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SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) -- Gideon Castro, a 66-year-old man who was arrested at a Utah nursing home in connection to the 1977 death of a teenager in Hawaii, may not be extradited and may instead be released from custody, according to a proposed court motion.
Castro was arrested in Utah on Jan. 21, 2025, on suspicion of second-degree murder. After his arrest, he was awaiting extradition, but Hawaii authorities are reportedly deciding to not extradite Castro from Utah, according to a spokesperson for the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office.
A proposed motion in Utah -- that has not yet been signed by a judge -- would order Castro to be released "from physical and legal custody." He is currently being held in the Health Services Unit of the Salt Lake County Jail.
Clayton Simms, a Utah attorney, told ABC4.com that extradition consists of governor-to-governor communication, and said that if there is no hold on the suspect in Utah, Castro would be released.
"The extradition can be requested at some future date," Simms said. "Forty-eight years later, it's difficult to get those witnesses and evidence together -- and, maybe, Hawaii is just looking at producing a stronger case, and then will come back at some future point and ask for extradition."
Simms said there's no statute of limitations for murder, and said that dismissing a case and re-filing in the future "is not going to be a problem."
"It appears that he was interviewed a week after the murder as a potential suspect, but was released," Simms said. "But now, with that information and the DNA, they certainly have enough to charge him, they certainly have enough to extradite him... Whether they will do that will be determined."
The Honolulu Prosecutor's Office provided the following statement to ABC4's sister station in Honolulu, KHON2: "At this time we have no comment as we are still continuing our investigation into the matter."
When asked about the decision made regarding Castro's extradition, a spokesperson with the Honolulu Police Department told ABC4.com that the investigation is ongoing, and said no updates were being released at this time.
In February 2025, Castro waived the right to challenge his extradition at a hearing in Salt Lake City, during which Castro appeared by video from a hospital bed, the Associated Press reports.
Should a judge sign the proposed order to release Castro, he would no longer be held at the Salt Lake County Jail, and he would not be sent to Hawaii.
Background
On the evening of March 21, 1977, officials with the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) were dispatched to a high school in Honolulu, where they discovered the body of 16-year-old Dawn Momohara, according to Lt. Deena Thoemmes with HPD.
Momohara was partially clothed and was pronounced dead at the scene, with an orange cloth "tightly wrapped around her neck," Thoemmes said at a January press conference in Hawaii.
Castro was interviewed by detectives about a week after the incident, but was not taken into custody at the time. He told officials he had met Momohara at a school dance in 1976 and graduated from the same high school where she was a student.
In 2019, evidence was sent to the HPD forensics lab in a renewed bid to solve the case. A partial DNA profile was identified after being obtained from Momohara's shorts.
In May 2020, Thoemmes said officials obtained "the partial major DNA profile of an unidentified male" from DNA found on the victim's shorts.
In September 2023, Castro and his brother were identified as possible suspects in the case. However, his brother was excluded as a suspect after a DNA sample from the brother's adult child was compared to the evidence.
Officials later obtained a "surreptitious biological sample" from Castro in Utah, and it was determined that his DNA matched evidence from the Hawaii crime scene. In the weeks leading up to Castro's arrest, officials developed probable cause.
According to the Associated Press, records show Castro is still a resident of Hawaii, and it is unclear how long he had been living in Utah.
Nicole Napuunoa, MJ Jewkes, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. ABC4 will update this post as new information becomes available.