The unsolved death of a teenager in 1977 haunted students and staff at Honolulu's McKinley High School for nearly half a century.

DNA technology has led to the arrest of 66-year-old Gideon Castro, who attended the same high school as the victim, Dawn Momohara.

Susie Chun Oakland arrived to a crime scene at McKinley High School in Honolulu that March morning nearly a half century ago.

Honolulu Police say modern forensic tests allowed them to identify and arrest a suspect in Dawn Momohara's 1977 murder.

Dawn Momohara was 16 years old when her body was found on the second floor of McKinley High School in Honolulu in 1977. For decades, detectives had failed to identify a suspect in the murder case but now, thanks to a breakthrough in DNA technology, they have arrested a former classmate, police confirmed.

Nearly a half-century after Dawn Momohara’s body was found, Gideon Castro, 66, was arrested in a Utah nursing home and charged with her murder.

Experts say DNA testing is how most cold cases are now being solved. It helped identify a suspect in the murder of a McKinley High School student with evidence preserved from

Two Native Hawaiian brothers who were convicted in the 1991 killing of a woman visiting Hawaii allege in a federal lawsuit that local police framed them under pressure to solve a high-profile murder.

Student Dawn Momohara, 16, was found dead inside McKinley High School on Monday, March 21, 1977, according to the Honolulu Police Department. “A teacher had found her and it was early in the morning, second floor of the English building,” Susie Chun Oakland, a former student, told KHON in 2019.

Ian and Shawn Schweitzer argued in a federal lawsuit that local police had failed to arrest a leading suspect.

Lawyers representing victims of a deadly Hawaii wildfire reached a last-minute deal averting a trial that was scheduled to begin Wednesday over how to split a $4 billion settlement. The agreement means victims and survivors will not have to testify,

Before Dawn Momohara was killed, she got a call from an unknown male and told her mother she was going to a shopping center. That was the last time her mom saw her, police said.