Marine Accused Of Stabbing Ex-Wife To Death After She Posted Videos Accusing Him Of Abuse & Infidelity
She tried to reach out for help.
Facebook / YouTube The murder of Dana Alotaibi has shaken the Marine spouse community with many expressing outrage at how domestic violence is overlooked in the military.
Alotaibi, a former U.S. Marine wife who told several accounts of horrific abuse online, is now dead and authorities say her husband is to blame.
What happened to Dana Alotaibi?
Alotaibi was allegedly killed by her former husband on Wednesday, July 20.
In a press conference on July 21, Lieutenant Deena Thoemmes of the Honolulu Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division detailed the tragic, jarring situation in which active duty Marine Bryant Tejada-Castillo, 29, is accused of stabbing his estranged wife who he’d been married to for three years.
“Witnesses observed a male standing over a female stabbing her multiple times,” Lt. Thoemmes revealed of the incident, which took place on the side of highway H-3.
These witnesses pulled over and tried to intervene in the situation, according to Thoemmes. “Witnesses tried to restrain the mail and render aid to the victim,” she said, noting the attacker fled into the nearby brush but was ultimately taken into custody by officers.
At the time Tejada-Castillo was apprehended, he did attempt to harm himself with the same knife he used in the murder.
Tejada-Castillo has recently returned from Okinawa in Japan, where he was deployed, back to the Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, where he was stationed and lived with Alotaibi.
He has since been charged with second-degree murder, with bail set at $1 million.
Alotaibi was taken to a local hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. She was 27 years old.
Court documents showed that Tejado-Castillo had filed for divorce in November and the uncontested divorce was granted in June, according to KITV4.
Dana Alotaibi had previously accused her husband of abuse.
While the facts as they stand are tragic enough, there was more to the story of Alotaibi and Tejada-Castillo’s marriage and its demise.
Accounts of the abuse Alotaibi claimed to have endured at her husband’s hands could be found on both TikTok and YouTube, where she had a small following for detailing her life as a Marine wife navigating getting out of her toxic relationship.
Alotaibi had spent the last several years building her social media following as a singer and later, as an adult entertainer.
In the last year, Alotaibi’s content took a turn as she began to speak about her struggles in her marriage to Tejada-Castillo, claiming that her husband hit her, pulled her hair, choked her, cheated on her, and ultimately threatened to kill her.
In a video posted on New Year’s Day 2022, Alotaibi expressed frustration that the military base personnel ignored her claims of abuse. “I’ve had maybe like 30 situations of him putting his hands on me, and every time I report it to his command or his higher-ups, nothing is being done,” she said.
“Nothing at all. It does not matter if there [are] witnesses, if other people have called the police and told them what happened. Nothing is ever being done.”
While many met Alotaibi’s post with sympathy and concern, there was also backlash from those who felt she wasn’t in a position to complain about her husband’s infidelity because of her own antics, documented online.
After first discovering Tejado-Castillo’s infidelity after he signed up for Tinder while deployed, she did the same and dated publicly. She would later say that Tejado-Castillo blamed her for ruining the marriage by “over doing it” on the platform.
In her last video on YouTube, dated July 14, Alotaibi responded to criticism leveled towards her for not leaving her relationship, explaining that she was trying to go through the military’s process of releasing dependents.
he also shared that she had a court date with Tejada-Castillo on August 31 to attend and had to be in Hawaii for that date.
Alotaibi is survived by her mother and three siblings.
Following the tragedy, Alotaibi’s mother, Natalia Cespedes, spoke to KITV4 and revealed that her daughter was three months pregnant and planning the next phase of her life.
“Just want to know my daughter has plans to come back to Virginia, make her life, live with her kid because she was pregnant, so we get everything ready for [when] she come back," explained in broken English.
Alotaibi’s death has opened up conversations around victim-blaming. The young mom-to-be certainly wasn’t shy about voicing her opinions or disdain against her husband and the forces she believed to be protecting him, making her far from the “perfect victim.”
That being said, her harrowing accounts of abuse and actions taken to break away from it cannot be ignored. Victims of domestic violence in both the adult film community and military spouse community have spoken out calling for justice for Dana.
The family has started a GoFundMe to navigate bringing Alotaibi’s remains back to Virginia for her loved ones to pay their respects.
If you or someone you know is suffering from domestic abuse or violence, there are resources to get help.
There are ways to go about asking for help as safely as possible. For more information, resources, legal advice, and relevant links visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline. For anyone struggling with domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). If you’re unable to speak safely, text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474 or log onto thehotline.org.
Angela Andaloro is a writer who passionately explores all things entertainment, parenting, and true crime. Follow her on Twitter here.