A teenage girl who was sexually assaulted and strangled to death by a classmate at Hawaii High School has been arrested at a Utah nursing home, according to cops.
Sophomore Dawn Momohara, 16, was found on the second floor of Honolulu's McKinley High School in March 1977 with an orange cloth tied around her neck. According to NBC News.
She was “lying on her back, partially clothed. It appears she had been sexually assaulted and she was pronounced dead at the scene,” Homicide Deputy Deena Tormes said. said.
This incident caused a chill for decades. One of her former classmates, Gideon Castro, now 66, was arrested at a Utah nursing home, police said.
He was charged with second-degree murder, Thoemmes said, crediting advances in DNA.
Castro and his brother William were both interviewed days after Momohara's body was discovered, but even after years of police propaganda, the main suspect had never been publicly identified. There was no suspect sketch and Pontiac Leman, where a night peach was killed near Honolulu High School.
The case went cold until 2019, when detectives decided to test several items recovered from the murder scene, including underwear and blue shorts for DNA.
This allowed them to create a DNA profile of the suspect the following year. It was matched with Castro earlier this month, the police department said, thanks to help from the FBI and Homeland Security.
Castro is living in a Salt Lake City-area nursing home and is awaiting extradition to Honolulu, Tormes said.
In announcing the arrest, Thoemmes praised everyone involved in “the tireless pursuit of justice for Dawn and the Momohara family.”
