The girlfriend of a man shot to death on Thanksgiving 2015 testified in court Monday she saw the shooting occur.
Venus Mitchell was the first prosecution witness to testify in the jury trial of 40-year-old Kalani Lono Kaohimaunu, who is charged with second-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a separate felony for the shotgun slaying of 39-year-old Keola Penovaroff.
Mitchell said she was in the driver seat of a rented Dodge sport-utility vehicle parked in an open garage facing the street after 10 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2015, when a car turned into the driveway of the West Kawailani Street property. She testified she immediately recognized the car as the Honda driven by Kalani Lono Kaohimaunu, the son of Kathie Kaohimaunu, owner of the property where Mitchell and her mother, Bonnie Mitchell Fox, were renting a unit.
According to Venus Mitchell, the sedan drove past the garage, turned around and drove toward the street, then stopped between the garage and the street. Mitchell said Penovaroff, her boyfriend, was in the passenger seat of the SUV, and they had just smoked methamphetamine.
“We thought there was going to be trouble, so Keola immediately jumped out and said he was going to talk to Kalani,” Mitchell testified. Mitchell said when the driver door of the Honda opened, she thought there was going to be an altercation, so she got out of the SUV “to follow Keola and try to stop whatever was going to happen.”
“I saw and heard the gun go off,” Mitchell said. “At that point, I heard Keola say an obscenity and double over. He’d been shot, and I knew it was Kalani who shot him.”
“It was simultaneous,” Mitchell continued under questioning by Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Lee. “I mean, when Keola reached the back of the car, Kalani had stepped out and the gun went off.”
“How sure are you of your identification of Kalani?” Lee asked Mitchell.
“One hundred percent,” she replied. According to Mitchell, the scene was well-lit by a nearby street lamp and a full moon.
Mitchell said she ran to get her cellphone to call 911 while the wounded Penovaroff, hunched over, ran up stairs. She said she called 911 and went to tend to Penovaroff, who Mitchell said was “on his hands and knees on the stairs.”
The armed assailant drove away before police and medical personnel arrived.
Mitchell said she told dispatchers to hurry and send help.
“He was deteriorating. He couldn’t breathe,” Mitchell said, wiping away tears with a tissue. “I was panicked. … I was asking the lady on dispatch if there was anything I could do because he couldn’t breathe.”
According to Mitchell, the dispatcher told her to try to turn Penovaroff over on his back, but she was unable to because of his size and other factors.
“He kept slipping, and he was covered in blood. He didn’t have a shirt on. I couldn’t get him over,” she said.
Mitchell said she screamed at the father of her children, who had come to celebrate Thanksgiving, to help her turn Penovaroff over.
“What happened next?” Lee queried.
“He told me that (Penovaroff) was dead already,” Mitchell answered. “But I could still see where his chest was rising and falling. … I was still trying to flip him over and screaming, screaming for help.”
Mitchell said she finally managed to turn Penovaroff over.
“I could hear the ambulance,” she said. “… I cradled his head and was telling him that they were coming and to hold on and just keep breathing.”
In his opening argument, Aaron Wills, Kaohimaunu’s court-appointed attorney, said his client wasn’t the gunman and “Venus Mitchell was intoxicated on methamphetamine when she perceived the event of the shooting.”
Wills said the FBI was investigating Penovaroff and Mitchell for narcotics trafficking, and the Hawaii Police Department was aware of the investigation.
“But the HPD, as you will hear, accepted her version of the events, even though Miss Mitchell changed her story every time she was interviewed about these events,” Wills said.
According to Wills, Kaohimaunu at the time of the shooting was “enjoying a family party in Kalapana” and “could not be in two places at one time.”
“This is a case of faulty eyewitness testimony and misidentification of the defendant as the person who shot and killed Keola Penovaroff, nothing more,” Wills said.
The trial continues in the courtroom of Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.