Hawaii Island man's trial delayed in fatal shooting of family

The court-appointed attorney for a 57-year-old Pahoa man accused of murdering his wife and two children eight years ago has been instructed to hire a private investigator, at taxpayer expense, to check the mental health history of his client's family.

Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto granted Stanton Oshiro's request June 21 to retain the investigator. Oshiro represents John Ali Hoffman, who faces three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the fatal shootings of his 40-year-old wife, Aracely Hoffman, and their children, Clara Hoffman, 10, and 7-year-old John “Junior” Hoffman, 12, at the family's Leilani Estates home.

Officers who responded to a call about a disturbance at the Hoffman home on Moku Street in the early morning hours of May 6, 2016, arrested Hoffman for driving without headlights as he left the scene. Police said a handgun was in the car, within reach of Hoffman.

Police said officers opened the trunk after seeing blood coming out of it and found the body of Aracely Hoffman. The bodies of the two children were found in the house.

Hoffman is also charged with use of a firearm in the commission of another felony and illegal storage of a handgun.

Nakamoto granted Oshiro until Sept. 6 to “continue proceedings.” The judge said that if Oshiro obtained the information he sought before that date, he could submit it to the court and to three mental health professionals charged with determining Hoffman's fitness to stand trial.

Hoffman was initially found competent to stand trial in February 2017, but has since undergone several rounds of competency proceedings after engaging in bizarre behavior in the courtroom.

He has accused at least one judge, now retired, of bias against him and unsuccessfully demanded that the judge recuse himself from the case. On August 14, 2017, Hoffman testified in open court that the same judge and another judge, also now retired, and a private attorney “enslaved me and my family for the benefit of another man.”

Hoffman is also charged with second-degree assault for an alleged prison attack in November 2017 on a guard at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center, identified in court documents as Bryson Crivello. This case remains open in Hilo Circuit Court.

Aracely Urruela, originally from El Salvador, arrived in Hawaii 10 years before she met, married and had children with Hoffman.

“She wanted to have a better life, to move forward, to advance her family, to improve their lot,” Reyna Urruela Pineda, Aracely Hoffman’s mother, told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on May 10, 2016, through an interpreter. “She was very focused on her children and their future. She wanted Clara to go to college. She was worried about her son because Junior had a (rat) lung disease. But she always tried, as much as she could, as much as she was allowed, to improve their lot, including her husband’s.”

The murdered woman's brother, Tito Monroy Urruela, said his sister's goal “has always been to help.”

“She worked to help the family,” he said, partly in Spanish and partly in English. “She worked like men, doing men’s work. She had no vices. She never had a bad word for anyone. She was constantly worried about her whole family, including her husband.”

“She was completely innocent.”

Hoffman faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder, a charge that was brought because of the number of victims. The second-degree murder charges all carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

The use of a firearm in the commission of a separate felony is a Class A felony punishable by a potential prison sentence of 20 years, while the other firearm charge is a felony class B punishable by a possible prison sentence of 10 years.

The second-degree assault charge for the alleged attack on the guard is a Class C felony that carries a potential prison sentence of five years.

Hoffman remains in custody at the HCCC in lieu of a total bail of $2,085,000.