Keith Nakoa Gonsalves, a 25-year-old Hispanic/Latino man from Hilo, died on January 5, 2016, after a night of violence that began just before midnight in the upper Waiakea Uka area. Police said officers were first sent to Alaloa Road after reports of a shooting tied to a confrontation outside a residence there. A 47-year-old Hilo man told investigators he had been threatened during a verbal dispute by someone in a car, and witnesses reported hearing a gunshot before the vehicle sped away.
At that point, officers knew a shot had been fired, but they had not yet found the person who had been struck.
Hours later, just after 5 a.m., the case turned grim. Police were led to a silver Honda SUV parked the wrong way along Daniel K. Inouye Highway near the 27-mile marker. Inside, they found Keith Gonsalves unresponsive. An autopsy later determined that he had been killed by a gunshot wound to the neck. What had started as a roadside mystery now became a homicide investigation, and the young man from Hilo was identified as the victim at the center of it. His obituary later noted that he had been born in Honolulu and left behind a son, parents, siblings, and grandparents, giving the public a glimpse of the family life shattered by the killing.
Investigators quickly focused on Valentine Kapiolani Gonsalves Jr., a Kona man and Keith’s uncle. After conferring with prosecutors, Hawaiʻi Island police charged him on January 6, 2016, with second-degree murder. Authorities also said he was charged with first-degree reckless endangering, possession of a loaded firearm, and use of a firearm in the commission of a separate felony. His bail was set at $507,000. Early reporting described the case as a bizarre and tragic family shooting, with accounts indicating Keith had been caught up in an altercation outside the Alaloa Road home and that another man at the scene believed the bullet may have been intended for him instead.
The case did not end with the original murder charge. As it moved through court, Valentine Gonsalves Jr. eventually entered a no-contest plea to manslaughter in December 2018. In exchange, the murder charge was resolved down to that offense, and two firearm charges along with a reckless-endangering count were dismissed. By the time of sentencing in March 2019, he had already spent about 38 months in the Hawaiʻi Community Correctional Center. Prosecutors argued that a life had been lost in a situation they believed could have been avoided and urged the court to impose the maximum 20-year prison term for manslaughter.
Instead, the final chapter in court took an unexpected turn. Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura sentenced Valentine Gonsalves Jr. to 10 years of probation and time served rather than a long prison term, allowing him to leave court a free man after more than three years behind bars. Public reporting described his sentence as rare for a manslaughter case, though not without precedent in Hawaiʻi. So the case that began with a frantic late-night response, a missing shooting victim, and a body found in a vehicle on a dark stretch of highway ended not with a murder conviction, but with a manslaughter disposition, dismissed companion charges, and probation for the uncle accused of killing Keith Nakoa Gonsalves.
