Bongak Jackie Koja left her Oahu home on Mie Place before dawn on June 9, 1997, for her usual pre-dawn walk and never returned. Neighbors later recalled hearing screams around 4:00 a.m., and at about 7:10 a.m. a janitor found a large amount of blood on a concrete walkway near Leilehua High School and washed it. After Koja was reported missing, a witness told police about the cleaned area. A law enforcement search found a trail of blood to a dumpster behind the school; at a school bus stop a worker had discarded Koja’s headphones and a can of pepper spray; investigators recovered a piece of her dental bridgework and broken eyeglass lenses matching her prescription in front of the school.

Frank Janto, who had a lengthy criminal history, came to police, confessed to ambushing and beating Koja to death while he was under the influence of drugs, and said he disposed of her body in the school dumpster. By the time he led police to the dumpster its contents had been emptied and taken for incineration. In April 1998 Janto was convicted of second-degree murder and received a minimum 75-year sentence, but Koja’s remains have never been found and are believed unrecoverable.

Did anyone in Wahiawa at the time remember the early-morning screams or seeing anything unusual near Leilehua High School that June morning?