A 38-year-old man who was facing retrial on charges he brutally beat 74-year-old Ellen Lum nearly seven years ago was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole. Samson Kauhi
sentenced to life38-year-old brutally
beat 74-year-old to deathBy Debra Barayuga
Star-BulletinCircuit Judge Wilfred Watanabe also granted the state's request and ordered Samson Kauhi yesterday to serve a mandatory minimum of 15 years under a statute governing crimes against the elderly.
Kauhi pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in August, just days before he was to be retried for the beating that killed Lum. Cliff Hunt, Kauhi's attorney submitted to the state's request for a mandatory minimum.
Deputy prosecutor Lahoma Fernandes-Nakata had said the plea agreement spared Lum's family and the witnesses from having to relive the trial again.
On Nov. 14, 1994, Kauhi, his girlfriend and his brother went to Lum's Rycroft Street home believing they would find crystal methamphetamine. Kauhi at the time was on parole for a 1982 robbery and had been released from prison just six months earlier.
Mistaking Lum for the mother of the man they sought, they beat her unconscious three times, taped her mouth and stomped on her head. After ransacking the home, they fled with $70 and three jade bracelets.
The mother of an 18-month-old toddler Lum was babysitting discovered her body when she came about five hours later to pick up her son. The toddler was not harmed.
Yesterday, Kauhi apologized to two of Lum's sons who sat stoically in the back of the courtroom. He asked for their forgiveness, saying he accepts his punishment.
"I know I did wrong ... what I took was precious. ... It's hard, but if you guys into the Lord, I ask you guys for forgive me ... I'm sorry," Kauhi said, as he repeatedly swung a fist into his other open palm.
One of Lum's sons wiped his eyes. Both said nothing and later left the courtroom without commenting.
"Senseless," is the word police homicide detective Hal Fitchett uses to describe the severity of Lum's beating. "The type of injuries she had -- I couldn't believe,' he said, shaking his head.
At earlier proceedings, Fernandes-Nakata had described Lum as 4-feet, 10-inches and 110 pounds. Kauhi was at least a foot taller and about 250 pounds.
The beatings, prosecutors had said, fractured Lum's spine and blackened her eyes.
Lum was beaten so brutally that one of her sons said he didn't recognize her at her funeral.
Kauhi was first convicted in 1995 but the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned the conviction two years later noting jury selection was flawed.
Kauhi's girlfriend, Leann Abraham who testified against him at trial pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and is now on parole.
Harry Kauhi pleaded to first-degree burglary as an accomplice and received a 10-year sentence.