Updated at 6:08 p.m., Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Family awarded $2.7M in daughter's 2001 murder
Advertiser Staff
HILO, Hawai'i — The family of a 6-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in an abandoned house in Puna in 2001 has won a $2.7 million court judgment from her killer and the killer's parents.Mark Davis Jr. was 14 when he stalked and killed Keonepoko Elementary School first-grader Kau'ilani Tadeo with a blow to the head in the Hawaiian Beaches subdivision.
Davis, now 18, admitted in 2005 that the facts of the investigation proved he sexually assaulted and killed the child. He was committed to the Hawai'i State Hospital in Kane'ohe.
Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura yesterday entered a default judgment against Davis' parents, Mark Daniel Davis and Ellen Pearl Davis, and against Mark Davis Jr. himself after the parents failed to respond to a series of court filings.
The estate of Kau'ilani Tadeo was awarded $500,000 in general damages and $750,000 in punitive damages, while Kau'ilani's parents, George and Tumata Tadeo, were awarded $750,000 each in general damages.
