallucinations.

FAMILY'S ANGER

Both Michael and Stacey Fay expressed anger that Jackson was allowed to roam the Big Island free despite his history.

"With his long list of violence and abuse it's a wonder why he was still walking the streets," Michael Fay said. "We can only hope he spends the rest of his life in jail."

In recent years, Jackson compiled a list of assault and other criminal convictions, and in 2004 pleaded guilty to a list of charges in three assault cases involving a police officer and three other people. Fay was not among the victims in any of those cases.

Jackson pleaded guilty to charges of resisting an order to stop, first-degree terroristic threatening, first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of third-degree assault.

He was sentenced to five years' probation and a year in jail, but was later released. In May he was charged in a new second-degree assault case involving another man.

Probation officials also alleged he violated his probation and supervised release conditions by failing drug tests and failing to attend required anger management, drug treatment and mental health treatment programs, according to court records.

LOOKING 'RUNDOWN'

Arrest warrants were issued for Jackson on Oct. 24, but he was not actually arrested until after Fay was beaten.

Stacey Fay said she thought her sister could have been trying to "break things off" with Jackson recently, but said he called Sarah "obsessively."

The Fays said their sister looked "rundown" when they saw her at Michael's wedding Oct. 8. Michael Fay said his sister would "not admit to me that he (Jackson) had harmed her" but suspected that Sarah Fay's two children saw horrible things.

Family and friends urged Sarah Fay not to return to the Big Island, and to use the trip as an opportunity to break her relationship with Jackson.

She returned anyway, a choice that experts in domestic violence said may illustrate the complexities of abusive relationships.

VICTIMS OF ABUSE

Women may try to leave an abusive relationship seven to 10 times before they actually succeed, said Lindsey Schwartz, domestic violence educator with the Hawai'i State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Rather than focusing on why a domestic violence victim remains with a batterer, Schwartz said, society should focus on why abusers exist, and why they are allowed to continue.

"It is so hard for somebody like you or me to really understand the intensity of the desire to stay, and the desire to go, and how they're competing emotions — the fear and the hope," said Nanci Kreidman, executive director of the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline.

Kreidman said the reports of Jackson's long criminal record suggest the criminal justice system had too much tolerance for violence in this case.

"At what point does a person face any consequences for the violence that he's committed?" she said. Based on reports of Jackson's record, "he's a disaster waiting to happen," she said.

Michael Fay said he wished Hawai'i had a punishment more severe than the life in prison.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com and Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.