Mills High Murder Suspect Could Receive Death

A judge rejected the defense motion to eliminate a “special circumstances” consideration from the trial of Laungatasi Ahio in a pre-trial hearing for the Aug. 4 murder of Jared Afu on the Mills High campus.

Judge Mark R. Forcum made the decision Wednesday in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.

Under California law, conviction of first degree murder—a murder which is intentional or which takes place during the commission of other crimes—carries a sentence of 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. However, if one of the legal “special circumstances” is also charged and proved, then the conviction carries a sentence of death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Ahio, who was 20 when arrested in 2010, is charged with the murder of Afu with a knife and of the “special circumstance” of “lying in wait.”

Ahio’s lawyer, Ed Pomeroy, questioned the “lying in wait” charge in the pre-trial hearing, arguing that the evidence didn’t show any attempt “to strike from a position of advantage.”

A friend of the victim, Brittney Bugarski, 21, testified that “the one who stabbed him,” meaning who stabbed Afu, sat on the same bench with his back turned to Afu and his friends for several minutes before he got up and appeared to punch Afu in the face. She didn’t identify Ahio as the attacker, but she did say that Afu attempted to run and that he was pursued by his attacker and apparently punched several more times while his attacker said, “you shouldn’t have (messed) with my wife.”

It wasn’t until she approached Afu afterward that she saw a lot of blood, she added.

Ahio’s cousin Moala Aholelei, now 15, testified that he and Ahio saw the victim that night and that they followed him and his friends to the Mills High campus. He and Ahio approached the victim, but Ahio wanted Aholelei to fight Afu, said Aholelei.

Aholelei testified that Ahio sat with his hood up and his back to the victim’s group and that he used a beanie-type knit hat to hide his face as he approached the group.

The judge ruled that there was satisfactory evidence to support the “lying in wait” charge, based on the testimony that Ahio sat with his back to the victim and due to the efforts he made to conceal his face.

Ahio is scheduled for arraignment June 22 in Redwood City.