A classmate of a teenage lady discovered sexually assaulted and strangled in her Hawaii highschool has been arrested almost 50 years later in a Utah nursing dwelling, in accordance with cops.
Sophomore Daybreak Momohara, 16, was discovered on the second ground of Honolulu’s McKinley Excessive College in March 1977 with an orange fabric tied round her neck, in accordance with NBC Information.
She was “lying on her back, partially clothed. It appeared that she had been sexually assaulted and she was pronounced dead at the scene,” murder lieutenant Deena Thoemmes mentioned.
The case ran chilly for many years — till late Tuesday when considered one of her former classmates, Gideon Castro, now 66, was arrested in a nursing dwelling in Utah, police mentioned.
He was charged with second-degree homicide, Thoemmes mentioned, crediting the developments in DNA.
Castro and his brother William have been each interviewed days after Momohara’s physique was discovered — however a chief suspect was by no means publicly recognized, at the same time as police for years marketed a sketch of a suspect and a Pontiac Lemans seen close to the Honolulu highschool the evening Momohara was murdered.
The case went chilly till 2019, when detectives determined to check a number of objects recovered from the homicide scene — together with underwear and a pair of blue shorts — for DNA.
That enabled them to make a DNA profile of the suspect the next yr — which was matched to Castro earlier this month, thanks to assist from the FBI and Homeland Safety, the police division mentioned.
Castro was residing in a Salt Lake Metropolis-area nursing dwelling and is awaiting extradition to Honolulu, Thoemmes mentioned.
In saying the arrest, Thoemmes praised everybody concerned for his or her “tireless pursuit of justice for Dawn and the Momohara family.”
