The mother of Dayson Kaae, a 24-year-old man who was fatally stabbed at a Kailua tattoo shop Monday, questions why the man who allegedly killed her son was freed.

“I think that’s not right because he killed somebody,” Lorraine Kaae said. “I mean what’s up with the system? … I think it was uncalled for for my son to die, and that guy walks free. Dayson was only 24. His whole life is taken away because of an idiot.”

Prosecutors declined the second-degree murder case against Timothy W. Goodrich, an employee of Aloha Tattoo Co., which police say is owned by his wife.

He was released Tuesday afternoon, well within the 48-hour period prosecutors have to charge or release a suspect, after prosecutors declined the case because of self-defense issues, police said.

“We are not seeking charges at this time,” said Brooks Baehr, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office. But he declined to say why, citing state law prohibiting release of data in arrests without dispositions, acquittals and dismissals.

Kaae died Monday of a stab wound to the chest, according to the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office. The manner of death was classified as a homicide.

The fatal stabbing occurred at Aloha Tattoo Co. at 318 Kuulei Road. Police arrested Goodrich on suspicion of second-­degree murder that night.

Goodrich’s lawyer, Myles Breiner, said the case was a robbery, with one man posing as a customer, and a masked man using something other than a fist to hit Goodrich in the face and head. Breiner said police are looking for three men, although police said only one other man was with Kaae.

“My client’s defending himself,” he said, adding that Goodrich used a folding knife with a 3-inch-blade in the stabbing.

Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the case initially was called in as a robbery.

Police, after investigating, classified it as a second-degree murder and a second-degree robbery, but in describing the events gave no description of the alleged robbery.

Breiner said about a dozen people, including customers, were in the tattoo shop.

Yu confirmed there were others in the shop, but did not know who or how many.

“Robbery? I don’t think so,” Lorraine Kaae said. “I think they just try to find an excuse. My son isn’t like that.”

“I feel like this was planned,” she said.

At about 5:30 p.m. Monday, police said Kaae and another man entered the tattoo shop when Kaae told Goodrich he wanted to get some work done on his arm.

Police said that when Goodrich looked away, Kaae allegedly punched him in the head. A struggle ensued between the two before Goodrich took out a knife and stabbed Kaae.

Kaae and the other man who entered the tattoo shop with him fled. Police said Kaae was later found without a pulse inside a vehicle parked on Uluniu Street.

Emergency Medical Services transported him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.