Chilling Memories Reawaken as DNA Breakthroughs Result in Arrest of Suspect in 1977 Murder of Hawaii Teen

HONOLULU—Former Hawaii lawmaker Suzanne Chun Oakland recalls an unsettling atmosphere when she arrived at school one morning in 1977.

As she gathered with friends before class at Honolulu’s McKinley High School, she learned about the tragic discovery of a student named Dawn Momohara, who had been found deceased on the second floor of a school building.

“I can’t remember how we found out, but news spread incredibly fast,” Chun Oakland shared.

Although Chun Oakland did not know the 16-year-old Momohara personally, the unresolved case has haunted her, along with other McKinley students and faculty, for nearly fifty years. Recently, however, police made a breakthrough, utilizing advancements in DNA technology to arrest a 66-year-old resident from a nursing home in Utah.

The accused, former McKinley student Gideon Castro, participated in a court hearing via video link from a hospital bed in the medical section of a Utah jail. He indicated his desire to hire a private lawyer and is scheduled to appear again virtually before the Salt Lake County District Court on Wednesday.

As of Friday, he remained in custody, with his bail set at $250,000, according to records from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

Castro’s current court-appointed attorney, Marlene Mohn, did not respond to emails or phone calls requesting comments.

“I felt extremely saddened,” Chun Oakland reflected earlier this week. “For our student body, of course, there is always that fear—what if he is still out there and could harm someone else.”

On the morning of March 21, 1977, shortly after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu police discovered Momohara lying on her back, partially clothed, with an orange cloth tightly wrapped around her neck.

The investigation revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, authorities reported.

Details from more than forty years ago may be hazy for 1967 McKinley graduate Grant Okamura, who was the school’s band teacher at the time, yet the memory of that tragic morning continues to resonate with him.

He recalled that Momohara’s sister—one of his flute students—arrived at school unaware of her sister’s death. She was later called to the office and entered the band room, completely heartbroken.

“Other students were trying to comfort her,” Okamura said. “At that moment, I couldn’t conduct band. How do you hold a class under those circumstances? She just sat there in tears.”

She didn’t return to school for several weeks afterward.

Unfortunately, he cannot remember the sister’s name, and the Associated Press was unable to contact potential relatives. Okamura mentioned that he met Momohara a few times when he allowed her to wait in the air-conditioned band room for her sister.

The night before Momohara’s murder, she received a phone call from an unidentified male and told her mother about plans to visit a nearby shopping mall with friends, according to homicide Lt. Deena Thoemmes. That was the last time her mother saw her.

Police released sketches of a person of interest and a vehicle described by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac LeMans. One witness recalled seeing a man and the car on the grass near the school’s English building the night before Momohara’s death. When he circled back, both the car and the man had vanished.

Despite these leads, the authorities could not identify any suspects, and the case soon went cold, leaving a lingering grief over the campus.

In 2019, cold case detectives requested a forensic biology unit to analyze several pieces of evidence from the scene, including Momohara’s underwear. They managed to establish a DNA profile in 2020. In 2023, police received leads involving potential suspects—two brothers who had been interviewed back in 1977.

Shortly after Momohara’s death, detectives questioned Castro, a McKinley High graduate in 1976. He stated he met Momohara at a school dance that year and last saw her at a campus carnival in February 1977. His brother was also interviewed, as he had met Momohara at the same dance.

In November 2023, Honolulu police traveled to Chicago to locate the brother and discreetly obtained DNA from one of the brother’s adult children, Thoemmes indicated.

Lab results excluded the brother as a suspect, but DNA samples collected from Castro’s adult son and later from Castro himself confirmed his involvement, Thoemmes reported.

He was arrested last week at the nursing home where he lived in Millcreek, located just south of Salt Lake City, on charges of second-degree murder.

Neither Okamura nor Chun Oakland remembered Castro.

Chun Oakland, who graduated in 1979, went on to serve as a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate. She stated that Momohara’s murder has weighed heavily on her throughout the years, particularly as she encountered victims in her roles as a lawmaker and a board member at the nonprofit Sex Abuse Treatment Center, which offers assistance to sexual assault survivors across the state.

She expressed gratitude that an arrest could finally be made after all these years.

“I believe the community at large, along with our elected leaders, understands the significance of preserving evidence that may someday lead to justice for this individual or others,” she remarked.

By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Hannah Schoenbaum