Daughter of North Shore murder victim gives chilling testimony of kidnapping by alleged killers
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The prosecutor in the trial of Stephen Brown for the 2017 murder of Telma Boinville wrapped up his case Friday with dramatic testimony from the victim’s husband and daughter.
Boinville’s 13-year-old daughter, Makana Boinville Emery, took the stand to tell the chilling story of her kidnapping by the suspected killers. Hawaii News Now is using only her audio to protect her privacy.
On Dec. 7, 2017, Telma Boinville picked up Makana — then 8 — at Sunset Beach Elementary School and went to a nearby vacation rental house on Ke Iki Road whose owners were clients of Boinville’s cleaning business.
While Makana waited in their truck watching a movie, prosecutors say Telma Boinville walked in on Brown and girlfriend Hailey Dandurand as they were burglarizing the house. Under gentle questioning of Deputy Prosecutor Scott Bell, Makana said she saw a man with green hair come out of the house.
“He came to the truck and grabbed me,” she said.
Bell asked, “And what did he say?”
“He said we killed your mother,” she replied. “Then the man carried me up the stairs and the girl followed and they tied me up to the bed.”
Boinville’s husband, Kevin Emery, learned what had happened with a phone call.
He rushed to comfort his daughter in an ambulance at the scene.
Emery testified that his daughter described the suspects to him, especially their distinctive hair dyes. Somehow, Emery’s twin brother Ryan found a photo of the couple and texted it to Emery in the ambulance.
“I calmly asked Makana as she was shaking, if I could show her an image if these were the people,” Emery said. “And she immediately said ‘yes’ as she immediately pushed the phone away from her.”
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Emery also took the photo to the police still at the scene.
“I told the police officer … that this is the people that just killed my wife,” Emery recalled.
Police had already put out an alert for the Emery’s stolen Toyota truck.
It’s not clear where the picture came from but Emery’s brother posted the picture on Instagram with a promise of a $100,000 reward and a civilian manhunt for the suspects ensued.
When the stolen truck was found in Mililani, police said there were at least 75 civilians there looking for the suspects, too. Brown and Dandurand were arrested shortly after.
Brown is denying he killed Boinville.
Earlier Friday, his defense attorney William Bagasol questioned the state DNA expert, holding up a hammer, knife, machete, a meat tenderizer and bat to confirm none had evidence of brown’s DNA.
“You don’t have any forensic evidence that connects the bat to Mr. Brown,” he asked.
The expert confirmed she did not have any results for the bat.
Over the defense’s objections, former Honolulu Medical Examiner Dr. Christopher Happy gave a chilling description of Telma Boinville’s numerous wounds. “Those multiple chop wounds disrupted the brain there so the surface of it was basically destroyed,” Happy said.
Mercifully, Makana did not see her mother’s condition that day.
But she may have to relive this all again as Dandurand has a separate trial scheduled for this summer.
Wrapping up their case, prosecutors showed surveillance from the Mililani Walmart store. It showed Dandurand buying an untraceable mobile phone, apparently still thinking they would somehow escape the crowd of police and civilians that waited for them outside.
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