A judge ordered a mental examination in the case of a 50-year-old Hilo man accused of starving his 9-year-old daughter to death.
The examination will determine if Kevin P. Lehano is fit to proceed with trial. He’s charged with second-degree murder in the June 28, 2016, death of Shaelynn Lehano-Stone. The girl was found malnourished and unresponsive in her grandmother’s apartment on Kinoole Street in downtown Hilo and died a few hours later.
A return hearing on the reports by three mental health professionals is scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 18, 2018, before Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura.
The girl’s 34-year-old mother, Tiffany K. Stone, and 60-year-old grandmother, Henrietta H. Stone, also are charged with second-degree murder in the death of the girl, who had been taken out of Hilo Union Elementary School to be home-schooled.
A mental examination also was ordered in the case of Henrietta Stone to determine her fitness to proceed with trial and her mental state at the time of the girl’s death. She was the legal guardian of Shaelynn Lehano-Stone.
She’s scheduled to return to court for a hearing on the examiners’ reports at 10 a.m. Jan. 19, 2018, before Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto.
Tiffany Stone is scheduled for trial at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 5, 2018, also before Nakamoto.
According to court records, Shaelynn Lehano-Stone was on the radar of Child Welfare Services since at least 2007, and the state agency took her and at least one sibling, a brother, into temporary custody that year.
Lehano and both Stones are in custody at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in lieu of $100,000 bail each.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
