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State prosecutors indicted two people Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder in the death of a 38-year-old man whose badly decomposed body was discovered in May in a wooded area along a Kailua hiking trail.
Keone Labatad and Stacey Maae, also known as Stacey Costales, were indicted in Circuit Court for illegally owning or possessing a firearm, as well as credit card and identity theft, unauthorized use of confidential personal information and kidnapping.
Benjamin Awong, who was living in a group home in Kaneohe, was found with traumatic head injuries about 20 feet off a hiking trail by hunters on May 15, according to a police affidavit. His body was decomposed beyond recognition.
The Medical Examiner’s Office subsequently ruled the death a homicide.
Labatad, 38, whose criminal history includes robbery and felony assault, was later arrested at a Kaneohe residence. Maae, 34, also was arrested, but released pending investigation.
Prosecutors in June indicted the couple with kidnapping.
Witnesses told police that Awong had been killed at the Kaneohe home of a woman who said Labatad was house sitting while she was on a trip. A witness said Awong was bound in a chair when Labatad violently struck his face with a handgun and threatened to shoot him before taking Awong into a waiting vehicle.
Awong was “bleeding profusely” from the injury, the witness told police. A couple days later, Labatad and another man identified in a surveillance video were seen purchasing items with Awong’s debit card.
The superseding indictment, which replaces an original indictment, alleges the murder was committed in an “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” manner that is “unnecessarily torturous to a victim,” and carries a mandatory life term without the possibility of parole.
A circuit judge set bail at $1 million for both defendants. The trial for the original kidnapping case is set for Feb. 3.
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