Kendall Ramsey was convicted not only in two deaths at an Ewa Beach apartment but also for endangering another driver afterward.
HONOLULU, Hawaii — Hours after Kayla Holder and her infant son were killed inside an Ewa Beach apartment, prosecutors say Kendall Ramsey drove into oncoming traffic on Kunia Road and struck another vehicle. Six years later, an Oahu jury has treated those events as parts of the same criminal case, convicting Ramsey of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree assault.
The crash was more than a footnote to the killings. It produced a separate felony charge and became part of competing explanations of Ramsey’s state of mind after Holder, 23, and 6-month-old Kainoa Ramsey died in March 2020. Prosecutors said Ramsey drove on the wrong side of the road directly toward an approaching vehicle as its driver tried to avoid him. The defense characterized his conduct after the killings as consistent with a suicide attempt. Jurors did not convict him of the attempted murder count originally filed over the collision, but they found him guilty of attempted assault in the first degree.
That second verdict accompanied the far more consequential finding that Ramsey committed first-degree murder by killing Holder and Kainoa. Ramsey, 28, admitted at trial that he caused both deaths, according to published accounts of the proceedings. His lawyers argued, however, that he was under extreme emotional or mental disturbance and should be convicted only of manslaughter. The state rejected that interpretation and asked jurors to hold him responsible for intentional and knowing killings. The panel returned its verdict July 31 after weighing evidence about the apartment, Ramsey’s behavior and his psychological history.
The sequence began inside the couple’s second-floor studio at the Sun Rise complex in Ewa Beach. Holder suffered 38 stab wounds and Kainoa suffered 17, according to evidence discussed at trial. Police found both dead after a friend called 911 in the early hours of March 26, 2020. Writing in blood on a wall included an apology and a statement saying Ramsey had stabbed Holder and that she had choked him. Prosecutors presented that message along with the physical condition of the apartment as evidence relevant to what occurred before Ramsey left.
The state’s account emphasized Holder’s defensive injuries, the repeated wounds to both victims and what Ramsey did afterward. Deputy Prosecutor Scott Bell argued that those facts were inconsistent with a legal reduction to manslaughter. The prosecution did not have to persuade jurors that Ramsey was free of mental-health problems; it had to persuade them that the defense had not established the degree of extreme disturbance required to produce the lesser outcome it requested. In closing arguments described by local reporting, Bell insisted that Ramsey remained accountable for his actions despite trauma in his background.
Ramsey’s attorneys presented a substantially different interpretation. Deputy Public Defender Hayley Cheng described a history of childhood abuse, abandonment and psychological problems that continued into adulthood. The defense said Ramsey suffered from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, had experienced suicidal thoughts and was dealing with unemployment and financial strain. Weeks before the deaths, according to trial reporting, concerns had arisen about suicidal ideation. Cheng argued that the fatal confrontation caused accumulated trauma and distress to converge in a sudden breakdown rather than a planned decision to kill.
The crash became useful to that defense theory because Ramsey’s lawyers said it represented an attempt to die after the killings. Prosecutors, however, treated the same driving as conduct that endangered another person. Hawaii News Now reported that Ramsey drove on the wrong side of Kunia Road toward the other vehicle and collided with it despite the other driver’s attempt to get out of the way. Other trial reporting identified the driver as Lynette Rojas and said she was injured. Ramsey was taken to a hospital, where accounts of statements he made became part of the evidence later described to jurors.
According to those reports, Ramsey told a hospital worker he had been drinking, fought with Holder, lost his temper and blacked out, then became aware that Holder and Kainoa were dead. The defense relied on his psychological history and statements about suicidality to explain both the confrontation and the subsequent driving. Prosecutors challenged that narrative, pointing to evidence they said demonstrated conscious choices before and after the killings. Ultimately, jurors rejected manslaughter on the deaths while also finding that Ramsey’s conduct toward the other driver amounted to attempted first-degree assault.
The separate crash conviction matters for sentencing because prosecutors said the jury made findings that could support an extended prison term. Ramsey already faces the most severe consequence attached to the murder verdict: prosecutors have said the maximum sentence is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The judge will determine the final punishment when Ramsey returns to court Nov. 18. He remains held without bail at the Oahu Community Correctional Center.
The road case also helps explain why the original prosecution included several counts rather than only the deaths at the apartment. When authorities first charged Ramsey in 2020, he faced one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree attempted murder. The attempted murder charge related to the crash. In September 2022, an Oahu grand jury returned the same general set of accusations after the first case had been disrupted by a statewide ruling on how serious felony prosecutions must be initiated.
That interruption came after the Hawaii Supreme Court determined that serious felonies had to be charged by grand jury indictment. Ramsey had initially been prosecuted through a criminal complaint. His charges were dismissed along with procedural complications affecting other cases, but the dismissal was not an acquittal and did not prevent prosecutors from returning to a grand jury. The 2022 indictment restarted the case and eventually led to the 2026 trial, where the jury resolved both the killings and the road incident.
Lost in the focus on Ramsey’s movements after the apartment are the lives that ended before he reached Kunia Road. Holder had come to Hawaii in 2014 and was a U.S. Army reservist who also worked and attended school. Her mother, Michelle Chamberlain, said she had spoken to Holder by FaceTime the evening before the bodies were discovered and heard nothing suggesting that a crisis was imminent. Holder’s Army command remembered her as an engaged soldier. Kainoa, her first child, had recently traveled with her to the East Coast so relatives could meet him.
Chamberlain described her grandson as calm and affectionate and said Holder’s deepest happiness had come from her relationship with her baby. The two were found dead together after a friend went to the apartment. Their family then learned that Ramsey had been located following the road collision. What was initially reported as a double homicide and a related crash grew into a yearslong prosecution involving disputed questions about intent, mental illness and criminal responsibility.
The July verdict resolved those questions at the trial level. Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm characterized the deaths as domestic violence and said Holder and Kainoa should still be alive. His office said the verdicts represented accountability not only for taking two lives but also for putting another person at risk on the road. Ramsey’s defense had tied that same driving to a mental-health crisis. The jury ultimately returned two criminal findings arising from two locations: first-degree murder for what happened in the Ewa Beach home and attempted first-degree assault for what followed on Kunia Road.
Sentencing will determine how those findings translate into prison time. Until then, Ramsey remains in custody without bail. The Nov. 18 hearing will come more than six and a half years after police first moved between the apartment where Holder and Kainoa were found and the roadway where Ramsey’s flight ended in a collision — a sequence that prosecutors ultimately presented to one jury as a continuous course of violent conduct.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.