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HILO >> A former boxer is no longer facing a murder charge in the death of his girlfriend, but is still scheduled for a May trial in the death of the woman’s 18-month-old daughter.
The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss the charge against Xavier Cortez Jr. in the 2011 strangling death of 20-year-old Sommer Ferreira due to a lack of cooperating witnesses.
Ferreira’s death occurred almost nine months after her daughter died at a Honolulu hospital. A prosecutor said Cortez killed Ferreira to stop her from testifying against him in her daughter’s death.
A Hilo judge dismissed the charge and allowed prosecutors to refile later.
Court-appointed attorney Stanton Oshiro had asked the charge be dismissed without the possibility of refiling, saying the state’s case was inherently weak.
Big Island is an increasingly scary place.
Then please do not come over here. We don’t need anything else to scare us.
Troubling on all fronts. Especially from the prosecutors side.
Agree with you, prosecutors for this and another murder case can’t charge those people with murder? Get rid of the witnesses and all will be good.