SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah pass judgement on ordered the discharge of a 66-year-old suspect within the 1977 killing of a Hawaii youngster after prosecutors in Honolulu mentioned they were not able to continue with a homicide rate towards him.
Gideon Castro used to be arrested in January at a Utah nursing house on a fugitive warrant for suspicion of second-degree homicide within the dying of 16-year-old Crack of dawn Momohara. He had waived the fitting to problem his extradition right through a listening to in Salt Lake Town final month. Castro, who’s unwell, seemed via video from a prison health center mattress.
Whilst he used to be nonetheless looking ahead to extradition, Honolulu prosecutors advised their opposite numbers in Utah this week that they weren’t continuing with the case towards Castro as a result of “fresh headaches involving a subject material witness on this case and the state of the proof.”
“Please perceive we view this as just a brief setback, and we stay totally dedicated to proceeding our efforts to prosecute this subject within the close to long term,” Kelsi Guerra, a deputy prosecuting legal professional in Honolulu wrote in a Monday letter to Deputy Salt Lake County District Lawyer Clifford Ross.
Utah District Courtroom Pass judgement on John Nielsen ordered Castro’s free up Wednesday. Salt Lake County prison information now not indexed him as an inmate Thursday.
On March 21, 1977, in a while after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu police discovered the frame of Momohara on the second one flooring of a development at McKinley Top College. She used to be mendacity on her again, partly clothed with an orange fabric wrapped tightly round her neck and have been sexually assaulted and strangled, police mentioned.
Castro used to be a pupil on the Honolulu faculty.
An legal professional for Castro had mentioned right through a listening to final month in Salt Lake Town that he supposed to combat the fees upon his go back to Hawaii, the place continues to be a resident, in step with prison information. It’s unclear how lengthy Castro have been in Utah when he used to be arrested on the nursing house in Millcreek, simply south of Salt Lake Town.
After Momohara’s dying, police launched sketches of an individual of hobby and a conceivable car described via witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac LeMans. However they had been not able to spot a suspect, and the case grew chilly.
Police used advances in DNA generation to attach Castro to the killing. That they had interviewed Castro and his brother in 1977, however they had been not able to conclusively hyperlink Castro to the killing till acquiring DNA samples in recent times.
