KEY POINTS:
A New Zealand 15-year-old charged with murder in Hawaii might be tried as an adult if the family of the victim have their way.
If convicted of first-degree murder as an adult, he would face life imprisonment without parole. If convicted as a juvenile his penalty would be four years in a youth jail.
The boy is alleged to have murdered Karen Ertell, 51, on May 25 in her house over the road from his own at Ewa Beach, 20km from Honolulu. A pathologist said Ms Ertell died of "asphyxia due to manual strangulation".
The boy has been charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault as well as robbery, burglary, car theft and credit card offences, the Dominion Post reported yesterday.
Ms Ertell's partner, Kevin Callahan, and her family have handed out leaflets and launched a mass letter-writing campaign to argue that he be treated as an adult.
"It will just be a horrible injustice if he is tried as a juvenile," Mr Callahan told the Dominion Post.
A Family Court hearing to decide whether to try the boy as an adult has been delayed three times. It is now scheduled for next month.
"I put a bit of blame on his family," Mr Callahan said. "He hadn't been in school and was missing in action for weeks at a time. The parenting part of it was not perfect by any means."
The boy had been arrested more than 10 times in the two years since arriving from NZ.
The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper reported he had been arrested for burglary, trespassing and theft, among other offences,
His father told the Star-Bulletin newspaper the tragedy could have been averted if the boy had been locked up earlier. He had turned his son in to police.
The boy's lawyer Jeffrey Hawk said earlier he would fight any attempt to try the boy as an adult. The adult age of culpability in Hawaii is 18.
- NZPA
