A state jury deliberated for less than three hours Tuesday before finding retired Honolulu firefighter Darryl Freeman guilty of murder in a fatal road rage shooting in Aiea last year.

The jury also found Freeman guilty of using a firearm to murder Keenyn Pahio, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and carrying an unconcealed firearm in public without a license or permit.

Freeman faces a mandatory life prison term with the possibility of parole for the murder at sentencing in January, a maximum 20 years for using a firearm to commit the murder and 10-year terms for the other firearm crimes.

At the state’s request, Circuit Judge Karen Nakasone ordered Freeman immediately taken into custody pending sentencing. He was unable to post $1 million bail.

Pahio, of Kalihi, was shot in his forehead, just above his right eye, after confronting Freeman on Moanalua Road near Aiea Shopping Center on March 4 last year. A city ambulance transported Pahio in critical condition to an area hospital where he died.

Freeman testified that Pahio had been tailgating, pulling along side him, swearing and yelling at him to pull over on Moanalua Freeway. He said he thought he lost Pahio when he exited the freeway but that Pahio ended up right behind him at a traffic light on Moanalua Road.

Witnesses saw Pahio exit his car and walk up to the driver’s side of Freeman’s van, reach into the van and throw punches before hearing a “pop” and saw Pahio fall to the ground.

Freeman, 73, testified that he fired a single shot from the gun in self-defense after he wrestled it away from the 31-year-old Pahio. He said he doesn’t remember driving off and running over Pahio’s body but remembers later being at the post office.

The state showed the jurors a video of Freeman at the post office sorting through his mail.

Freeman said he was in shock when he drove from the post office to a nearby heiau where he wrapped the gun in a ti leaf and placed it on an altar. He said he then dropped the gun in a hole in a wall at the heiau before driving home.

Police never recovered the handgun used to kill Pahio.

Nakasone did not allow the state to tell the jurors of other pending charges against Freeman for guns Honolulu police recovered from his home.

Freeman has 1993 federal and state felony convictions for mail fraud, racketeering and theft that prohibited him from owning, possessing or controlling firearms or ammunition.