A 70-year-old man accused of shooting to death a woman in her Punchbowl apartment on Easter told a police officer that he shot the woman and planned to kill himself, but stopped short because he didn't have the guts to do so.

That admission by Melvin Yoshida was contained in a police affidavit filed in District Court yesterday in connection with the death of Clare Silva, 54. Silva was shot to death as she answered the door to her Punchbowl Homes apartment about 11 a.m. Sunday.

Yoshida was arrested shortly after the shooting and was charged yesterday with second-degree murder. His bail was set at $100,000 and he is scheduled to make his initial court appearance this morning.

Police said Silva was talking to her sister-in-law on the Mainland about 11 a.m. Sunday when there was a "banging" on Silva's door. She put down the phone and the sister-in-law said she heard gunshots in the background and Silva screaming for help before the line went dead.

The woman called Honolulu police and asked that an officer be sent to her sister-in-law's home on Captain Cook Avenue to check on Silva. When patrol Officer Thomas Dumaoal arrived at the apartment building, he was confronted by a man, identified in the affidavit as Yoshida, who had what appeared to be blood on his shoes and left leg.

Yoshida told Dumaoal to "hurry" as he walked toward Silva's ground-floor apartment, the affidavit said. He said he "got into an argument with his girlfriend," the court document said.

"I shot Clare Silva," he allegedly told Dumaoal. "I was going to kill her then myself but I don't have the guts to shoot myself."

Dumaoal entered Silva's apartment and saw Silva on the floor, lying in a pool of blood. He called for an ambulance and then arrested Yoshida.

Yoshida told Dumaoal that he placed the murder weapon on a shelf in Silva's apartment, the affidavit said. Dumaoal said he found a revolver on the stand near Silva's television.

Although Yoshida referred to Silva as his girlfriend, Silva's friends and residents who live at Punchbowl Homes said the two did not have a relationship. They said Yoshida had been pressuring Silva and other women to be his girlfriend since his wife died in February 2008.