A state jury deliberated about a half day before finding Kilani Derego guilty today of second-degree murder in the beating death of taxicab driver Ty Tang.

A bystander found a badly beaten and unconscious Tang in the Times Super Market Waipahu store parking lot just after 1 a.m. May 1, 2010. Tang died hours later in the hospital of head injuries. It was his 41st birthday.

Derego, 19, claimed he was not in Waipahu at the time of the beating. He said he was with his girlfriend in an apartment on Schofield Barracks.