Detectives followed the 2020 San Mateo killing for 18 months before arresting suspects in North Carolina and Hawaii.
SAN MATEO, Calif. — A homicide investigation that began in a residential driveway in San Mateo and eventually sent detectives to North Carolina and Hawaii has ended with life-without-parole sentences for two men convicted in the planned killing of Ueta Savelio Muasika Jr.
The sentencing completed a prosecution built over years rather than days. John Talia Paasi, 33, and Isileli Mahe, 34, were convicted after a 24-day trial of first-degree murder in Muasika’s Oct. 30, 2020, death. Jurors also found that the defendants had lain in wait before the attack. Muasika’s 2-year-old son was shot during the same ambush and survived. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Michael K. Wendler later sentenced both defendants to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The investigation started at about 9:40 a.m. when San Mateo officers were dispatched to the 1600 block of Eleanor Drive after reports of gunfire. Police found Muasika, 30, wounded in the driveway of his home. His young son had also been struck. Authorities said Muasika was preparing to leave with the child when the attack occurred. Fourteen rounds were fired. Muasika died at the scene, while officers and paramedics helped the boy before he was transported for emergency treatment. Police later said the child recovered.
What investigators did not have that morning was an arrested gunman or a simple explanation. Detectives began collecting evidence and following leads in a case police described as targeted. The department later said the investigation lasted roughly 18 months and extended across the country. That timeline made the case less about a quick identification at the scene and more about connecting evidence collected over time to people who were no longer living near San Mateo.
The break became public on April 18, 2022. San Mateo police announced that Paasi had been arrested at a residence in Charlotte, North Carolina, with the help of several law enforcement agencies. Hours later, Mahe was taken into custody at a residence in Honolulu. Both arrests were made without incident, according to police. Detectives then began extradition proceedings to return the two men to San Mateo County, where prosecutors could pursue the homicide and firearm-related charges.
Authorities also revealed a suspected motive after the arrests. They said the killing was connected to the 2019 arson death of Susana Tonga, Paasi’s grandmother. Tonga died after a fire was intentionally set at a San Mateo home. Muasika’s cousin, Fifita Tau, was prosecuted and later convicted in that crime. Police said they believed Paasi and Mahe targeted Muasika as retaliation for Tonga’s death even though investigators had no evidence that Muasika participated in or was responsible for the arson.
That motive helped explain why police viewed the 2020 attack as planned, but it did not resolve every evidentiary question. Most notably, prosecutors later acknowledged that they could not establish which defendant actually fired the weapon. Instead of filling that gap with an unsupported claim, they took a different legal route at trial. The prosecution argued that both men deliberately participated in the ambush and therefore could each be convicted under an aiding-and-abetting theory, regardless of which one pulled the trigger.
The approach required jurors to evaluate participation in the broader crime rather than determine whose finger was on the weapon. Prosecutors presented the shooting as a coordinated attack in which the defendants waited for Muasika outside his home and acted together. The lying-in-wait allegation was especially important because it addressed planning and concealment before the killing. After hearing weeks of evidence, the jury returned guilty verdicts in March 2026 and found the special circumstance true.
Defense lawyers had urged jurors to reject that account. Brandon Douglass, who represented Mahe, said at the start of trial that his client had no meaningful connection to San Mateo County and no reason to want Muasika dead. He maintained that Mahe was not involved. Paasi also denied responsibility and entered a not-guilty plea. Those arguments placed the prosecution’s circumstantial and participation evidence at the center of the trial because the state was not offering testimony that conclusively identified one defendant as the shooter.
The verdicts allowed the case to move from questions of responsibility to punishment. At sentencing, Wendler rejected motions for a new trial. Mahe received life without parole plus six years. Paasi received life without parole plus an additional 12 years, with a prior felony strike affecting his sentence. The court heard victim-impact statements from Muasika’s relatives, including his son, who had been a toddler when the investigation began. The judge also ordered restitution and other post-conviction requirements reported after the hearing.
The path from crime scene to verdict illustrates how investigators can pursue a homicide even when suspects move far from the place where the killing occurred. The San Mateo Police Department said its detectives worked with investigators and agencies in multiple jurisdictions, including those involved in the arrests in Charlotte and Honolulu. The interstate nature of the search did not change where the case was prosecuted: the underlying crime occurred in San Mateo County, and both defendants were eventually returned there to face trial.
It also meant that the investigation and prosecution unfolded across very different phases. The first phase focused on preserving evidence and identifying suspects after the driveway shooting. The second moved outward as detectives tracked Paasi and Mahe to other states. The third returned to California, where the case proceeded through pretrial litigation and eventually a jury trial. The final trial-court phase addressed sentencing after jurors accepted the prosecution’s theory that both men shared criminal responsibility for the ambush.
For the victim’s family, those phases covered much of the childhood of the boy who survived. He was 2 when his father was killed, about 4 when the arrests were made and older still by the time the case reached a jury. Authorities have said he recovered physically from the gunshot wound. His later participation through the family’s victim-impact statements emphasized that the investigation’s duration was not merely procedural; it unfolded alongside the life of a child who had been present for the crime.
The sentencing resolves the case in the trial court but may not be the final legal proceeding. Douglass has said Mahe intends to appeal. No appellate decision has been reported. Unless a reviewing court changes the judgment, both defendants will remain imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole, bringing the multistate investigation to a completed conviction and sentencing while leaving the appellate process as the next possible stage.
Author note: Last updated August 28, 2026.