Going West: True Crime - The Honolulu Strangler // 135

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

In the spring of 1985, a young woman was murdered after going out in Honolulu, Hawaii, and at least 4 other vicious killings followed. As a massive task force was assembled and residents of O’ahu feared for their lives, police worked hard to find the states very first serial killer. This is the story of the Honolulu Strangler. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=26002090&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjI1ODkzODMwMSwiaWF0IjoxNjI5NDcwMjU0LCJleHAiOjE2Mjk1NTY2NTR9.dI_rm29pp7SOLXW2aeHSNaIP1WiWvs4UHkVZEkrkaUw https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=16190673&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjI3MjIxMDk4OCwiaWF0IjoxNjI5Mzk5OTkwLCJleHAiOjE2Mjk0ODYzOTB9.5eb8jXxIJW8yYFLpDKvpIJfxH1qa-Xe5vMgwZHQInMg https://www.honolulupd.org/cold-case/terry-l-shimizu/ https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/hawaii/honolulu-strangler-mystery-hi/ https://sites.psu.edu/gillianpassionblog/2021/04/01/hawaii-the-honolulu-strangler/ https://serialdispatches.com/list-of-serial-killers-h/the-honolulu-strangler/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ZodiacKiller/comments/mqcxno/zodiac_suspect_howard_andrew_gay/ https://crimesoftheday.wordpress.com/2021/02/16/howard-gay/ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207744442/howard-andrew-gay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee and I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Howdy folks, today! On Going West, we are going to Hawaii, I think, for the first time. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we've ever been there. I realized while I was doing this that there are still a bundle of states that we have not covered. So if you guys happen to recognize any and have suggestions for cases in those states, please send them in. I've been wanting to cover this case for a while, but I thought the summertime was kind of a good time to do it. So let's go. Yeah, and if

you guys are in a state that we haven't covered yet, and you're feeling left out, let us know, and we will definitely do our best to try and cover a case in your state. All right guys, this is episode 135 of Going West, so let's get into it. In the spring of 1985, a young woman was murdered after going out in Honolulu, Hawaii, and at least four other vicious killings followed. As a massive task force was assembled and residents of a Wahoo feared for their lives, police worked hard to find the state's very first serial killer. This is the story of the Honolulu Strangler.

It all started in 1985 on the island of Awahu Hawaii in beautiful Honolulu. At this time Honolulu had 800,000 people residing in the stunning Southwest Shore City full of nightlife, dining, and of course, beautiful beaches. The night stalker, aka Richard Ramirez, the Green River Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, and many other serial killers were wrecking havoc on the United States. But Hawaiian Islands luckily weren't being affected by them. That's not to say there weren't horrible murders in Hawaii because there were, but it wasn't until the spring of 1985 when terror really struck the area. After the first of a slew of bodies would be found

in this peaceful yet exciting city, and the hunt for Hawaii's first known serial killer began. Vicki Gail Ezel was born on May 11, 1960, in North Carolina, and her parents divorced when she was very young. This wound Vicki up in a foster home for a short time, but we aren't sure if she was adopted after this or if she returned to one of her parents. Either way, she pretty much spent her upbringing and marry at a Georgia, and was known to have been an extremely outgoing cheerleader in high school. And when she was just 16 and still in high school, she got married. The relationship

fell apart pretty quickly though, and Vicki actually ended up falling for the guy's cousin, Gary Purdy. Even though Gary was about to enter the army, she encouraged him to go forward with that, and they married when Vicki was about 19 years old. She always dreamed about moving to Hawaii, but never knew how she would be able to make that happen. But luckily, due to Gary being based there in the army, they moved to Milalani, which is a city in the center of Oahu, an early 1984, and Vicki later got a job at Wahiwa video rental. Gary described his marriage with Vicki to be adventurous since Vicki had such a great

love for life. She had made a bunch of friends on the island and loved spending her nights out in Waikiki, which is in Honolulu, with them when Gary was busy being an army helicopter pilot. And on Wednesday, May 29, 1985, newly 25-year-old Vicki Purdy did just that. Before heading out for the evening, she kissed her husband Gary goodbye and said that she would be home by 9.00 that night. She was going out to a nightclub with some girlfriends in Waikiki and left the house fairly early in the evening giving her a few hours of fun.

But when 9pm arrived and she didn't return home, Gary slightly began to worry and just kind of hoped she was running a bit late. But the night got later and later, and Gary frantically paged his wife numerous times to no avail. The following morning, Gary was in complete agony and went out looking for her, only to find her car newly dented and sitting in the parking garage of the Shorebird Hotel, which by the way has since closed. And for reference, the distance between their house and Waikiki is just about 20 miles

or 32 kilometers and around a 30 minute drive. Strangely, when Gary spoke with Vicki's friends, they said that she had called them at around 10 pm that night, so an hour after she was supposed to arrive home, but she never ended up meeting them out. After reporting Vicki missing, a cab driver came forward and explained to police

that he had driven Vicki to the Shorebird Hotel that Wednesday night, so the night that she was last seen around midnight. He even remembered what she was wearing, a yellow jumpsuit with a red belt around her waist. And assuming this cab driver is telling the truth, it seems that Vicki was going to the hotel to pick up her car as if she had dropped it off there earlier in the evening, but where was she throughout the night and why didn't she get in her car and go home? It just seems so weird that hours after she left the house, and an hour after she was supposed to return

home, she called her friends and never even met up with them. Like, that's just so weird to me. Well, sadly, her friends weren't able to provide any more details that could help locate Vicki. In the following morning, so just one day in the search for her, her body was found. She was lying in an embankment at Kei-e-Lugun Beach Park in Honolulu, so not far from where her car was found, still wearing her yellow jumpsuit. Her hands were bound behind her back, she had been raped, and her cause of death was strangulation.

Her husband was horrified and understandably distraught after hearing what had happened to his beloved wife of six years. He just couldn't wrap his head around how this could have happened to Vicki of all people. Yeah, because Gary described Vicki as tough. Despite her small and very stunning looks, you know, she was 5'5, 135 pounds and blonde, she was known to be very fierce when she needed to be and she didn't take shit from anyone. In fact, Gary described that earlier on in their relationship, they had some problems

and that Vicki, quote, knock the shit out of him because of it. She was street smart and very strong, and Gary stated that he felt it would take two people to abduct her because of how feisty she could be when people messed with her. So that's why he was so surprised to learn what happened because of how, you know, she just stood up for her. She was a tough he was so surprised to learn what happened because of how, you

know, she just stood up for herself. She was a tough woman, yeah. Yeah, totally. So although her step-brother James felt that she had kind of fallen in with the wrong kinds of friends on the island, she really didn't have any enemies. As we stated before, Vicki was an extremely likable person, so her husband Gary felt her murder had to be related to her job at the video store, where two women had been murdered around the same time. Wow, I mean, that's... yeah, I mean, two women who also worked at that same video store being murdered?

It seems like it can't be random. So before we go on, I do want to mention that every article we read on this whole case that also mentioned the video rental stabings said it happened less than a year prior, aka the previous December, and remember this is May when Vicki is killed, so just five months earlier. And although there's very little online or even in old newspapers about the stabings, all the sources that are just about the stabings say that it happened in December of 1985, which was seven months after Vicki was murdered since she died in May of 1985.

So I really can't confirm if this happened in 1984 or 1985, but I don't know how Gary wouldn't have known about the stabbings because he said he didn't. You know, if they had happened while Vicki was still alive, since it was so local, like, the video store was minutes from their house. Yeah, how would you not know if your wife was working at this video store and two people had been murdered there, two women, you would probably have that information. Exactly, and I don't know why Vicki would have been working there if so, but I just wanted to make it known that the information on this particular part is a bit unclear. So the story is that an employee and part-time owner were stabbed to death inside the store, 39-year-old Terry Shimizu, who went by Terry Fox, and 56-year-old Carol Drake. The video store was located in Wahawa, just 10 minutes from Vicki and Gary's home, and it had an adult video section. And on December 17, 1985, or 1984, employees of the store

noticed that the adult video club section of the store was locked up and it began to worry them. So by 1.50pm that day, the doors were kicked down and in the office at the rear of the store were the bodies of Terry and Carol, who had been murdered the night before on December 16. Both women had been stabbed just once, Carol in the back piercing her heart and Terry in the throat. And they were both fully clothed, meaning that this attack didn't appear to be sexually motivated. But by the way, the bodies were positioned and it seemed that both women had been kneeling or laying on the ground when they were murdered. Meaning, it's possible that they were held up by someone, you know, maybe someone trying to rob the store. And the cash receipts from that day were missing. And an envelope with an undisclosed amount of cash had been dropped on the floor.

So it's possible that this whole thing was just, you know, a robbery gone wrong. And I'm just going to go ahead and assume that this happened after. And I just don't think every source would have the wrong year, especially original newspapers. Because the newspapers, like I one on newspapers.com, and I found original newspaper clippings from this and it's from 1985. So we're just gonna say this happened after. I also really just don't think

Vicki would have been working there just five months after these murders occurred inside. So let's go with 1985. So very possible that there's no connection whatsoever. Exactly, and we'll go into that right now. So you get a little more details. And obviously if this isn't connected, it might seem irrelevant,

but it is kind of part of Vicki's story and we just want to explore everything. And I promise it'll be quick. So investigators did not believe that these attacks were related because it really did seem like a pretty clear robbery. But also, Carol Drake and Terry Foxx had very recent charges against them.

Six months earlier, on June 21, 1985, so just weeks after Vicki's murder, Terry was arrested at the video store and charged with promoting pornography, and her case was still pending by December when she was killed. And in April of 1984, so a year and a half before the stabings, Carol Drake had been arrested for selling a sexually explicit magazine to an undercover cop at the video and bookstore. And just two weeks before her murder, she was sentenced to one year's probation. So police also wondered if these charges could possibly have anything to do with the deaths, but it was pretty much ruled out that these killings were connected to Vickies,

although Gary originally believed, you know, after the tabbings occurred, that they could have been connected, because it makes sense, you know, she worked there, so I mean, where are the chances that in a year time span, three different people who work at this video store are murdered. It's just kind of weird. But after Vicki's death, Gary actually moved back to Georgia.

Savannah, to be specific because he couldn't bear to be on the island without her until her killer was caught. One month after the video rental stabbing and eight months after Vicki Perty's murder, police had no solid leads and were beginning to think that her death was a random one-off situation. But then suddenly, on January 15, 1986, another female was found dead. 17-year-old Regina Sakamoto was a senior at Leila Huahai School in Wahiwa, Hawaii, which again is where the video rental store was, and she was described by many to be shy, but very friendly, kind, and careful, and the closest people to her was her best friend at school and her mother.

Regina was born in Kansas and spent her first few years of life there, but when her mother, who was also named Regina, married a man named Maurice Sakamoto, who had been stationed in California in the military, he adopted five-year-old Regina and the trio moved to Hawaii. Just 10 years later, when Regina was 15, her mother and Maurice divorced, but she tried

to remain close with him and they lived only about 20 minutes from each other, him living in Ojiva, and Regina and her mom living in Waipahu. There was a lot of bitterness, though, because Marisa was very upset that his newly ex-wife Regina had moved their daughter into a CD neighborhood. He felt that she being such a pretty teenager, that she could possibly be a target with all the quote, danger and transience. But still, a couple years past and they remained in the same neighborhood, Regina being about 20 minutes from her school.

And eerily enough, Maurice was right. On Tuesday, January 14, 1986, Regina went out to catch her bus for school from Waipahu to Waheewa, but at around 7.15 a.m., she had missed it. She then called her boyfriend from a nearby phone booth to tell him this and that she would be late for school. And this was the last time Regina would be heard from again. As the next morning, Wednesday, January 15th, her body was discovered at the Keahila Goon and she had been strangled to death.

So just like Vicky. Exactly. Regina had been wearing a blue tank top with a white Hawaii Island creation sweatshirt, but her lower half was uncloathed. She had her hands bound behind her back, and she had been raped. And this is the exact same location and cause of death, like Keith said, as Vicky Purdy.

So investigators feared They had a serial killer on their hands. Yeah, I mean this is like undeniable at this point You have two bodies showing up in the exact same lagoon With the exact same circumstances like you yeah, there's no denying that you have a killer on the loose I completely agree, but maybe hindsight's 2020 because they weren't so sure at first. Yeah, because I mean, at the same time, other investigators felt that there probably wasn't a link. I mean, you know, obviously there's not always a link, and they didn't tell the local community about the possibility of a serial killer running rampant in their area.

I understand that in a sense because they didn't want to scare people, but it's like, again, hindsight's probably 2020 here, but the same location, the same exact cause of death, and the hands are bound like, why would you not, why would your brain not go there enough to like warn people? Yeah, there's just too many connections to not see it that way. Yeah, I just feel like safety is better than Fear, you know, I'd rather be afraid for nothing than Not careful when I should be exactly

But both Vicki and Regina had both been raped Bound and killed after having some type of ligature tightened around their necks and for some reason after having some type of ligature tightened around their necks. And for some reason, no one at Regina's school would really speak to police about her murder, and everyone just kinda seemed pretty tight-lipped. As if they really didn't want to get involved, because they didn't really know her anyway. Only a few were willing to speak about her, and even then, police learned very little about her and just couldn't figure out why someone would want her dead. Regina was the type of person to kind of keep to herself, and when she didn't, she was

always very nice. She was preparing to go to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu that upcoming fall and was very excited about it, but sadly, she would never get that opportunity to go. Just two weeks after Regina's murder, it became very clear that police had a problem on their hands because another body turned up. 21-year-old Denise Hughes had just moved to Hawaii five months earlier from Everett, Washington, and landed herself a job as a secretary at a telephone company within two months there. Denise had vacation to Hawaii the year before, and that's when she met a man named Charles Hughes,

who served in the Navy and was stationed aboard a ship at Pearl Harbor. They really hid it off during her trip and they actually quickly married in Seattle in August of 1985, before deciding to move in together in Hawaii to kind of make it easier for Charles and his navy status. Denise was really happy to be living on the island and was able to make friends fairly quickly thanks to her job. Her co-workers and supervisor adored her for her very warm personality and seemingly constant smile. She and her friends enjoyed going shopping together as well as playing racquetball, and she was really getting excited

about calling a Wahoo home. However, her mom Linda wasn't too stoked about it because she felt her daughter had married too quickly and too young. She also felt that where Denise and Charles lived on the island was two remotes, and she always worried about Denise having to wait for the bus in the mornings by herself. It seemed Denise worried a bit about this too because she timed it every morning so that she would

arrive to the bus stop just as her bus was so that she never had to wait for it by herself. And really random, but Keith wasn't your dad station in the Navy and... I don't know if it was on a Wahoo, was it on a Wahoo? Yeah, yeah, he was, he was. Was it at this time? No, it was about seven years earlier. Why, why you think my dad could have been the killer? No, Bob, whatever.

Damn it, Bob, what have you been doing? No, I just was wondering if maybe... I don't know, it would be interesting to kind of know someone who was there when this happened. I'm sure he heard about it in Oregon, but. Oh yeah, definitely. But that would have been interesting if he was living there at the time,

because I know that everyone was obviously just so scared, but anyway. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, Denise was known to be extremely outgoing and very adventurous. She loved hiking, skiing, and she was also faithful and was active in her Christian church. And as we said, her personality really shined through at work. On January 29, 1986, many of her co-workers had

the flu, so they were a bit short staffed, yet Denise worked reception that day with the same smile on her face. And because of things like this, her supervisor described her as the ideal employee, and they had just offered Denise a raise. Later that evening, she and her husband Charles had gone out to dinner, and then they went home to get ready for the next work day. But the following morning, Thursday, January 30 30, Denise didn't show up to work. Of course, this was very unlike her, so her co-workers and her supervisor really began

to worry about her. Two days later, on Saturday, February 1, 1986, three young fishermen had their reels in along a drainage canal in the Mapunipunamona-lua stream in Han-alulu where they found something wrapped in blue tarp floating by the shore. Curious as to what this was, they opened it to find the decomposing body of a young woman. When police arrived at the scene, they determined that her body had likely been rolled down the mud embankment above. The young woman's hands were bound behind her back, just like the two previous victims, Vicki and Regina, and she had also been strangled to death.

She had been wearing a blue dress when she died, which was still on her body, yet she had been sexually assaulted as well, and we're not sure the specific details on the sexual assault, so we're going to say sexual assault. It was quickly determined that the body belonged to 21-year-old Denise Hughes. And four days later, on February 5th, with this discovery, the Honolulu Police Major announced that a 27-person task force had been assembled to investigate a possible serial killer in their city. An interesting and immediate connection between the victims was that they were all somehow connected to the military. Vicky's husband had been in the army, Regina's father was also in the military, and Denise's

husband was in the Navy, and this doesn't seem too weird because Pearl Harbor is on a Wahoo, it's like in Honolulu, so there's a lot of naval officers who live there. So was this fact somehow involved in the motive, or just coincidence, since the area just happens to host a lot of military due to its location like I just said? Well, after another body was found, investigators weren't so sure that the military angle was relevant. Louise Mederos was native to Hawaii in an early 1986 she was 25 years old. She had been having a tough few years because she had left home as a teenager, she never

finished high school, and she was kind of just crashing from one place to the next trying to find herself and kind of just figure out her life. She was living in Waipahu, which remember is where Regina and her mother lived, she didn't have a job and her mother had just died on the island of Kauai. She had three sons and was also three months pregnant with another child, and a boyfriend as well as a caring sister and a massive family, so she was doing okay. So in late March of 1986, Louise got on a plane to Kauai where she grew up to see her family and be there for the reading of her mother's will.

Louise had a good time with family and proved to have a plan to get herself together and her family really just felt that she was very motivated to do it. On Wednesday, March 26, 1986, Louise decided to fly back to Oahu, meaning she wouldn't arrive until the evening, where she would have to take a bus from the airport to she and her boyfriend's apartment in Waipahu. Her sister was not on board with this,

and warned Louise that it wasn't safe waiting at a bus stop at night, especially with everything that was happening lately with women being murdered, because remember both Regina and Denise had been waiting at bus stops when something happened to them. Or so we can assume because they had both gone to the bus right before they disappeared. But 5 foot 490 lb. Louise assured her sister that she would be fine and that she didn't want to wait until the next day to catch a daytime flight. With that, she headed to the airport, flew back to Oahu and was never seen alive again. Seven days later on April 2nd, 1986, road workers were doing a job by the Waikela

Stream in Waipahu, which again is where she lived, when they noticed the decomposing body of a woman under a freeway overpass. Police were immediately called to the scene and they knew that she was another victim of the person that they were hunting. Luis Madero's was found wearing a blouse and nothing else with her hands tied behind her back, just like the others. Everything matched the other murders, so with that, police tried to set up a sting operation with female police officers by posting them in street clothes at the Honolulu International Airport, as well as Kei-He Lagoon, and hopes of catching this monster and bringing safety back to this community,

the killer was believed to be an opportunist to attack the young women who are alone in invulnerable states, i.e. at the bus stop or somewhere more remote by themselves. And considering many of the attacks were in the Waipahu area, police believe that that's where the killer lived. By early April, four young women in the area had been murdered in just 11 months, and the community was ravaged by fear. Women were taking self-defense courses, gun cells, skyrocketed, and people kept their guard up, and they only became more afraid when another victim was found. Just one month after Louise's murder, the killer struck yet again. 36-year-old Linda Pesci was rather adventurous, and she had lived a life of excitement.

It was the early 1970s and after growing up in attending college in Marin County, California, which is right next to San Francisco, right there on the Northern California coast, Linda Hitchhike to cross the country by herself to kind of see what the rest of the country had to offer. She eventually ended up in Honolulu where she first worked as a dancer in a nightclub. But after some time, she decided to move to Guam to dance in clubs over there for a few years before returning to Hawaii and getting a job as a sales rep for a telephone company in her mid-30s. She was described as an absolutely gorgeous, carefree, street smart woman who held herself to a high standard and did what she wanted in life. She lived a very wild life in her 20s, but as she approached her

30s and moved back to Hawaii, she had a daughter named Karin and decided to settle down a bit. Linda was also described as a fighter and a very tough lady, you know, basically like Vicki, but sadly she didn't win her final fight. On Tuesday, April 29, 1986, Linda got a promotion at her telephone sales rep job and was absolutely delighted. At around 6.30pm, she left work to head home to her 7-year-old daughter in a light blue turtleneck dress, a white cotton jacket, and white high heels. Her roommate expected her to be home late due to a work meeting, so when Linda didn't arrive home as the night went on, she originally wasn't worried. But the next morning came and Linda still wasn't home.

Nor did she show up for work, and when her roommate found this out, she reported her missing to police. I mean, obviously, she's got a child at home, so it's very important for her to be there. And she was even more worried when they told her that Linda's light blue Toyota was spotted the previous evening at 7pm near Nimitz Highway by Keahe Lagoon where multiple bodies had been previously found and the car had its emergency lights blinking. So this is obviously very scary because we know that multiple victims have been turning up in this area and now Linda's car is found in that relative area.

Yeah, I mean, I know that they had cops over there watching but the fact that there were so many bodies found near that area is super alarming. And now that her car was over there it's like come on like let's let's get people over here looking. And this also means that within 30 minutes of Linda leaving work something had happened her. And by the way I should have mentioned this earlier just for a visual but the Kei Hila Goon is five minutes from the Honolulu airport. So that's why the you know sting operation was at the airport and Kei-Hilagoon,

because not only is that where Luis was likely abducted from the airport, but it's right by Kei-Hilagoon as well, which is obviously suspicious because, you know, the right next to each other and their stuff happened in both places. And just random, something I noticed too about all these women is that they were all attacked on a Wednesday or, sorry, a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Mostly Wednesday, but still seems like this guy attacks in the middle of the week, mostly. So I just, that's something I noticed when I was doing research. I'm like, that's kind of weird that they're all on those days.

Yeah, pretty interesting. I know that's like half of the days of the week, so maybe not that weird, but anyway. So a couple days later, a 43 year old man named Howard Andrew Gay contacted police and explained to them that a psychic told him where Linda's body was. And he led them to Sand Island, which is a small island that is still within the Honolulu City limits since it's right off the coast.

And a little interesting fact about Sand Island really quick is that in the 19th century, it was referred to as Quarantine Island because it was used to quarantine ships that had contagious passengers aboard. Oh god, that makes that even more scary. I know it's kind of creepy, huh? that even more scary. So there's a road called Sand Island Access Road that appears to have been built far before the mid-80s, so you wouldn't have needed a boat even, you know, to get there, you could just drive there, and it's literally like a one-minute drive across the bridge, so the island is right there. It's not isolated in any way.

Weirdly enough, there were bones found in the area where Howard took them, but once processed, they turned out to be pig bones. So they weren't able to find Linda's body in the area that Howard Andrew Gay had shown them. But two days later, so about four days after Linda disappeared, on May 3rd, after police searched the whole island, she was found not too far from when the man had directed them. Some people had been looking for their friends, friends who had been fishing for squid, when they discovered Linda's nude body.

And just like all the others, she had been strangled, sexually assaulted and possibly raped, and had her hands tied behind her back. So this is interesting obviously because this is not at the Keahilagoon. So in the relative area, but not right where the other victims were found. Yeah, I mean, Sand Island for reference is about a nine minute drive from Keahilagoon, and then right next to that is the airport. So it's, if you look at it on a map, it's like right there. So same general area, but again, the exact same circumstances.

Linda was the fifth victim of the killer who was dubbed as the Honolulu rapist, and then the Honolulu Strangler, and the community continued to live in fear. Women banded together and started groups where they would give each other advice and help protect each other. Tips flooded into police, but none of them seemed to be fruitful. But the investigation, in a way, was kind of doomed from the start, because two people were put in charge of the task force, and they assigned different orders that kind of contradicted each other.

So there was a lot of confusion and a lot of arguments. Even so, they tried to make things work, and after Linda was found, police set up roadblocks on Sand Island to question commuters, because they began thinking that maybe the killer lived on Sand Island. Because again, it was only a few miles from the airport and the Keahilagoon, and now a victim was found there. A few witnesses came forward and told police that they had seen a light-colored van by Linda's car, and then a mixed race or white man was driving.

And because Howard Gay met this description, I mean, he was a white man, and he had given a tip as to where her body was, police decided to arrest him. It was very strange to them that he had supposedly gone to a psychic about Linda's whereabouts, and Howard's girlfriend and ex-wife were a bit suspicious of him as well. They both described him as a smooth talker, meaning he could easily be manipulative and talk women into possibly getting into his van, and he also had a bondage fetish. Both his ex-wife and his girlfriend said he liked tying their hands behind their back

during sex, which obviously was a very interesting detail to police since all five women had been raped and bound. His girlfriend also told police that on the evenings they fought, he would leave the house and not come home for many hours. And these were apparently the same evenings that the murders took place on. Howard Gay lived on Evabiche, which if you look at it on a map in relation to the airport and to Honolulu, they're right next to each other. But because of the way the coast is, you have to drive inland to get to the airport and to Honolulu.

But even so, it's very close by. And we included a map on all of our socials for anyone who wants visuals. Which, by the way, Instagram at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West Pod, and then we also have Facebook. Also, Howard worked as a mechanic for an air freight carrier on Lagoon Drive, which is right where the airport is, and the same road that the Keh-Eh-Lagoon is on. Police arrested him on May 9th, and he was questioned from 8pm to 3am, so for about 8 hours overnight, and Howard failed a polygraph test, but he didn't confess to the murders and there was no evidence to prove that he was actually connected to them.

So, although police believe that they had the right man in custody, they kinda had to just let him go. They continued to watch him and even follow him around to see if he did anything suspicious or if he picked up any women, but they didn't catch him doing anything. And some businesses eventually put up a $25,000 reward for any information leading to the identity of the killer. Two months later, in July of 1986, a woman came forward saying that she saw Linda Pashie, the fifth victim, with a man on the night she disappeared, and when investigators showed her a photo lineup

of numerous men, she chose Howard Gay. But she was afraid that he had seen her that night, so she kind of just dropped out and she didn't want to be a witness. But suspicions obviously heavily remained on Howard Gay, and investigators pointed out that all the bodies were found in or near a route between where he lived in Eva Beach and where he worked on the Goon Drive. Police were also able to connect Howard to Linda because she had apparently been trying to sell him a pager.

Remember when we said that a couple witnesses had spotted Linda's vehicle with a light-colored van and either a mixed ancestry or white man in his late 30s or early 40s was driving it? Well, 43-year-old Howard Gay had a cream-colored van and police watched as he scratched his company in Cygnia off the back of the van. Oh, that's very suspicious. It's very suspicious. It's very suspicious. And I mean, this is kind of a thing that killers sometimes like to insert themselves in the investigation. Yeah. So here he is, you know, 11 months into his crime spree, potentially, and he decides to say

that he knows where one of the victim's body is and blames it on, you know, a psychic, oh, a psychic told me. Yeah. Or did you kill her and that's why you know? Well, what's weird is if you're not connected to Linda in the first place, why are you going to a psychic and inquiring about her body? Exactly. It's very weird.

It's kind of, you know, maybe you could look at it like, oh, he was being helpful, but it's, that's weird. That's just weird. Two strange considering all the other connections that... Police have with Howard. Oh, and there's more, too. Yeah, and we're definitely gonna get into those, but first, let's talk a little bit about Howard. We also mentioned that some of the murders could be linked to a military connection.

Well, Howard Andrew Gay was born on January 1, 1943 in Buffalo, New York, and eventually moved to Apple Valley, California, where he was stationed at the George Air Force Base. He was honorably discharged in 1965, went to college, worked for a continental telephone company in California, worked at the Los Angeles airport, and wound up in Tennessee working for FedEx. He traveled the world, he was trained in aircraft mechanics, and then moved to Hawaii where he put that training to use as an air freight mechanic. A bit earlier on when he was just 25, his wife Rita had a child named Jason, and also a son named Justin. And strangely enough, Jason died at the age of 17 in 1986

after being involved in a bad car accident. And he died just two months after the last known victim was murdered. During his life, particularly his youth, Howard Andrew Gay was arrested numerous times for violent assaults and rapes. And on one occasion, he even violently beat up a woman who refused to get into his car. And that is still not all.

I mean, even before you said all that, it was obvious to me that at least to me that he's the killer. And then that makes you feel like it even more, but there's still more. So not only did Howard have access to paracord rope, which is what all the victims had been bound with, but there was one other major factor that make people think, you know, even police, that Howard Andrew Gay was the Honolulu Strangler. There was Seaman found at the crime scene, and it was collected, but with each sample, either no or very few sperm were found, which indicated to police that whoever the killer

was had likely had a vasectomy. And Howard Andrew Gay had one years prior to the killings. Obviously, many men have vasectomy, so don't come at me and say that's common, because it definitely is, but I think it's an interesting connection, especially when you tie in all these other really weird things, I think it just adds more to his suspicion. Sadly, after Linda was killed, Howard moved back to California, so police weren't able to continue following him, and they just didn't have enough hard evidence to charge him, and they didn't

want to screw up their chance if more evidence became available, which it never did. So because of the lack of evidence, and they had already arrested him, there's really nothing they could do. They did notify the local police in California, though, hoping that they could keep an eye on him. And after spending some time in California, Howard moved to the Midwest and even spent time in Amsterdam, but eventually moved back to California and wasn't connected to any other murders. At least that we know of. Exactly. But something really interesting is that there are actually a lot of people who believe that Howard Andrew Gay was the zodiac killer.

And I know that there has been a lot of different suspicion about different people being the zodiac killer, but this is what some people think. So when the zodiac murders occurred, Howard was in his late 20s and he wore glasses. But a lot of people dispute this as the motives were completely different. The Zodiac's M.O. was to shoot his victim, except for a couple who were stabbed, whereas the Honolulu Stranglers was to rape and strangle his. Although Howard did spend a great deal of time in California, it was mostly in Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert area, which is also in Southern California, not Northern like where

the Zodiac killings were. Yeah, so I think it's interesting that people kind of group him in with the Zodiac potentially, but I don't see it personally. I think it's really interesting that multiple different serial killers, you know, that have different names that are unsolved could be the same person. I think that's such a weird thing to think about. Yeah. Because it's definitely possible.

But I, I don't personally see this connection because obviously the Honolulu Strangler had a very clear M.O. Because every single victim died amongst the same circumstances. Yeah, I totally agree. I don't buy this for a second. Especially if you didn't really spend a whole lot of time in Northern California, and you spent all of this time in Los Angeles, like, to me, I don't see the connection. If other people do, that's great. That's their opinion, but I don't. Yeah, I love a good theory, but this one I don't really believe.

So Howard Gay was the only known suspect in the Honolulu Strangler case, and although there were other murders that occurred over this time in Oahu, which again had a population of over 800,000 people in the mid 80s, the Honolulu Strangler was only believed to have had five victims, although there could be others that were never connected since they potentially had different M.O.s, but again his M.O. was pretty strong. Howard Andrew Gaye was never formally charged with any of the murders, or any other murders for that matter, but he remains the main suspect in the case. In November of 2003, who around 17 years after he left Hawaii, Howard Gay died of kidney failure

at the age of 60 while living in Inglewood, which is in Los Angeles, California. To this day, the case of the Honolulu Strangler and the murders of Vicki Perty, Regina Sakamoto, Denise Hughes, Luis Madero's, and Linda Pesci remain unsolved. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into.

It's always annoying when there's a very, very, very clear suspect in a case and you still can't pen it on them. I really think Howard did it. I just, that's what I believe. Yeah, I think that's what, you know, the majority of people believe as well. Well, let us know what you think, comment on our social medias. We love hearing from you guys and what you think about cases, especially the unsolved ones.

Heath and I personally love kind of delving into theories and talking to you guys about who you think could have done something or what you think happened to somebody, so please let us know what you think. And now we have to give things to all of the amazing people who joined our Patreon this past week. Yes, Patreon is where you can get bonus episodes. We currently have 46 full-length ad-free bonus episodes

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