Thirteen-year-old Dawn “Dede” Bustamante and her close friend Cherie Verdugo were walking home in Kailua on March 14, 1975 when a man in a white car stopped beside them. Minutes later, both girls were abducted at gunpoint and taken to the dark, isolated stretch of Kionaole Road behind the Pali Golf Course. Only one of them survived. This episode examines the abduction, the assault, the escape, the one eyewitness account, the 1975 investigation, the composite sketch that flooded Oahu, the early focus on Marine Corps serviceman Delmar J. Edmonds Jr., and the 2001–2002 reopening of the case that ultimately ended in DNA exclusion and dismissal of charges. Forty-nine years later, Dawn’s murder is still unsolved. Her story—and Cherie’s survival—continue to define one of Hawaii’s most haunting cases.

All facts in this episode are drawn from Honolulu Police Department case records; courtroom filings from the 2001–2002 Edmonds proceedings; and contemporary reporting by the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and the Associated Press (1975–2006). No dramatization, no invented details.

Mahalo to Yoza for the use of her song “Obsession.”

Darkness may linger beneath the palms, but so does hope.

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