HILO — A Big Island man who has been charged with murdering his 14-year-old son and unborn child in a knife attack is being sued by his estranged wife.

Cheryl-Lyn Vesperas filed lawsuits last week against Tyrone Vesperas in Third Circuit Court on behalf of herself and her late son, Tyran Vesperas-Saniatan.
Tyran, 14, died on Kamehameha Day, 2007. The boy's death stemmed from a physical confrontation between his parents, Cheryl and Tyrone, in the Ainaloa home the couple once shared.
Police have said that Tyrone Vesperas stabbed his estranged wife repeatedly in the abdomen with a military-issue combat knife, and Tyran was stabbed in the neck when he tried to intervene.
The boy died at the scene; Cheryl-Lyn Vesperas fled the house and was picked up by an ambulance. Doctors could not save her unborn child, named Matthew Kaimana Erece-Saniatan.
The incident came about a year and a half after Tyrone Vesperas returned from Iraq, where he was deployed with the 29th Brigade Combat team as a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard.
Tyrone Vesperas is charged with attempted first-degree murder, second-degree murder, second-degree murder by omission and possessing a deadly weapon. His trial has been delayed repeatedly and is now set for March 22, 2010.
The lawsuit for Tyran's death seeks unspecified damages for medical and funeral costs, future earning capacity and "hedonistic damages for the pain and suffering."
The lawsuit for Cheryl-Lyn Vesperas alleges "severe and permanent injuries, shock, great pain of mind and body, permanent disfigurement and scar(r)ing." She filed for divorce in January.
"We just filed a complaint just a couple days ago," said her attorney Lionel M. Riley, adding the lawsuits will be served to Tyrone Vesperas, in custody awaiting trial in Hawaii Community Correctional Center. "He has an opportunity to answer the complaint."
An arbitration program will be scheduled, and "after that we'll do our discovery, get all our information from the doctors that treated Ms. Vesperas and her son, and the matter will be set for trial," Riley said. Riley added that he doesn't expect much to happen until the criminal proceedings get under way.
"It's likely what we'll do is wait until the criminal case concludes and then continue with the civil case," Riley said. He said a conviction would make the civil case easier, but he added he didn't know whether a plea agreement would be involved.
Regarding the specific amount of money his client hopes to recover, "that will be detailed later at trial," Riley said. "Her injuries were pretty atrocious."
Asked about Cheryl-Lyn Vesperas' condition, "She is as good as can be after experience the major trauma that she has," Riley said. "She is taking it one day at a time.
"She still suffers."