Hawaii
Chilling details emerge after schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl’s 1977 murder
Former Hawaii lawmaker Suzanne Chun Oakland remembers arriving at school one morning in 1977 to an eerie buzz.
The 15-year-old had met up with girlfriends as usual before class at Honolulu’s McKinley High School when she learned a student named Dawn Momohara had been found dead on the second floor of a school building.
“I don’t know how we got word of it, but everything spread really quickly,” Chun Oakland said.
Chun Oakland didn’t know Momohara, who was 16, but the unsolved death has haunted her and other McKinley students and staff for nearly half a century. That was until last week, when police used advances in DNA technology to arrest a 66-year-old resident of a Utah nursing home.
The suspect, former McKinley student Gideon Castro, was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Friday before a judge in Salt Lake County District Court. He remained in custody Thursday with the bond for his release set at $250,000, according to Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office records.
Castro’s attorney, Marlene Mohn, did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.
Momohara had been sexually assaulted and strangled, police said.
“I was just really sad,” Chun Oakland recalled earlier this week. “I think for our student body, of course there’s that concern that what if he’s still out there and he does it to somebody else.”
On March 21, 1977, shortly after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu police found Momohara dead. She was partially clothed and lying on her back with an orange cloth tied around her neck, said Lt. Deena Thoemmes, of Honolulu Police. A subsequent autopsy ruled Momohara was strangled to death, and the medical examiner said there were signs of sexual assault.
Details from more than four decades ago are fuzzy for 1967 McKinley graduate Grant Okamura, who was the school’s 28-year-old band teacher in 1977, but the morning Momohara was found has remained a core memory.
Momohara’s sister — one of his flute players — arrived at school that day not knowing her sister had been found dead, he recalled. The sister was called to the office and later walked into the band room, devastated.
“The other students were trying to console her,” Okamura said. “At that point, I couldn’t have band. How do you have a class? She just sat there crying.”
She didn’t return to school for weeks afterward.
He doesn’t remember the sister’s name. The Associated Press was unable to make contact with any possible relatives. Okamura said he met Momohara a few times when he let her into the air-conditioned band room to wait for her sister.
The morning before Momohara was killed, she got a call from an unknown male and told her mother she was going to a nearby shopping center with friends. That was the last time her mother saw her, police said.
Police released sketches of a person of interest and a possible vehicle described by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac Lemans. A witness reported seeing the car when he and his girlfriend drove through campus the night before Momohara died. The witness saw a man and the car on the grass near the school’s English building, Thoemmes said.
The witness circled back around but the car and the man were gone.
Police were unable to identify a suspect and the case grew cold, though grief lingered over the campus.
Although police retrieved an unknown man’s DNA sample from the teenager’s clothing, they could not identify a suspect. Authorities would not develop meaningful leads in the homicide until decades later.
In 2019, cold case detectives asked a forensic biology unit to examine several items of evidence from the scene, including Momohara’s underwear. They were able to develop a DNA profile in 2020. Then, in 2023, police received information about potential suspects, two brothers who were interviewed in 1977.
Several days after Momohara was killed, detectives interviewed Castro, who graduated from McKinley High in 1976. He said he met Momohara at a school dance that year and last saw her at a carnival on campus in February 1977. Police interviewed his brother, who also met Momohara at the dance.
In November 2023, Honolulu police went to Chicago, where the brother was living. They “surreptitiously” obtained DNA from one of the brother’s adult children, Thoemmes said.
Lab findings excluded the brother as a suspect, but a DNA sample from Castro’s adult son, and later from Castro himself, proved he was responsible, Thoemmes said.
He was arrested last week at the nursing home where he lived in Millcreek, just south of Salt Lake City, on suspicion of second-degree murder.
Neither Okamura nor Chun Oakland remembered Castro.
Chun Oakland graduated in 1979 and grew up to become a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate. She said Momohara’s killing bothered her over the years, especially when she would meet victims through her work as a lawmaker or as a board member of the nonprofit Sex Abuse Treatment Center, a statewide program provding services for sexual assault survivors.
Chun Oakland said she is grateful an arrest was possible even after all these years.
“I think the community in general, and our elected officials, they know the importance of trying to preserve the evidence that can someday be able to see justice for that individual or individuals,” she said.
Three people are dead after a helicopter crashed at Kalalau Beach on Kaua’i in Hawaii, the island’s police department said in a statement.
Police said they received a “text-to-911” message around 3:45 p.m. that a helicopter had crashed into the ocean near Kalalau Beach. According to Kaua’i police, multiple agencies responded to reports of the downed chopper.
The helicopter was carrying one pilot and four passengers, and was operated by Airborne Aviation — a company that operates helicopter tours, police said.
It was not immediately clear which of the three passengers was killed, and their identities were not released.
The other two passengers were taken to Wilcox Medical Center for treatment, police said.
The Kaua’i Fire Department, the Kaua’i Emergency Management Agency, the United States Coast Guard, American Medical Response, the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Kaua’i Police Department all responded to the crash and “are actively involved in the response,” according to the police statement.
The statement said no further information is available at this time and updates will be shared when they are available.
Meanwhile, Hawaii has been facing historic floods that have wreaked havoc on the islands in recent weeks amid devastating “kona low,” or seasonal Hawaiian cyclones. The storms first caused destruction on Oahu and Maui last weekend, and alerts were up for the Big Island earlier this week.
HONOLULU — Hawaii Pacific coach Dane Fujinaka joked with his staff that it was a lose-lose situation.
When HPU Sharks all-time saves leader Ryan Inouye took the mound in the ninth inning for the University of Hawaii against his former team Wednesday, there were plenty of mixed emotions in the Les Murakami Stadium visitors’ dugout.
“It was like we either come back and make a push here, and our guy obviously has to wear it,” Fujinaka said. “Or he shuts it out like he did, and we lose.”
The 5-foot-9 Kailua High graduate with the unorthodox right-handed mechanics limited the Sharks to a single to record his first save in a Kelly green uniform, as UH beat its crosstown opponent 4-1.
[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii-Hawaii Pacific baseball.]
Inouye, his face a neutral mask minutes later, resolved to keep his emotions the same way as he stepped on the turf.
“Gotta keep it the same even though I know a lot of the guys over there,” he said.
Afterward, he greeted old teammates and coaches and was warmly received.
Inouye posted 20 saves over the last three years with Division II HPU, including the program single-season record of 13 en route to second-team All-West Region honors in 2025. He learned last season that he had a year of eligibility restored from his time at Menlo at the front end of his college career. But by rule he also would not be able to apply it at the D-II level.
Once the season ended, Fujinaka reached out to UH pitching coach Keith Zuniga and head coach Rich Hill.
“I said, ‘Hey, is there any interest here? I think you guys like perfect fit. He lives five minutes away. He’s a different arm that a lot of your league hasn’t seen.’”
“It was an easy phone call, and he was out of Division II eligibility, so he wouldn’t have been able to come back to us anyway,” Fujinaka added. “I’m just really happy that that UH, Rich gave him a chance to continue playing.”
It was his seventh appearance for the Rainbow Warriors, but first since March 8 against Cal Poly.
Hill acknowledged it was “weird” to put Inouye in a situation to face his old friends. He was the last of seven pitchers to see work in the mid-week bullpen game.
“He went to war with those guys for a few years. But they understand,” Hill said. “And he loves his teammates and he loves his coaches on both sides. I don’t think that entered into it at all. He was just trying to execute pitches and get a save for his team.”
Four UH pitchers — Derek Valdez, Saul Soto, Jack Berg and Zac Tenn — took a combined no-hitter into the seventh, when the Sharks’ Owen Wessel singled to right off Tenn.
Shortstop Elijah Ickes threw Wessel out at home on Ethan Murakoshi’s fielder’s choice. Jayden Gabrillo scored on a wild pitch by Tsubasi Tomii to give the Sharks a momentary lead.
Ben Zeigler-Namoa started a four-run rally in the bottom of the frame with a single to right. Kody Watanabe tied the game with an infield single and catcher Jake Redding drew a bases-loaded walk for the go-ahead score.
After UH faced ex-‘Bows pitcher Rylen Bayne in the bottom of the eighth — Bayne got through old teammates Zeigler-Namoa, Ickes and Draven Nushida cleanly — it was Inouye’s turn to face old friends.
He got Blake Helsper to foul out with a nice sliding catch by third baseman Tate Shimao just in front of the UH dugout.
Noah Hata singled up the middle, but Inouye struck out Carter Jones on eight pitches and Gabrillo grounded out to first to end the game.
Inouye was teammates with all the batters he faced, save Helsper.
“Definitely wanted to get all of them out,” Inouye said. “But Noah got a hit, so he’s definitely gonna hold that one over me.”
UH (13-10, 3-6 Big West) now readies for Cal State Fullerton (11-13, 5-4) in a three-game series starting Friday.
Hill said he appreciated the closely played contest that tested his team’s nerve when the Sharks got on the board first late in the game. HPU hadn’t beaten UH since 1986.
“It felt like the game meant something,” Hill said. “It’s good for our guys to be in that situation heading into Cal State Fullerton. You can’t replicate that in practice.”
As for Fujinaka, it was encouraging to see some of his eight pitchers on the day work their way out of jams, a known trouble spot for his group.
His message to the players was, “Look, guys, like, we can play alongside anybody in the country, as long as we continue to throw strikes, play defense, do the fundamental stuff that we talked about all year.”
HPU (12-14, 10-10 PacWest), which beat Chaminade 11-7 on Tuesday, hosts Fresno Pacific in a four-game series at Hans L’Orange Park next Wednesday.
The Sharks have weathered a literal storm or two.
They had a four-game home series against Westmont washed out by the first of two Kona low storms to hit Oahu. HPU’s practice site at Keehi Lagoon was inundated by knee-deep water — something Fujinaka had never seen.
They will attempt to make three of the Westmont games up on the road, Fujinaka said, in a tough 11-games-in-12-days stretch in mid-April.
Hawaii pitcher Ryan Inouye threw a pitch against his former team, Hawaii Pacific, in the ninth inning. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)
Hawaii third baseman Tate Shimao, sitting, made a sliding catch in foul territory near the UH dugout against Hawaii Pacific. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)
Former Hawaii pitcher Rylen Bayne threw a pitch for HPU against his old team. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)
Hawaii’s Jake Redding got caught in a rundown short of home plate as HPU catcher Brock Wirthgen stood in his way. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
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