Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another week of Unsolved. This week’s case is particularly important because it was the first recorded serial killing case in the state of Hawaii and it is still relatively recent.

The Honolulu Strangler, or Honolulu Rapist, killed 5 women in Honolulu, Hawaii between May of 1985 and April of 1986 and has yet to be identified. Due to its importance as the state’s first serial killing, a large task-force was put into place to investigate which also utilized FBI resources. They could determine that these murders were not planned in advance and that the killer would notice women who were alone and seized his opportunity to kill them while they were vulnerable. Because of this, the also hypothesized that the killer lived or even worked near where the murders took place.

The first victim was Vicki Purdy, the 25-year-old wife of an army helicopter pilot. She disappeared on her way to meet a group of friends and was last seen alive by a taxi driver in Shorebird Hotel around midnight. Her body was discovered the following morning in Keehi Lagoon, and there was evidence of rape and strangulation. Her husband provided a lead during the investigation because he thought the murder may be related to her place of work, because two women from there were stabbed to death about a year beforehand.

The next victim was Regina Sakamoto, a high school student who was kidnapped on her way to school after missing her bus. She was also found in Keehi Lagoon and like Purdy, she was raped and strangled. This was eerily similar to the circumstances surrounding the previous murder, so police then started to suspect that it was the doing of a serial killer.

The third victim was 21-year-old Denise Hughes, a secretary for a phone company. Her remains were found by fishermen a day after she did not report into work, and she was also sexually assaulted and strangled. This was the third victim of a similar murder in the area, so it was then confirmed to be a related case and the task-force was approved to treat it as such.

The final two victims suffered extremely similar fates as the rest. Louise Medeiros and Linda Pesce were both found within several days of being reported missing, but were once again discovered to have been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Pesce’s murder resulted in a lead when witnesses said that they saw a light-colored van nearby and a possibly Caucasian man near her car. This led to the arrest of Howard Gay, who was also said to engage in bondage activity by his ex-wife and girlfriend, and all of the victims were found with their hands bound behind their backs. His girlfriend also told investigators that some nights when they fought, he would leave the house and these nights were the same as when the murders occurred. This evidence was not enough to convict him, however, and he was released. Two months later, one woman said that she saw a man with Pesce on the night she was killed, and picked Gay out of a lineup, but she did not consent to being a witness in court because she was worried for her safety.

Despite a $25,000 reward, no other strong leads were found, and when Howard Gay died in 2003, many suspected that this case would officially never be solved and that the killer was gone permanently.