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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, October 1, 2002

Jury finds attacker guilty in fatal baseball bat beating

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

A Circuit Court jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes yesterday before finding 57-year-old Sapatumoeese Maluia guilty of second-degree murder in the October 2000 baseball bat beating death of a homeless man at Ke'ehi Lagoon Park.

Maluia maintained during the trial that he beat Feao Tupuola Jr., 48, in self-defense because he was afraid Tupuola might attack him and that he could not control himself once the beating started.

But city Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Van Marter said that Tupuola was unarmed and the attack was unprovoked.

Van Marter said he will ask Circuit Judge Richard Perkins to sentence Maluia to life without parole Jan. 3 since Maluia was convicted in 1974 of the shotgun murders of his girlfriend and her mother.

Van Marter said the Hawai'i Paroling Authority initially set a 99-year term for Maluia in that case but later reduced it, with Maluia serving about 16 years before he was released.

He described Tupuola's death as "a very brutal, heinous beating of one human being by another."

"This defendant has a very volatile temper and it has been like this since he was a young man," Van Marter said.

"He is very charming when he wants to be, but do something to tick him off and it can lead to extreme violence," he said.