A state jury deliberated for about two hours Wednesday before finding Robert Roediger- Geauque guilty of murder in the stabbing death of a homeless man in Kailua in 2014.

Roediger-Geauque faces a mandatory life prison term with the possibility for parole at sentencing in October.

The state says Roediger-Geauque killed Scott MacMillan on Jan. 13, 2014, in the stairwell of an Uluniu Street building over sleeping space. MacMillan, 37, had permission to use the covered space and refused to share it with Roediger- Geauque on a night when rain made it uncomfortable to sleep in the open, Deputy Prosecutor Wayne Tashima told the jury.

Roediger-Geauque, 33, testified that he lived at the Institute for Human Services shelter at the time. A witness, however, said she had seen Roediger-Geauque sleeping in the open in front of another business next to the one where MacMillan was killed. Roediger-Geauque said he didn’t know MacMillan and wasn’t in the stairwell.

A security guard testified that he saw Roediger-Geauque stab a prone MacMillan multiple times and then flee. A woman who cleans Kailua businesses after they close said she saw Roediger-Geauque leaving the stairwell. Neither witness knew Roediger-Geauque and could only provide police a description of the killer.

Honolulu police recovered the knife used in the stabbing but were able to distinguish only MacMillan’s DNA on it. Police recovered somebody else’s DNA from a plastic water bottle the security guard said he saw the killer leave in the stairwell, but they had no known reference sample for comparison.

Then a few weeks later the woman who said she saw Roediger-Geauque leaving the stairwell saw him at Longs Drugs and followed him to Kailua Town Pub and Grill, where she learned Roediger-Geauque worked as a dishwasher.

With this new information, police conducted surveillance on Roediger- Geauque and recovered a disposable cup he had used and discarded outside Whole Foods Market. They recovered DNA from the cup and compared it with DNA from the plastic water bottle. By the time police learned the two samples matched, Roediger-Geauque had left Hawaii for California.

Police in Santa Barbara arrested Roediger-Geauque and extradited him to Hawaii.