Dawn Bustamante, a 13-year-old girl known to her loved ones as "Dede," was just entering her teenage years in Kailua, Hawaii, a time of new braces, glasses, and a budding personality that delighted those around her. Her mother, Maureen Bustamante, remembered her as a child with an engaging spirit, once cast as a shepherd in a school play instead of an angel due to a humorous black eye. Though she could be a bit of a rebel, she was a beloved first-born daughter. In a family portrait from the era, Dawn is surrounded by her mother and two younger sisters, Christy and Sheri.
The night of Friday, March 14, 1975, shattered that family forever. Dawn and her 13-year-old friend, Cherry, were walking to the Kalapawai Market in Kailua when a man in a car drove past them, turned around, and pulled over. He offered the girls a ride, and when they refused, he grew angry, brandished a gun, and forced them into his vehicle.
He drove them to the dark and deserted Kiona'ole Road, a winding, isolated stretch of pavement near the Pali Golf Course. There, he sexually assaulted Dawn. When a passing car’s headlights spooked him, he forced both girls at gunpoint into the nearby brush.
The assailant struck Dawn in the head with his gun, knocking her unconscious. He then turned on Cherry, hitting her as well. She pretended to be unconscious, a quick-thinking act that may have saved her life. As the man began to strangle her, Dawn suddenly regained consciousness and started to run. The attacker gave chase, leaving Cherry behind. As Cherry scrambled up and ran in the opposite direction, she heard a single gunshot. Battered and bleeding, she managed to reach the Pali Golf Course parking lot, where she called Dawn’s father and then the police. Authorities found Dawn Bustamante’s body nearby; she had been shot and killed.
The Honolulu Police Department launched an intensive investigation. Cherry, the sole survivor and witness, provided a description of the attacker, which was used to create a composite sketch that Dawn’s sister, Sheri MacArthur, would keep on her refrigerator for 18 years. The case haunted the community and the Bustamante family, who were torn apart by the grief. Dawn’s parents later divorced, and her mother filled her bedroom with the greenish-gold furniture Dede had picked out for herself, a tangible reminder of a life cut short. For years, the case grew cold, one of Hawaii’s most notorious unsolved murders.
A major break came more than 26 years later. After Dawn’s sisters relentlessly pushed for the case to be re-examined, investigators with the Honolulu Police Department and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began a fresh review. They conducted new interviews, noting that old allegiances may have faded over time. In July 2001, authorities traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, and arrested 46-year-old Delmar Edmonds, a former U.S. Marine who had been stationed at Kaneohe at the time of the murder. He was charged with murder and held on $500,000 bail. Court documents indicated that semen had been recovered from Dawn’s body, though officials at the time did not specify if new DNA technology played a role in the arrest.
Edmonds’ family and wife maintained his innocence, describing him as a church deacon and truck driver with no criminal past. He was extradited to Hawaii to face the charges. For Dawn’s family, the arrest brought a wave of complex emotions. Her father, Neil Bustamante, credited his daughters for their lifelong mission to find their sister’s killer. Her mother, Maureen, found it too painful to even look at the suspect’s picture, choosing to remember her daughter as the vibrant 13-year-old she was.
Despite the arrest and charges brought against Delmar Edmonds, Dawn Bustamante's murder officially remains unsolved. As of November 2020, retrospective accounts of the crime note that the case is not considered closed. Decades have passed, but for a family and a community, the memory of the bright young girl taken on a dark road in Kailua endures, and the quest for definitive justice continues.
