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JAMM AQUINO / 2020
Erik B. Willis appears in Honolulu District Court in 2020.
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LEILA FUJIMORI / LFUJIMORI@STARADVERTISER.COM
Erik Willis, 19, in a white T-shirt, stands with his attorney, Eric Seitz, as Circuit Judge Kevin Souza sentences him this morning to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
A Circuit Court judge sentenced Erik Willis, the 19-year-old Niu Valley man convicted of attempted murder in the 2020 stabbing of a 17-year-old girl on Kahala Beach, to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Judge Kevin Souza also ordered Willis to pay $83,689.82 in restitution to the state’s MedQuest Division to cover the victim’s medical bills.
A jury found Willis guilty on April 7 of second-degree attempted murder in the apparently random attack of Melia Kalahiki. She was alone on the beach and testified she did not know Willis.
She sustained 15 stab wounds that kept her in the hospital for three weeks, Deputy Prosecutor Lawrence Sousie said.
Willis surprised his attorney Eric Seitz and read a statement to the judge, saying he was only 18 when he was arrested and said he could be a good role model.
Seitz said he would file an appeal, and requested the judge have the evidence, which was suppressed for trial, be excluded and redacted from the court record. He also asked that the police report attached to the July 1 presentencing report be stricken.
The evidence of Kalahiki’s blood found on a shoe taken from the home was not allowed into evidence because the search by police of Willis’ home was warrantless.
Seitz, in a declaration he made on Nov. 16, 2020, said that police entered Willis’ grandparents’ home without a warrant.
Source: Star
