Police charged Aaron M. Susa with second-degree murder yesterday in the death of a 25-year-old New Mexico college student who was on vacation with her family in Waikiki when she was killed.

Susa, 31, was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, said Maj. Clayton Kau of the Honolulu Police Department. Susa will make his initial appearance in District Court tomorrow, Kau said.

The charges were lodged the day after services for the slain woman, Bryanna Antone, were held in New Mexico.

Antone, a film student at the College of Santa Fe, had been in Honolulu to celebrate her birthday and join her family here for a dental convention. Antone had turned 25 on Sept. 21.

Witnesses told police that they saw Susa and Antone together at 1:40 a.m. Oct. 2 leaving the Waikiki Ohana West Hotel. Hours later, a jogger found her dead on the beach fronting the Royal Hawaiian hotel.

Antone's funeral was held Friday at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Rio Rancho, a suburb of Albuquerque, her cousin Adrian King said by phone yesterday. He said that Bryanna's mother, Barbara, and brother Brian had returned from Honolulu on Thursday.

"We're still taking it all in, going through the grieving process," King said.

Police took Susa, a convicted felon, into custody Monday after identifying him as a "person of interest" in Antone's death. Officers responding to an anonymous tip found him hiding in a clump of bushes near Lunalilo and Liholiho streets in Makiki. He said he was ill and police took him to The Queen's Medical Center, where he was treated for an undisclosed ailment until Thursday. Upon his release from the hospital, he was arrested on two outstanding traffic warrants and a recent probation revocation warrant as well as suspicion of second-degree murder.

Court documents show that Susa, a native of San Diego, had been released from the Honolulu Federal Detention Center the day before Antone's body was found. Federal Bureau of Prison records show he had been serving four months for parole violation.

Public records show Susa has convictions for drug and burglary charges here and on the Mainland.