Police have arrested a suspect in the unsolved murder of a Honolulu teenager, whose death rocked the high school where her body was discovered almost five decades ago. They said the man arrested, Gideon Castro, was one of her former schoolmates who joined the U. Army Reserve after graduating. She was 16 and a student there in her sophomore year. Officers at the time showed up to a gruesome scene.
Momohara was partially clothed and lying on her back with an orange cloth tied around her neck, said Lt. Deena Thoemmes, of Honolulu Police, at a Tuesday news conference. A subsequent autopsy ruled Momohara was strangled to death, and the medical examiner said there were signs of sexual assault.
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 , after a cold case detective re-submitted evidence for forensic exams using updated technology.
By September , the DNA tests led investigators to two possible suspects: brothers Gideon Castro and William Castro, who had both been interviewed in the immediate aftermath of Momohara's killing. Back then, Gideon Castro told police he met Momohara at a school dance in , just before he graduated, police said.
William Castro in those interviews said he and Momohara periodically talked on the phone but denied ever being in any kind of relationship with her. Once forensic tests narrowed down the pool of potential suspects to the Castro brothers, Thoemmes said police traveled to Chicago, where William Castro lived, to obtain a DNA sample secretly from one of his children and use it as a comparison.
