Between May 1985 and May 1986, five women were found dead on Oahu, all of them strangled. The killings became known as the work of the Honolulu Strangler, a name for a killer who has never been identified. Honolulu Magazine, in 2022, described the case as Hawaii's first reported serial killer case. Honolulu police found no connection between the women, but the deaths had enough in common that investigators came to believe they were looking for one killer.
One man, H.G., was arrested in May 1986, the same month the last of the five women was found. He was released because police did not have enough evidence, he was never charged, and he died in 2003. The cases have never been closed, and no one has been charged or convicted in any of the five deaths.
Vicki Gail Purdy was 25. Hawaii News Now has described her as the wife of an Army helicopter pilot. She went missing after a night out with friends, according to the account published by Honolulu Magazine. Her body was found in Honolulu in May 1985. She had been strangled.
Her death was the first of the five. In 2006, KHNL noted that all of the bodies were found near water.
Regina Sakamoto was 17, a student at Leilehua High School. She was last seen on January 14, 1986, waiting at a bus stop in Waipahu, according to Honolulu Magazine, which said her body was found about a day later. Hawaii News Now reported that she was found in January 1986. She had been strangled.
Denise Hughes was 21. Hawaii News Now reported in 2025 that she was taken while waiting for the bus that would carry her to work, a few weeks after Regina Sakamoto's death. Honolulu Magazine also said she was last seen at a bus stop.
According to Honolulu Magazine, three men found her body on January 30, 1986, in the same general area as the first two women. She had been strangled.
Louise Medeiros was 25, according to Hawaii News Now; Honolulu Magazine gives her age as 24.
Hawaii News Now reported that a work crew found her body near Waikele in April. Honolulu Magazine placed the discovery about seven weeks after Denise Hughes was found. She had been strangled.
Linda Pesce was 36. Honolulu Magazine reported that her roommate reported her missing on April 29, 1986, and that police found her car. Her body was found in Honolulu on May 3, 1986. She had been strangled. She was the fifth woman whose death police attributed to the same killer.
By the spring of 1986, Honolulu police believed the deaths were linked. Retired Honolulu police Maj. Louis Souza, who worked on the investigation, told KHNL in 2002 that detectives first went back through the files to see whether the women had any connection to one another. "And there wasn't," he said. Hawaii News Now, in 2025, made the same point: the women had no connection to each other and led very different lives.
Souza described the pressure on the detectives. "First and foremost in an officer's mind, or investigator's mind, is that we don't want anybody else to get hurt," he said. "Investigators, their pride is to try to solve it as quickly as they can."
John McCarthy, a retired Honolulu police deputy chief, described the difficulty to Hawaii News Now in 2025. "We were finding a dead female and there were no witnesses," he said. "There was little evidence." He added that investigators of the time had fewer tools than their successors: "There was not as much investigative techniques back then as there are now."
According to Honolulu Magazine's account, homicide detectives believed the killer was a white man between 30 and 40 who drove a cargo van and had no criminal record, and police warned women to avoid public transit while the killings went on. These are the magazine's statements about what detectives believed at the time; no suspect was ever proven to match them.
On May 3, 1986, a man called investigators and said a psychic had told him where Linda Pesce's body could be found, according to Honolulu Magazine. He went with police to the area, and the magazine reported that officers noticed he kept away from one part of it. Her body was found that day.
The man, H.G., was arrested on May 9, 1986, in connection with Linda Pesce's death.
He was released. Hawaii News Now reported in 2025 that he was let go for lack of evidence and was never charged. Souza, speaking to KHNL, said the arrest itself had brought some satisfaction, "But it was still frustrating that the state didn't feel that they had enough to prosecute him."
Police did not drop their interest in H.G. after his release. "There was active surveillance and active investigations going on that person," McCarthy told Hawaii News Now. Honolulu Magazine reported that police watched him for years and that a reward of $25,000 was offered for information, but that investigators were never able to link him directly to the killings.
He was never charged in any of the five deaths. He died in 2003, according to Honolulu Magazine and Hawaii News Now. Because he was never charged, tried or convicted, nothing in the record proves that he was responsible for any of the deaths.
In 2006, KHNL reported that the cases remained open. In 2025, Hawaii News Now revisited the Honolulu Strangler killings in a series on the 1985 disappearance of Diane Suzuki, a case that police and the station have treated as separate. The station listed the strangler killings among several high-profile killings of women on Oahu, alongside the 1982 killing of Lisa Au. It reported that those cases were not connected to one another or to the strangler killings.
McCarthy, looking back, defended the work of his colleagues. "Police were doing the best they possibly could," he said.
The case has been retold many times, including in a 2022 episode of the PBS Hawaii podcast "What School You Went?", in which the station's chief executive, Ron Mizutani, talked through the case with Honolulu Magazine editor Robbie Dingeman.
By July 2025, Hawaii News Now reported, no one had been charged in any of the five deaths, and the one man arrested had been dead since 2003.
The single killer. Honolulu police treated the five deaths as the work of one person, based on the similarities between them. Because no one was ever charged, that link has never been tested in court.
The suspect. H.G. was arrested in one death, released for lack of evidence and never charged. He has never been proven responsible for any of the five deaths.
Dates and ages. Honolulu Magazine's 2022 account dates Vicki Purdy's disappearance to May 1984; KHNL and Hawaii News Now both place her death in May 1985. Honolulu Magazine gives Louise Medeiros's age as 24, while Hawaii News Now gives 25.
The profile. The description of the killer as a white man in his 30s driving a cargo van comes from Honolulu Magazine's account of what detectives believed. It is not proof about any person.
May 1985: Vicki Gail Purdy, 25, is found strangled in Honolulu.
January 14, 1986: Regina Sakamoto, 17, is last seen at a bus stop in Waipahu.
January 1986: Regina Sakamoto is found strangled, about a day after she was last seen.
January 30, 1986: Denise Hughes, 21, is found strangled, according to Honolulu Magazine.
April (Hawaii News Now; about seven weeks after Hughes was found, per Honolulu Magazine): Louise Medeiros is found strangled near Waikele.
April 29, 1986: Linda Pesce, 36, is reported missing by her roommate.
May 3, 1986: A man calls investigators claiming a psychic told him where Linda Pesce's body is; her body is found in Honolulu.
May 9, 1986: Police arrest H.G. in connection with Linda Pesce's death; he is later released for lack of evidence and never charged.
2003: H.G. dies in California, never charged.
2006: KHNL reports that the cases remain open.
August 2022: PBS Hawaii releases a podcast episode on the case.
July 8, 2025: Hawaii News Now revisits the killings; no one has been charged.