Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Gideon Castro, 66, will be extradited from a Utah nursing home to Hawaii, in connection to a 1977 murder.
- Advanced DNA technology linked Castro to the murder of 16-year-old Dawn Momohara.
- The Utah Cold Case Coalition highlights DNA's role in solving cold cases and deterring crime.
MILLCREEK — A man living in a Utah nursing home will be sent to Hawaii, where he's now facing a second-degree murder charge.
Gideon Castro, 66, is accused of killing then-16-year-old Dawn Momohara nearly 50 years ago. He was arrested at a Millcreek nursing home where investigators said he was living Tuesday morning.
Honolulu police said Momohara's body was found on March 21, 1977, on the second floor of a building at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was a student.
Castro also attended the school and graduated in 1976.
Police said Momohara had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
"One witness reported that, on the night before Dawn died, between 9 and 10 p.m., he and his girlfriend drove through McKinley High School campus and observed a car and a male near the English building," Honolulu Police Lt. Deena Thoemmes said.
Decades-old sketches of the suspect and his vehicle didn't bring any answers. But new information and advanced DNA technology led police to Gideon Castro in Utah.
"There's not enough money to do DNA testing on anywhere near all of the cold cases, but when it can be done, it's very reliable," said Utah Cold Case Coalition co-founder Karra Porter.
She said results in cases like Momohara's give families hope.
"They have mixed feelings a lot," Porter said. "On the one hand, it brings up all of these painful memories, but on the other hand, they're finally seeing some answers and, in this case, a potential prosecution."
She said DNA advanced technology can also deter people from committing crimes.
"I believe it leads to a deterrence in the commission of these kinds of crimes," Porter said. "I think people now understand, 'I can't get away with things that I maybe thought I could get away with in the past.'"
Porter said she's studied what happens to suspects carrying secrets like an unconfessed crime, for years.
"A lot of people, this eats away at them, sometimes physically they just deteriorate," she said.
She said some people live life as if nothing happened.
"Some people commit a heinous crime, I guess it has such an impact on them that they never commit another one, but they also don't necessarily feel guilty about the first one," she said. "Maybe they excuse it with, 'I was young or I made a mistake or I was drunk or whatever.'"
Porter said some suspects don't consider the outcome.
"What doesn't seem to occur to them is, come forward yourself, and you have a better chance of not dying in prison," Porter said.
She said answers in cold cases can help families rewrite their loved one's legacy.
"It gives the family a chance to talk about what their loved one was like and have a memory of them, and let the community remember them in a positive way," Porter said.
Castro is in Utah pending extradition. None of the law enforcement agencies involved in this case are releasing which nursing home Castro lived in.
