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Man faces new trial
on charges he killed wife when
she tried to leave him

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By Suzanne Tswei
Star-Bulletin

Two years after a deadlocked jury, a new jury will decide whether a man is guilty of second-degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of his wife.

Danny Haili, whose first trial ended with one lone juror holding out against a guilty verdict, killed his wife because she wanted to leave him, Deputy Prosecutor Lynne McGivern said. He had intended to kill his wife, Philimena, after she asked for a divorce, McGivern said.

Haili refused to agree to a divorce and threatened his wife on different occasions, McGivern said.

He also assaulted the man he believed to be her lover and threatened to kill him and his wife, she said.

After a series of threats over several months, he gunned down his wife of 30 years in the carport of the couple's Kailua home as she was trying to leave him, McGivern said.

Defense attorney Samuel King Jr. said Haili was under extreme mental and emotional disturbance when he shot and killed his wife. He said his client should be convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter.

His wife's comments that "you no kind of man" and that her lover was better in bed caused him to snap and shoot her, King said.

A Circuit Court judge declared a mistrial after Haili's trial ended in a hung jury in 1998. The jury deliberated for nine hours but one juror believed Haili was guilty of the lesser manslaughter offense because of extreme emotional distress.