Last week’s shooting in Punaluu was an execution, Deputy Prosecutor Roy Kwon told a state judge Thursday after an Oahu grand jury returned a murder indictment against the accused shooter.

The indictment charges Ray Thomas Kekai Sheldon, 43, with second-degree murder and using a firearm to commit the crime in connection with the April 19 death of 31-year-old Hansen Apo.

Circuit Judge Shirley Kawamura confirmed Sheldon’s bail at $1 million.

Kwon told Kawamura that Sheldon fired three to five warning shots from a pistol into the air as Apo was driving at him. Sheldon then went into his home, retrieved an AR-15 assault rifle and, as Apo exited his vehicle, “began unloading rounds into the decedent. After the decedent fell from a number of rounds, the defendant then went up to the decedent, stood over him and essentially executed him with further rounds.”

The Honolulu medical examiner’s office said it has not completed the autopsy and declined to release the cause of death.

Honolulu police said officers went to Sheldon’s Punaluu home on Kamehameha Highway at about 11 p.m. April 19 after receiving reports of gunshots. The officers found blood and shell casings on the ground, an eyewitness who said Sheldon shot Apo, and spotted an assault rifle in a car on the property. They did not, however, find Sheldon or Apo.

Officers returned to the home the following day after a witness reported finding Apo’s body in a wooded area nearby. Sheldon turned himself in a few hours later.

Police said Sheldon admitted shooting Apo but only after he fired the warning shots and Apo knocked him down with a sport utility vehicle. They said Sheldon admitted shooting at Apo while Apo was still in the SUV, continued shooting after Apo got out of the vehicle until Apo stopped moving, then dragged Apo’s body to the back of his house.

They said Sheldon told them he thought Apo was on drugs and was going to rob him.

Sheldon’s lawyer Howard Luke declined to comment.