In January 2025, a 79-year-old man living in a nursing home in Mill Creek, Utah, was arrested for a murder committed in Honolulu nearly forty-eight years earlier. Gideon Castro had been interviewed by police back in 1977, just days after the body of sixteen-year-old Dawn Mamahara was discovered at McKinley High School. Now, advances in forensic DNA technology had finally caught up with him. On the morning of March 21, 1977, police were called to the school after a student’s body was found in one of the buildings.
Dawn Mamahara was lying on her back, partially clothed, with an orange cloth wrapped tightly around her neck. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her sister arrived for school that day unaware of what had happened and was called to the principal’s office to be told the news, where classmates and teachers tried to console her. Dawn had last been seen the previous day, when she told her mother she was heading to a local shopping center to meet friends.
She never came home. In the days after her death, police released sketches of a person of interest and a vehicle described by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac LeMans, seen on the school campus the night before her body was found. The man and the car were never identified, and the case grew cold. It remained that way for decades.
In 2019, a cold case team asked a forensic biology unit to examine items still in evidence, including Dawn’s underwear. The following year, a DNA profile was created. In 2023, investigators received information about two brothers who had been interviewed back in 1977. Gideon Castro had graduated from the school the year before Dawn’s death.
He told police he’d met her at a school dance in 1976 and last saw her at a carnival in February 1977, where they spoke for about fifteen minutes. His brother William had met Dawn through him. Detectives traveled to Chicago, where William was living, and obtained DNA from one of his adult children. It did not match the crime scene profile.
Investigators then turned to one of Gideon’s children, whose DNA revealed a link. A swab taken from Gideon himself provided a concrete match. He was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, awaiting extradition to Honolulu at the time of the report. Forensic genetic genealogy also broke open a thirty-five-year-old Michigan case.
On the morning of September 18, 1989, thirty-year-old Beverly Wivel of Canton Township dropped her son off at school. Afterwards, she took a nap in her vehicle, according to investigators, when she was abducted, sexually assaulted, and shot to death. Her body was found on the side of the road off Gotfredson Road in Washington County. A .
45 caliber pistol had been used. Her vehicle was soon located, its engine still running, the driver’s side door open, and her belongings, including a handbag, still inside. Police were called to the scene around 9:40 a. m.
, just over an hour after her son had been dropped off at 8:30. Detectives collected DNA evidence and a rape kit was administered, but a match could only be made if the perpetrator’s profile was already in the system. It wasn’t. Witness reports were scarce.
One witness reported hearing a gunshot and seeing a blue vehicle similar to a Chrysler New Yorker with a white top speeding away, but the lead went nowhere. For decades, the case lay dormant. In 2022, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office re-examined the case, working with Michigan State Police and sending forensic evidence to Othram, Inc. , a company specializing in forensic genetic genealogy.
In January 2024, experts built a complete DNA profile of the suspect and used genealogy research to narrow the pool. Authorities eventually focused on sixty-nine-year-old Buster Robbins of Almont, Michigan. After days of surveillance across several weeks, they collected items, including used straws, which were sent for DNA comparison. A match was confirmed, and Robbins was arrested.
His wife later told authorities that in 1989 he drove a vehicle matching the witness description. A . 45 caliber magazine was found inside his home during a search. Robbins was charged with felony murder.
Beverly’s son, Dale, reflected on the fact that his mother’s killer carried on with his life for thirty-five years as if nothing had happened. A judge ruled that Robbins would be held without bail. The same genetic genealogy techniques brought new developments in a case from Toronto. On the morning of March 8, 1998, police were called to a car park on Carlton Street near Jarvis Street following reports of a body found near a car park.
The victim was twenty-four-year-old Donna Ogliff, originally from the Philippines, a resident of British Columbia, and four months pregnant. She had been strangled. She had only been in Toronto for five weeks before her death. She was a mother of one and made her living through sex work.
DNA was collected from the crime scene, but the case remained unsolved for over two decades. In 2019, a Toronto cold case team released a YouTube video appealing for information, and two years later the case was featured on a police podcast highlighting unsolved crimes. Detective Sergeant Steve Smith, head of the cold case unit, described the crime as horrendous, noting that never forgot the victim. In 2022, forensic evidence was sent to Othram, Inc.
, as it had been in Beverly Wivel’s case. Experts built a DNA profile and conducted a genealogy search, narrowing down a list of potential suspects. On February 6, 2025, fifty-year-old Ronald Akerman of Gander, Newfoundland, was arrested at Toronto Pearson Airport after returning from a trip to Alberta, where he worked in the oil fields. He was charged with first-degree murder.
Smith stated that police believed Akerman, a twenty-four-year-old truck driver in 1998, had been a client of Donna’s on the night of her death. He noted uncertainty about whether the encounter was a one-off or something more regular. Investigators noted he had been known to investigators, though his name had never surfaced during their investigation. Another unnamed law enforcement source told the Toronto Sun that when met by police, Akerman seemed surprised and asked if they were sure.
Smith also announced they would be looking into Akerman’s movements over the last twenty-five years to establish whether he had any links to other crimes, to make sure there were no other victims, whether sexually motivated or homicides. In Everett, Washington, the murder of Mary Anne Daniels also moved toward resolution. On February 1, 1989, Mary was found dead in her home in the 2100 block of Hoyt Avenue. She was a thirty-three-year-old developmentally disabled woman living in a transitional living facility.
Her brother Terry described her as trusting and carefree, always believing the good in people. She had been strangled with a ligature made from her bra, purse strap, and an electrical cord. Her body was discovered by the property manager, who went to collect her rent and found the door ajar. He initially believed she was asleep after seeing the lower portion of her legs on her bed and let himself out.
He returned the following day when she hadn’t moved and saw the ligature around her neck, then called police. Investigators noticed at the scene that a TV guide was opened to the listing for January 28 and speculated she had likely died that night. In the days that followed, authorities found a cut electrical cord and two hairs that did not appear to be Mary’s. Investigators spoke to friends and learned Mary had recently discussed a relationship with a neighbor she called Joe.
The property manager behaved suspiciously, refusing to give his date of birth and providing a false name; he was arrested on a felony warrant and returned to Oregon. The man Mary had seen while staying at a motel was tracked down, though some of his statements were considered odd and concerning, he had an alibi for the night of the murder. For years, investigators believed one of them was likely responsible, but neither could be proven, and both eventually died. In 2011, DNA from both men was compared to evidence found on Mary’s body, and both were ruled out.
For decades, the case sat unresolved. In 2021, Othram, Inc. managed to acquire a DNA profile from the hairs found at the crime scene. The profile was uploaded to GEDmatch, and in 2022, Joseph Andrew Jacuzzi was identified.
Jacuzzi was one of Mary’s neighbors at the time of her death and had been interviewed, but had not been considered a person of interest. In 1989, he told police he had gone to work, returned home, had a shower, gone out to dinner alone, then moved on to a bar until closing. He claimed no relationship with Mary beyond that of casual neighbors. He was only spoken to once by investigators between Mary’s death and his arrest, and had almost no other criminal history except a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction in 1992.
By the time the link was made, Jacuzzi was living in Las Vegas. Everett police contacted local authorities, and a discarded beer bottle was collected from a restaurant where he was eating before being shipped to Everett. The DNA from the bottle matched the crime scene.
The sixty-one-year-old was arrested in Las Vegas in late January 2025 and placed in Clark County jail, to be extradited back to Washington, where prosecutors requested he be held in lieu of a $2 million bail.