Vito John Talo walked out of state court a free man Monday after a jury found him not guilty of murder in the brutal beating death of a 54-year-old man near Lana­kila District Park in Kalihi three years ago.

Talo’s defense was that he wasn’t near the park on Jan. 13, 2009, and that someone else stomped on Damaso Domingo’s head as Domingo lay in the middle of School Street.

Talo did not testify at trial nor comment outside the court after the verdict.

The jury deliberated less than a day before finding Talo, 28, not guilty of murder and rejecting the lesser offense of manslaughter.

Talo’s girlfriend, Diana Niko­lao, said she believes the jurors saw what she saw during the trial: "that there was total doubt throughout this whole case."

Prosecution witness Pak Im Gustafson said she and the victim were at a bus stop on School Street near Lana­kila Avenue after they had just smoked meth­am­pheta­mine together.

Two males approached them, she said, and she gave one of them $7 to buy more meth, but the male punched her instead.

Another prosecution witness, Aitasi Lega­ta­sia, 22, said he was one of the two males, but merely punched Domingo, knocking him to the ground, after Domingo charged at him with a knife. Lega­ta­sia said it was Talo who then delivered the fatal blows to Domingo.

Legatasia pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault in July 2010 and was granted a deferral of his plea. The charge is no longer part of his criminal rec­ord because he stayed out of trouble for a year.

Gustafson provided police with descriptions of the two males, which officers used to produce sketches they circulated in the community. It wasn’t until nine months later that police received information leading to Lega­ta­sia and Talo.

Defense lawyer Richard Hoke Jr. told the jury the sketch doesn’t look like Talo, and said Lega­ta­sia lied to protect a close friend who is the actual murderer.

Domingo went by ambulance to the Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition with fractures of his face and skull. His face was badly damaged and bloody, and he was not carrying identification.

When his daughter, a Queen’s resident, was assigned as his intensive care physician, she did not recognize him.

Domingo died two days later.

Talo remains on five years’ probation after pleading no contest in July 2010 to a felony assault six months after Domingo’s death.

His co-defendant in the case is Corbit Ahn, who is awaiting sentencing in another case, the August 2009 beating death of Iris Rodrigues-Kai­kana near Kamehameha Homes in Kalihi.