Makana Boinville Emery was just 8 years old when she was found Dec. 7, 2017, bound to a bed frame with her mouth taped on the second floor of a North Shore vacation rental while her mother lay lifeless downstairs.
The now 14-year-old girl testified Monday — the second time in a murder and kidnapping trial in the death of her mother, Telma Boinville. This time it was the trial of Hailey Dandurand, who is blaming her then-
boyfriend Stephen Brown for the crimes but admitting to burglarizing the home when Boinville arrived.
She testified in January at the trial of Brown, who was convicted by a different jury of second-degree murder and two counts of kidnapping.
The girl, who kept her gaze downward, never having to face Dandurand, testified she was watching TV on her mother’s phone in the family’s gold Toyota pickup truck, while her mom finished cleaning up the vacation rental, when “a guy with green hair,” wearing “a white shirt with blood all over it, took me inside to the side room. He had a knife on him.”
Boinville Emery said she didn’t see her mother, but a girl with “pinkish-red hair” came into the room, and the guy carried her upstairs to the master bedroom.
“They both tied me up to the bed frame and put tape on my mouth,” she said.
When deputy prosecutor Scott Bell asked whether she remembers her father showing her a photo of a boy with green hair and a girl with pink hair, and whether she was sure they were the same people, she replied, “I’m 100% positive.”
She recalls picking out the boy with green hair from a black-and-white, six-photo lineup.
Asked whether she was able to pick out the girl with pink hair from a photo lineup, she said, sounding as if she wanted to cry, “I wasn’t.”
Dandurand’s lawyer, Barry Sooalo, asked Boinville Emery regarding the girl with pink hair, “Did you see that girl hurt your mother?”
“No, I did not see,” she said, again with emotion.
Sooalo questioned the girl whether she recalled she told police in 2017 that “only the boy tied you up.”
She said, “No, they both did.”
Detective Linda Robertson, who interviewed the then 8-year-old and confirmed what was in the written transcript, said that when asked about being upstairs, the girl said, “Yeah, they tied me up and taped my mouth.”
Robertson said police don’t use leading questions, but the girl gave her a description and used “they” and said that “the boy had green hair and the girl had pink hair.”
Sooalo questioned Robertson and the lead detective on whether two people were needed to put tape on an 8-year-old’s mouth.
The girl’s hands and feet were bound by rope, her feet tied to the bed frame.
Boinville’s husband, Kevin Emery, testified that he drove to the scene at 59-555 Ke Iki Road near Sunset Beach Elementary School.
He said that his daughter described the people who had tied her up: “The girl’s hair was pinkish and the guy’s hair was greenish, like Halloween.”
His twin brother, Brian, had shared the information on social media and quickly got a photo of Brown and Dandurand and sent it to Emery. He showed it to his daughter.
“‘Yes, that’s them,’ as she pushed the phone away,” he said.
Emery said he spoke to police at the scene and shared the photo.
Police officer Aaron Eveland, first officer on scene, arrived on an ATV from beach patrol.
He found “Makana, her feet and hands tied to the bed, clear tape over her mouth.”
He said he asked who did this to her.
“She said it was a guy and a girl. I had to untie her. She said, ‘I miss my mom already,’ and said that they killed her,” Eveland’s voice breaking with emotion.
Eveland testified he sent out the suspects’ photo from Emery.
Former Honolulu Chief Medical Examiner Christopher Happy, who performed the autopsy, testified to
Boinville’s extensive
injuries.
He said cause of death was “sharp and blunt force injuries of the head, neck and torso.”
The state had Happy explain in detail diagrams and graphic photos of her body in a pool of blood, her hands and feet tied together with a single rope and her head covered in a plastic bag.
Included were photos of her head, which he said appeared to have chop wounds.
He said a heavy knife, cleaver, ax or machete was likely used to create the wounds.
“One blow came from behind and from the right,” he said.
Happy also pointed out apparent defensive wounds to the palm, hands and
elbow.
Sooalo questioned why the death certificate said the cause listed only blunt and sharp force injuries of the head. Happy said the other injuries contributed to her death.
When Sooalo asked who caused the injuries, he said, “I don’t know who caused these injuries.”