Some stories never fade. In 1977, sixteen-year-old Dawn Momohara, a sophomore at McKinley High, was found murdered inside her own school. For nearly half a century, her case sat cold. Families carried the silence. A city carried the fear.

Then, in 2025, science caught up with the past. DNA pulled her name back into the headlines. A man was arrested—then released. Justice, almost within reach, slipped away once more.

This Legacy episode returns to Dawn’s story with more clarity, more depth, and the weight of everything that has happened since we first told it. It is a story about innocence, about silence, and about the fight to remember a girl who never got the chance to grow old.

This story was built on police files, court records, investigative journalism, and reporting from Hawaii’s local newsrooms who refused to let her case be forgotten. Every fact here stands on their shoulders.

If you have information that could help this case, contact Honolulu Police, or call CrimeStoppers at 808-955-8300. Even now, every detail matters.

Mahalo to Yoza, whose music carries us through every episode.

Because darkness may linger beneath the palms, but so does hope.

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