Keola Penovaroff, 39, was shot and killed outside a Hilo home on the 100 block of West Kawailani Street on Thanksgiving night, November 26, 2015. Officers arrived about 10:20 p.m. and found him unresponsive with a gunshot wound; witnesses reported hearing gunfire and a car fleeing. Penovaroff was taken to Hilo Medical Center and pronounced dead at 10:57 p.m. An autopsy found the cause of death to be a gunshot wound to the chest, and investigators treated the case as a homicide.

Police quickly identified a suspect, Kalani Lono Kaohimaunu, then 34, and publicly warned he might be armed and traveling in a Honda or Acura sedan. Detectives located and arrested Kaohimaunu without incident on November 28; they also recovered a dark blue Honda 4-door sedan. A woman with him, Charity Kumia, was arrested on unrelated vehicle-registration offenses. Kaohimaunu was charged with second-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, ownership of a firearm prohibited, and place to keep a firearm; bail was set at $1 million.

Reporting later connected the shooting to a landlord-tenant dispute involving the home’s occupants and the families of those arrested, and identified the house as belonging to Penovaroff’s girlfriend, Venus Mitchell. The case went to trial; prosecutors said Mitchell identified Kaohimaunu as the shooter, but in 2022 a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder. Does anyone have information about Penovaroff, the night of November 26, 2015, or the dispute at that address?