Malia Kahalewai, a 24-year-old Native Hawaiian woman, was killed on March 20, 2013, after a night of fear and pleading at the Kawela Barns Apartments on Molokai. Public reporting and court records describe her as being at a friend’s home when her longtime boyfriend, Marlin Lavoie, came looking for her and tried to get her to leave with him and return to his residence. She refused. The argument did not end there.
After she went outside and sat on a porch couch with friends nearby, he retrieved a high-powered rifle, walked onto the porch, aimed at her chest, and fired a single shot. She was taken to Molokai General Hospital but died from her wound. The killing shattered a family and left behind four children who, according to court and news accounts, were shared by the couple.
Authorities quickly identified Marlin Lavoie as the suspect. In the hours after the shooting, police said he fled the area, and he was later arrested and charged on March 22, 2013. The charges initially included second-degree murder, felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, ownership or possession prohibited, place to keep a loaded firearm, and first-degree reckless endangering. Bail was set at $170,000. Early reporting and later court decisions made clear that this was not treated as a mystery killing with multiple suspects; the case centered on Lavoie from the beginning, and the prosecution’s theory remained that he intentionally shot Kahalewai during a domestic confrontation.
The case then stretched on for years through trials, appeals, and legal reversals. In 2015, a jury found Lavoie guilty of second-degree murder and firearms offenses, and he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus additional time. But in November 2019, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court vacated those convictions and ordered a new trial, ruling that evidence about several prior abusive acts had been wrongly admitted and that the jury should also have received a merger instruction on some of the firearms counts. That decision did not erase what happened to Malia Kahalewai, but it did reopen the legal fight over how the state would prove and punish it.
The prosecution eventually pursued the case again, and the final outcome changed from murder to manslaughter. In 2022, Lavoie pleaded guilty to manslaughter based on extreme mental or emotional disturbance, along with using a firearm in the commission of a felony and being a felon in possession of a firearm. After another procedural dismissal tied to a Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruling on charging practices, prosecutors reindicted him, and he again entered the same plea. In March 2023, a judge sentenced him to an aggregate 40-year prison term, with credit for nearly 10 years already served. A later 2025 Hawaiʻi Supreme Court opinion left that sentence in place while addressing an appeal over expert-fee and sentencing issues. So the final public record shows an arrest, one clear suspect, an initial murder conviction, a successful appeal, a reduced plea, and a 40-year prison sentence for the man who shot Malia Kahalewai to death on that porch in Kawela.
