A private family service to honour the life of Professor Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard was held at Sefo’s Memorial Garden and Crematorium, Tafaigata on Thursday. 

Professor Gabbard, an American Samoan academic and writer was 77 years old when she was allegedly murdered at Vaivase-uta a month ago with the suspect being playwright Sia Fiegel. 

She was the first Samoan to become a full professor in the United States and would have been 78 years old the next week. 

She is a mother of two children and grandmother to four grandchildren.  

The media was not allowed to attend the private family service. 

Professor Gabbard's niece, former US representative and congresswoman, Tusi Gabbard recently honoured her late aunt saying the brutal killing has sent shockwaves through her family. 

“Thank you to all who have taken the time to send me warm messages of prayers and condolences in the wake of my aunt’s tragic murder in Samoa,” Gabbard said in a tribute posted to social media. 

“My aunt Caroline was my dad’s only sister, and the only relative of ours who lived in Hawaii when I was growing up,” the former congresswoman said in the post.

“I spent a lot of time with her as a kid at her cottage in the back of Manoa Valley where she often shared her poetry with me, and encouraged me to pursue my own writing,” she added.

Tulsi Gabbard, 43, was born in American Samoa before her family moved to Hawaii.

Prof. Gabbard’s sudden death came as a shock to the literary world and more so when the person charged for her murder is another well-known playwright. 

Fiegel appeared in court this week and for the first time broke her silence after the incident. 

She told the court she wanted to express her condolences to the family of Gabbard whom she described as a dear friend of hers and who had helped her with her writing at university.