The family of convicted murderer Hailey Dandurand pleaded tearfully with an Oahu Circuit Court jury Thursday to spare the 26-year-old from having to spend the rest of her life in prison.
“Please give her a chance — even if it’s 30 or 40 years from now,” said Sunshine Dandurand, whose daughter was convicted Tuesday of murder, kidnapping and burglary in the 2017 North Shore slaying of Telma Boinville and kidnapping of her young daughter.
“Please, she is a human being, with morals and values. This is a life sentence. This is a death penalty.”
The jury was unable to deliver an extended-sentencing recommendation to Judge Rowena Somerville after more than three hours of deliberation Thursday afternoon and is scheduled to reconvene this morning.
At issue is whether Dandurand will be eligible for parole. If the jury recommends extended sentencing, Circuit Judge Rowena Somerville will have the option to impose life imprisonment without the possibility of parole when she sentences the woman.
Both Dandurand and ex-boyfriend Stephen Brown, in separate trials, were convicted of the same crimes linked to the brutal Dec. 7, 2017, murder and kidnapping of Boinville, a part-time house cleaner, and kidnapping of her then-8-year-old daughter at a Pupukea vacation rental.
The state sought extended terms in both cases based on their convictions on multiple felony crimes.
The jury in Brown’s trial gave Somerville the option of life without the possibility of parole. His sentencing is set for Aug. 30.
On Thursday both Dandurand’s mother and grandmother testified that she was abused and manipulated by Brown and deserves a chance at life beyond prison.
“I’m proud to say that’s my wonderful granddaughter,” said Laree Purdy, 71, who moved to Oahu in 1970 and raised a family here. Her daughter Sunshine ended up in Bend, Ore., and that’s where Dandurand grew up.
Both the grandmother and mother described a young woman who came to Hawaii at age 19 to attend college full time, excited about her future and working two jobs.
Then she met Brown.
“Hailey would not be here if she had never met Stephen Brown,” Sunshine Dandurand told the jury. She said her daughter was caught up in an abusive relationship that she felt she couldn’t get out of.
“Yes, there were times of happiness, I’m sure,” she said. “She was 19 and out for the first time and probably doing drinking and drugs and all sorts of things that distort our ability to choose to do the right thing. But I swear to you, she doesn’t want anything to do with Stephen Brown.”
At one point Sunshine Dandurand asked to read an essay her daughter wrote in college a month before she met Brown, but the daughter told her attorney she didn’t want it read.
Dandurand also declined to testify on her own behalf.
During closing arguments, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Scott Bell reminded jurors that they determined with their guilty verdicts that Dandurand was unable to prove the defense of duress, meaning she did not act under the coercive power of her accomplice, or that her conduct was about avoiding a greater harm or evil.
And while her mother and grandmother described a person who was caring, selfless, compassionate and empathetic, what she did on that day in 2017 was not any of those things, he said.
“The manner in which Telma Boinville was bound and murdered was devoid of caring and compassion,” Bell said.
Dandurand’s attorney, Barry Sooalo, told the jury his client doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life in prison. He asked the petite Dandurand, who was wearing the same gray knit dress she donned Tuesday when the verdict was announced, to come forward and stand before the jury.
“This is the young lady you are being asked to decide she has no redeeming qualities whatsoever,” he said.
“The government will tell you she’s the devil. We need to lock her up, because the devil places us all at risk of mayhem and other craziness, and to prevent her from ever having hope someday of having a child, raising a family, getting married and living an ordinary life like the rest of us. She’s not worthy of any of that. She’s just absolutely evil.”
Before the hearing began, Somerville rejected Sooalo’s motion to delay the session for two months in order to accommodate the schedule of a Michigan expert who agreed to testify that Dandurand was unlikely to re-offend, given her young age and lack of criminal record.
