A Waihee man known across Maui for spending his nights feeding stray cats has died after being beaten in the head multiple times during a confrontation on Lalo Street in Kahului. Alfred Kailihiwa, 71, was driving through the area with his 73-year-old sister on the night of Thursday, August 6, when three people confronted the pair, first over their headlights and later in an attempt to take the woman's vehicle and flashlight. He died the next day from his injuries, and two suspects now face second-degree murder charges.
According to KITV Island News, the Maui Police Department received a report of an assault involving a possible firearm near Lalo and Hukilike Streets in Kahului shortly before 11:12 p.m. that Thursday. Police say three people — two men and one woman — first confronted Kailihiwa and his sister, Valerie Kailihiwa, over their vehicle's headlights, then followed the siblings to Lalo Street and confronted them again. During that second encounter, the group tried to take the woman's vehicle and flashlight, kicked Kailihiwa while he was on the ground, and pushed his sister down as well. Kailihiwa attempted to deploy pepper spray toward the three people before he was struck multiple times in the head and fell to the ground, per the outlet's report.
Kailihiwa was taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center with critical, life-threatening injuries and died there the following day, August 7. His sister sustained only minor injuries in the attack, the station's report notes. A second vehicle connected to the incident was found in a parking lot on Kahului Beach Road, and police later located a vehicle associated with the suspects near Honoapiilani Highway.
Three Arrests, Murder and Robbery Charges Filed
Police took a 34-year-old Wailuku man into custody the day of the assault. A 31-year-old Mauna Loa man and a 36-year-old woman were later taken into custody near Kahului Beach Road, and a 37-year-old woman remains in police custody pending further investigation, per the same account. The Maui Police Department has not routinely released booking mugshots or full identifying photographs of arrestees since a Ninth Circuit ruling restricting such disclosures, a policy Hoodline previously reported on in June.
Both the 34-year-old man and the 31-year-old man were charged with murder in the second degree, assault in the second degree, and robbery in the first degree, according to the report. Bail for each was set at $530,000. Under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 707-701.5, second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, as detailed by FindLaw. The robbery charge, a Class A felony under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 708-840, carries up to 20 years in prison with mandatory incarceration and no possibility of probation, per legal guidance from the Oahu Law Firm. The investigation remains ongoing.
A Lifetime Spent Caring for Maui's Cats
Kailihiwa's death has struck a deep chord in Maui's animal rescue community, where he and his sister were widely known for their decades of volunteer work trapping, feeding, and caring for feral cats. Just last year, in May 2025, Alfred was officially recognized as a nominee for Maui County's Outstanding Older American award by the County Department of Human Concerns Office on Aging, honored for his lifelong advocacy for the island's community cats, according to Maui Now. Valerie Kailihiwa, who was present during the attack, was nominated alongside her brother that same year for her own decades of dedicated feral cat care.
The scale of the siblings' work was staggering. Community cat rescue organization Kitty Charm Farm said in August that Kailihiwa and his sister fed approximately 700 stray cats every night and had trapped an estimated 12,000 cats over the years for spay and neuter services through the Maui Humane Society. It was that mission — feeding cats late at night — that brought the siblings to the industrial stretch near Kahului Beach Road when they were confronted.
“Alfred is a beloved member of the Maui community, and especially adored by the Maui cat community,” Sarah Haynes wrote following his death. Loved ones have since created a GoFundMe page to help cover funeral costs and related family expenses. The Maui Police Department extended condolences to Kailihiwa's ohana and friends in the wake of his death.
A Rare Violent Crime in an Industrial Corridor
Lalo Street sits within a commercial and light-industrial zone near Kahului Harbor and Kahului Beach Road, an area of warehouses, commercial lots, and harbor infrastructure that regularly sees heavy truck traffic and periodic road closures. The corridor has seen severe violence before: in June 2019, a 90-year-old woman was attacked during a burglary at 111 Kahului Beach Road and later died, a case police reclassified as second-degree murder, according to a report at the time from Maui News.
Homicides remain relatively rare across the island. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data compiled in a 2023 Hawaii criminal justice report showed the Maui Police Department recorded six homicides in 2022, a local homicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000 residents. Separate public health tracking data compiled in 2024 put Maui County's overall violent crime rate at 287 offenses per 100,000 residents in 2021, comparable to neighboring Kauai County's rate of 292 per 100,000 during the same period.
