Nicholas Theiss, 24, a White male, was shot on the afternoon of October 29, 2017, at a residence on North Road in Mountain View in the Puna District, with the emergency call coming in at about 2:23 p.m. Responding officers found him outside in the yard with a gunshot wound to the head, and investigators recovered a firearm at the scene as the first frantic minutes of the case hardened into something more ominous.
He was rushed by ambulance to Hilo Medical Center and, because of how critical his condition was, later flown to Oʻahu for further treatment.
While the victim fought for his life, police focused on the people closest to the scene. That same afternoon—about twenty minutes after officers arrived—Mahdi Hemmat, 28, who also lived at the address, was arrested there and taken to the Hilo cellblock. Detectives classified the investigation as second-degree attempted murder at that stage, signaling they believed the shooting was intentional even as they continued to sort out what led up to the moment the shot was fired.
Within days, the picture turned even more tragic. Police announced Hemmat was released pending further investigation, leaving the case in an unsettled space—an arrest had been made, but formal charges were not described in the public update, and investigators continued working the leads they were asking the community to provide.
In later public incident summaries, Theiss is listed as the victim who was killed, and Hemmat is identified as the suspect who was arrested, with the relationship characterized as an acquaintance—an ending that suggests the shooting did not remain, in the official accounting, merely an attempted murder investigation. However, within the accessible public reporting tied directly to this incident, no additional arrests, charges filed, trial dates, or convictions are described beyond the initial arrest and subsequent release pending investigation.
