HONOLULU– Previous Hawaii legislator Suzanne Chun Oakland keeps in mind getting to institution one early morning in 1977 to a spooky buzz.
The 15-year-old had actually met sweethearts customarily prior to course at Honolulu’s McKinley High School when she found out a trainee called Dawn Momohara had actually been located dead on the 2nd flooring of an institution structure.
” I do not understand just how we heard of it, yet whatever spread actually swiftly,” Chun Oakland stated.
Chun Oakland really did not understand Momohara, that was 16, yet the unresolved fatality has actually haunted her and various other McKinley trainees and personnel for almost 50 years. That was till recently, when cops utilized breakthroughs in DNA modern technology to apprehend a 66-year-old citizen of a Utah assisted living home.
The suspect, previous McKinley pupil Gideon Castro, was arranged to make a first court look Friday prior to a court in Salt Lake Area Area Court. He continued to be captive Thursday with the bond for his launch evaluated $250,000, according to Salt Lake Area Constable’s Workplace documents.
Castro’s lawyer, Marlene Mohn, did not reply to email and telephone messages looking for remark.
Momohara had actually been sexually attacked and suffocated, cops stated.
” I was simply actually unfortunate,” Chun Oakland remembered previously today. “I assume for our pupil body, certainly there’s that issue that suppose he’s still around and he does it to someone else.”
On March 21, 1977, quickly after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu cops located Momohara resting on her back, partly outfitted, an orange towel covered snugly around her neck.
Information from greater than 4 years back are blurry for 1967 McKinley grad Give Okamura, that was the institution’s 28-year-old band educator in 1977, yet the early morning Momohara was located has actually continued to be a core memory.
Momohara’s sis– among his groove gamers– came to institution that day not recognizing her sis had actually been located dead, he remembered. The sis was phoned call to the workplace and later on strolled right into the band space, ravaged.
” The various other trainees were attempting to console her,” Okamura stated. “Then, I could not have band. Exactly how do you have a course? She simply rested there sobbing.”
She really did not go back to institution for weeks later.
He does not bear in mind the sis’s name. The Associated Press was not able to reach any type of feasible loved ones. Okamura stated he satisfied Momohara a couple of times when he allowed her right into the cool band space to wait on her sis.
The early morning prior to Momohara was eliminated, she obtained a phone call from an unidentified man and informed her mom she was mosting likely to a neighboring shopping mall with good friends. That was the last time her mom saw her, murder Lt. Deena Thoemmes stated.
Cops launched illustrations of an individual of rate of interest and a feasible lorry defined by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac Lemans. A witness reported seeing the vehicle when he and his partner drove via school the evening prior to Momohara passed away. The witness saw a male and the vehicle on the lawn near the institution’s English structure, Thoemmes stated.
The witness returned around yet the vehicle and the male were gone.
Cops were not able to determine a suspect and the situation expanded cool, though despair stuck around over the school.
In 2019, cool situation investigators asked a forensic biology system to analyze numerous products of proof from the scene, consisting of Momohara’s undergarments. They had the ability to create a DNA account in 2020. After that, in 2023, cops obtained info regarding possible suspects, 2 bros that were talked to in 1977.
Numerous days after Momohara was eliminated, investigators spoke with Castro, that finished from McKinley High in 1976. He stated he satisfied Momohara at an institution dancing that year and last saw her at a circus on school in February 1977. Cops interviewed his bro, that likewise satisfied Momohara at the dancing.
In November 2023, Honolulu cops mosted likely to Chicago, where the bro was living. They “surreptitiously” gotten DNA from among the bro’s grown-up kids, Thoemmes stated.
Laboratory searchings for omitted the bro as a suspect, yet a DNA example from Castro’s grown-up kid, and later on from Castro himself, showed he was liable, Thoemmes stated.
He was apprehended recently at the assisted living home where he resided in Millcreek, simply southern of Salt Lake City, on uncertainty of second-degree murder.
Neither Okamura neither Chun Oakland bore in mind Castro.
Chun Oakland finished in 1979 and matured to come to be an Autonomous participant of the Hawaii Us senate. She stated Momohara’s murder troubled her throughout the years, specifically when she would certainly fulfill targets via her job as a legislator or as a board participant of the not-for-profit Sex Misuse Therapy Facility, a statewide program provding solutions for sexual offense survivors.
Chun Oakland stated she is happy an apprehension was feasible also besides these years.
” I assume the neighborhood generally, and our chosen authorities, they understand the relevance of attempting to protect the proof that can at some point have the ability to see justice for that private or people,” she stated.
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Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City added to this record.
