A 66-year-old Hilo woman has pleaded no contest to manslaughter for the 2016 starvation death of her 9-year-old granddaughter.
Henrietta Stone entered the plea Tuesday for the death of Shaelynn Lehano-Stone, a developmentally disabled girl who Stone had custody of when the child died on June 28, 2016.
Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto scheduled Stone’s sentencing for April 16.
Manslaughter carries a penalty of either a 20-year prison term or 10 years probation and up to two years in jail.
Prosecutors intend to argue for the maximum penalty, while Stone’s attorney, Stanton Oshiro, is free to argue for the probation sentence.
Stone, who remains in custody at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in lieu of $100,000 bail, has been incarcerated since her arrest in July 2017, and will be freed if she is sentenced to probation.
Stone is the last of three individuals to be convicted in connection with her granddaughter’s death. The girl’s parents — Tiffany Stone, Henrietta Stone’s daughter, and Tiffany Stone’s husband, Kevin Lehano — were also convicted of manslaughter after entering pleas in the case.
On March 22, 2021, Tiffany Stone was sentenced to 10 years probation and two years in jail. On June 30, 2021, Lehano also was sentenced to 10 years of probation and two
years in jail.
Both were immediately released, because they had served more than two years behind bars.
The child had been removed from Hilo Union Elementary School in October 2015 by Henrietta Stone, the child’s legal guardian, to be home-schooled. A call to 911 by Lehano brought first responders to Henrietta Stone’s apartment directly across from Hilo’s Central Fire Station on Kinoole Street on June 28, 2016.
There, they found the unconscious and unresponsive girl, who died later that day.
The child had been on Child Welfare Services’ radar since birth and was in foster care four times before her grandmother was awarded custody.
The girl’s two siblings, who also were in the CWS system, are now in adoptive homes.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
