Dying for a Brother’s Love : Shooting: Lomita man wanted to help resolve problems with the estranged husband of his twin’s girlfriend. He is killed during a scuffle.

Kevin Pack loved his twin brother, Steve. There wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for each other.

So, when the estranged husband of Steve’s new girlfriend became angry about the relationship, Kevin apparently decided he would resolve the problem. On Monday night, he went to the man’s Lomita condominium to try to smooth things out for his brother.

Instead, Kevin Pack, 23, died for his nearly identical brother when he fought with the husband and was shot twice in the chest.

Two friends of the Packs who had gone with Kevin to see William Henry Hosken, 23, disarmed Hosken after the shooting and held him until police arrived, Deputy Roger Hom said.

One of the friends said the fight began before Kevin could tell Hosken who he was.

Hosken was booked on suspicion of murder and is being held without bail at the Lomita sheriff’s station, Hom said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Steve Pack mourned quietly in the Lomita apartment that he and his brother shared. He flipped through family albums showing the twins growing up together in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and he talked softly about the void his brother’s death will leave in his life.

Inseparable as boys, the 6-foot-3 fraternal twins shared an obsession with motorcycles, enjoyed the same music, pursued the same dreams and both joined the military.

When Steve decided to join the Marine Corps in early 1985, however, Kevin opted for the Navy--just to try something different.

Their separation didn’t last too long. Both Packs ended up stationed in California and eventually found themselves so close to each other that they decided to share an apartment.

Steve left the Marine Corps a few months ago, but Kevin, newly married and delighted with his work as a dental technician at the Navy’s Long Beach base, re-enlisted for another two years.

Steve said his brother was a meticulous man with “this serious, dry humor . . . that made him a real character.”

According to Steve, Kevin also was dedicated to his friends and family--Cindy, whom he married earlier this year, and her 18-month-old daughter, Danielle, who lived with the Packs.

“He’s been with me since birth, my closest friend. There’s no one closer than that,” Steve said, choking slightly on his words. “We didn’t have to talk. We looked at each other, the telepathy thing. He always knew what I was thinking.”

Because of that, Kevin had no trouble seeing that Hosken’s threats were “stressing me out,” Steve said.

He said the trouble began a few weeks ago, shortly after Donna Hosken, 24, filed for legal separation from her husband and then began dating Steve.

Furious that his wife would begin seeing someone else so soon after the separation, Hosken reportedly threatened her at her workplace at a local supermarket, tried to follow her home to see where she was living and warned her that he would get Steve if he didn’t stay away from her, Steve said.

A couple of weeks ago, Donna Hosken called Steve from a pay telephone when her husband was following her. William Hosken interrupted the call and told Steve to stay away from his wife, Steve said.

Donna Hosken declined Tuesday to speak with a reporter.

Because of their strikingly similar features, Steve told Kevin about the threats “so that he would watch out, be careful. . . . He lives here, too, and he has to come and go.”

Eventually, however, Kevin decided that enough was enough.

“Kev was tired of hearing things about how this guy was going to take care of his brother,” said the Packs’ roommate, Julio Sandoval, 22. “He wanted to talk to the guy.”

On Monday night, Kevin told Steve that he and some friends were going to see the movie “Die Hard II.” He did not tell him, however, that he planned to see Hosken afterward.

Sandoval said that he, Kevin and another friend were in the courtyard near Hosken’s condominium when Hosken came out of his home toward them.

“I remember Kev saying (to Hosken), ‘We’ve got to talk because something’s got to get straightened out here,’ ” Sandoval said. “Then the guy, he was so mad, and I remember (Kevin) saying, ‘Calm down, calm down.’ ”

Hosken came at Kevin swinging, Sandoval said, and the two men fell to the ground struggling. During the struggle, Sandoval said he suddenly saw that Hosken had a gun.

“He was able to pull the gun up and shoot before we could do anything,” Sandoval said. “He was crazy. . . . We had to fight to get the gun away from him.”

As Steve listened, he shook his head and closed his eyes.

“He was just watching out for me,” he said. “That was what kind of guy he was.”