A Circuit Court judge sentenced Erik Willis, the 20-year-old Niu Valley man convicted of attempted murder in the 2020 stabbing of a 17-year-old girl on Kahala Beach, to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Judge Kevin Souza also ordered Willis to pay $83,689.82 in restitution to the state’s MedQuest Division to cover the victim’s medical bills.

A jury found Willis guilty on April 7 of second-degree attempted murder in the apparently random attack of Melia Kalahiki. She was alone on the beach and testified she did not know Willis.

She sustained 15 stab wounds that kept her in the hospital for three weeks, Deputy Prosecutor Lawrence Sousie said.

Seitz said he would file an appeal. He also requested the judge exclude and redact from the presentencing report the attached police report, which contains evidence that was suppressed by the court.

The judge ordered that the police report attached to the July 1 presentencing report be stricken, so that a parole board or anyone else would not use that evidence.

The evidence of Kalahiki’s blood found on a shoe taken from the home was not allowed into evidence because the search by police of Willis’ home was warrantless.

Seitz, in a declaration he made on Nov. 16, 2020, said that police entered Willis’ grandparents’ home without a warrant.