This photo provided by the Honolulu Police Department shows year-old student Dawn Momohara who was discovered dead on the second floor of a building at McKinley High School on March 21, , in Honolulu. Honolulu Police Department via AP. She 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.
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 year-old resident of a Utah nursing home.
The suspect, former McKinley student Gideon Castro, appeared in court via video on Friday from a hospital bed in the medical wing of a Utah jail. Castro told the judge he wanted to hire his own attorney and was ordered to return virtually to Salt Lake County District Court for an initial appearance on Wednesday. On March 21, , shortly after a. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled, police said. Momohara's sister β one of Okamura's flute players β 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. 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, homicide Lt. Deena Thoemmes said. Police released sketches of a person of interest and a possible vehicle described by witnesses as a or 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.
