Oscar Cardona, who was 21 when he fatally stabbed 19-year-old California visitor Elian Delacerda in Waikiki on June 1, 2021, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Deputy Public Defender Christian Enright portrayed the now 23-year-old Waikiki man during trial as a sheltered innocent, who wore thick glasses since age 5, played Pokemon and lived with his working single mom in a one-bedroom Waikiki condo until a couple of months before his arrest.

After hearing statements from family, friends and his longtime therapist who described an introspective, kind and gentle person, Circuit Judge Ronald Johnson said: “The Oscar Cardona that everyone is speaking about somehow decided to take up residence in Waikiki with others, away from his family, and conduct himself in a way that appears to be inconsistent with his prior activities and the person they all testified and stated that he was when they knew him.

“The decision to do that changed the course of his life and brought him before me today.”

Cardona’s new roommate called him asking for help after he and some women he met at Kuhio Beach Park encountered some California visitors who called the roommate names, including the “N-word.”

Cardona rode his bicycle and brought a knife.

The judge said the tragedy could have been avoided had Cardona told his alleged friends to leave, called police or retreated.

“Instead he brought deadly force into this equation, and he took Elian Delacerda’s life,” Johnson said.

Cardona said Delacerda may have run into the knife that he used to defend himself when Delacerda attacked him. Enright blamed a nurse in the vicinity who was performing CPR for his death and not the knife wound that pierced his heart, cited as cause of death by the Medical Examiner’s Office.

During trial, Deputy Prosecutor Franklin Don Paccaro never raised the issue of Cardona being under the influence of drugs.

But Cardona was charged in July, after his murder conviction, with drug offenses for possession of cocaine and cannabis at the time of the stabbing. Cardona pleaded no contest in November to the cocaine possession, a Class C felony.

The judge sentenced him to five years for the drug charge, to run simultaneously with the life sentence. The judge also ordered Cardona to pay restitution in the amount of $14,916.94 to Juan Delacerda, the victim’s father, for funeral expenses and $4,000 to the Crime Victim Compensation Commission.

Before the sentencing, Delacerda’s family spoke on Zoom from California.

Stepmother Esther Rodriguez read his father Juan’s statement, saying Cardona “took a human life away and made him suffer to his last minutes and walked away as a coward. He tried to blame other people for his acts, so I hope he rots in prison and comes out in a box. I hope they make his life in prison a living hell.”

Delacerda’s mother, Mayra Cabrera, said: “I will never ever forgive what he did. …

“My son didn’t deserve what he did to him,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion.

“I hope that he has my son’s face in his conscience every day of his life, that he thinks about what he did every day … just like I wake up every morning realizing that I’m never going to have my son with me no more.”

Delacerda’s mother said her son “had so many goals in his life, but because of that individual sitting there, he will never, ever have a chance to do those things.”

Mayumi Cardona said, “I offer my deepest condolences to the family of Elian Delacerda,” and said she and her son have prayed for his family.

Her son “was just a normal college student thinking about his future,” she said. “I have lived with him through his house arrest for 14 months.”

Dr. Robert Bidwell, a pediatrician, said he has provided supportive counseling to Cardona since he was 15 years old.

“At his heart he is a kind and gentle man, with no threat of violence,” he said. “I think tragic things can happen to good people and could be done by good people, and that is sad and regrettable.”