CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL @STARADVERTISER.COM Circuit Court Judge Rowena Somerville found Anthony F. Pereira guilty today of second-degree murder of his mother. Pereira and his defense attorney, Harrison Kiehm, listen to Somerville as she speaks before the guilty verdict announcement.

1 /1 CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL @STARADVERTISER.COM Circuit Court Judge Rowena Somerville found Anthony F. Pereira guilty today of second-degree murder of his mother. Pereira and his defense attorney, Harrison Kiehm, listen to Somerville as she speaks before the guilty verdict announcement.

Circuit Court Judge Rowena Somerville today found a 52-year-old former Oahu Community Correctional Center training officer guilty on all counts including second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of his mother eight years ago.

Anthony F. Pereira II, 52, opted to waive a jury trial in favor of a bench trial on June 17, after a jury had been selected and the trial was ready to go.

Somerville oversaw three days of testimony and this morning’s closing arguments before reaching the verdict. Pereira was also found guilty of kidnapping, terroristic threatening, firearm and drug charges.

Pereira testified on his own behalf that he shot his mother in the leg on June 10, 2016, but said he couldn’t remember that he shot her twice in the head with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, nor did he recall shooting a Glock pistol close to the head of a woman he held captive.

The judge found the defense failed to prove that Pereira was under a severe emotional or mental disturbance, and not drugs or alcohol, when he killed his mother.

Pereira also was charged with kidnapping his mother, whom he shot in the thigh when she asked to leave.

He also was found guilty of first-degree terroristic threatening for holding Dodie Guzman, a Waianae woman, at his Maili home for three days.

The judge found Guzman’s testimony credible. She testified that she saw Pereira smoking a pipe and sniffed some liquid in a wine jug, and that his behavior changed.

He denied using methamphetamine on June 9 and 10, 2016, but he said he would not have committed the crimes if he hadn’t been using drugs and alcohol.

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