GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
A Circuit Court jury convicted Kealiiokalani Meheula yesterday of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of retired sumo wrestler Percy Kipapa. Meheula's relatives were distraught following the announcement of the verdict.
|
|
Kaneohe man found guilty of killing friend
Kealiiokalani Meheula claimed the stabbing of Percy Kipapa was done in self-defense
It took a Circuit Court jury only a day of deliberations before finding a Kaneohe man guilty of fatally stabbing retired sumo wrestler Percy Kipapa.
The jury rejected Kealiiokalani Meheula's self-defense argument and convicted him as charged of second-degree murder, punishable by life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.
Meheula, 31, who considered Kipapa his friend, maintained he stabbed him in self-defense on May 16, 2005, because he was being choked and thought he was going to die.
The Kipapa and Meheula families, who crowded the courtroom yesterday, sat in stunned silence as the verdict was read, but it was not long before the sobbing began. Emotions intensified after Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto granted the state's request to revoke Meheula's bail and have him taken into custody immediately.
Outside the courtroom, Kipapa's mother, Priscilla Kipapa, and Meheula's mother, Venda Meheula, embraced as relatives looked on.
Members of the Kipapa family expressed relief that the case, which took a year to come to trial, was over.
"We have no hard feelings over what happened," said Kipapa's father, George K. Kipapa, afterward. "We never had no vengeance to the (Meheula) family and nobody."
Only the two friends know what really happened, he said. "It's between him and my son, but my son not here to say his side of the story."
Defense attorney William Domingo said they were disappointed in the verdict. They had felt there was enough evidence to bolster their argument that Meheula acted in self-defense.
"We will be looking into issues in the case. We will be appealing it," Domingo said.
He said Meheula wished to tell the Kipapa family how sorry he was for what happened to their son. "He was his friend, still is his friend, and that's how he'll always feel about him."
Deputy Prosecutor Glenn Kim said he was extremely pleased for the Kipapa family. "The mother and father are really good people and didn't deserve having their youngest son taken from them."
Although Meheula had denied smoking crystal methamphetamine that night, it was obvious from the testimony that both Kipapa and Meheula were "ice" users and were on the drug at the time of the incident, Kim said.
Meheula had told firefighters at the Kaneohe Fire Station, where he sought help after stabbing himself in the leg afterward, that he had smoked ice, but denied it on the stand. Toxicology reports show there was ice in Kipapa's system at the time of his death.
Kim described Meheula's attack on Kipapa as a "blitz attack" on an unarmed man. While their argument and the confrontation that resulted appeared to be unplanned, "even if it was absolutely spur of the moment, if he intentionally and knowingly did it, that's murder," Kim said.
Meheula will be sentenced Sept. 6.