Beneath the Palms: Hawaii's True Crime, Mysteries & Untold History

In late February 2015, Daylenn “Moke” Pua told family members he planned to hike the Haiku Stairs on Oahu, also known as the Stairway to Heaven. He was still a teenager, a senior from Hawaii Island, a student at Ke Kula ʻo ʻEhunuikaimalino, an aspiring pastry chef, a grandson, a brother, and Moke to the people who loved him. This revisited episode of Beneath the Palms rebuilds Daylenn’s story with...

Kyle Brittain was 27 years old, newly finished with massage school, and staying at his father’s house in Hilo when he set out for what was supposed to be a one-day hike into Waipio Valley on Hawaii Island. He had grown up hiking with his dad. He had water, energy bars, his phone, and people who expected him home. But somewhere between the Waipio lookout, the valley floor, the Z Trail, and the rout...

Eighteen-year-old Glenn Guerrero was last seen alive in the passenger seat of a pickup truck leaving Shipman Ballpark in Keaau, Hawaii. Hours later, he was found shot to death off a dirt road above the field. The truck was never publicly identified. The driver was never named. And nearly thirty years later, his murder remains unsolved. This revisited episode of Beneath the Palms takes a deeper, mo...

On February 11, 1988, twelve-year-old Jie Zhao Li vanished from Nuuanu, Honolulu while selling Zippy’s chili tickets for a Royal Elementary School fundraiser. She was last seen near the 7-Eleven at Nuuanu Avenue and Kuakini Street around 4:45 p.m., only a few blocks from home, with a promise to return by six. This fully revisited Beneath the Palms episode rebuilds Jie’s story from the public recor...

In May 1997, 27-year-old Sean Burgado finished a shift in Hilo…and vanished. Days later, he was found shot to death inside his home on Malaai Road in upper Waiākea Uka. No arrests. No suspects. No clear motive. Almost thirty years later, his case is still unsolved — and still quietly haunting the island. Read the official case summary: Hawai‘i Police Dept, “Sean Burgado Murder (F-27882)” → https:/...

In this revisited Beneath the Palms episode, we return to the unsolved 1975 murder of 13-year-old Dawn “Dede” Bustamante in Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii, and the survival of Cherie Verdugo, the friend abducted with her. Dawn was Maureen and Neil Bustamante’s first-born daughter — a girl remembered for her glasses, her braces, her personality, and the ordinary pieces of a life that should have kept going....

This special trailer introduces Under the Pines , a new true-crime series from Aku Bone Media. Rooted in the quiet mill towns of New England and Beyond, the show follows unsolved cases, forgotten disappearances, and the echoes that linger long after headlines fade. For listeners of Beneath the Palms in Hawaiʻi, this episode bridges the distance—inviting anyone with ties to Fitchburg, Leominster, G...

In January 2001, nineteen-year-old Kallen Agliam vanished after leaving Hilo . Hours later, his body was found off Old Hilo Coast Processing Plant Road near Pepeʻekeo —a single gunshot wound to the chest. No witnesses. No weapon. No arrests. Two decades later, his case remains one of East Hawaii’s longest-running unsolved murders. His family still waits for answers. His name still sits on the Hawa...

Twenty-one years after gunfire shattered the calm at Honolulu’s Pali Golf Course, another body has surfaced. Jonnaven Monalim —once a government witness who testified in the federal racketeering case United States v. Motta et al. —was found shot to death in Waipio in November 2025. Police say he was last seen leaving his home in Kapolei. Days later, his body was discovered near the Waipio Soccer C...

In this Hawaii true crime episode of Beneath the Palms, we revisit the unsolved murder of Bradley Bussewitz, a 47-year-old Wisconsin man whose body was found near the 12-mile marker off Saddle Road on Hawaiʻi Island in 2003. For nearly thirteen years, police and the public did not know his name. He was first known only as an unidentified man found in a remote area outside Hilo, with severe blunt-f...

In 1973, Gayle Irene Hook told her roommates she was going to the beach in South Kona. She was young, far from home, living without a car in a time when hitchhiking still felt ordinary. Eight days later, students found her body inside the abandoned Kahikolu Church pavilion in Nāpōʻopoʻo. This fully revisited episode of Beneath the Palms follows the corrected record of Gayle’s unsolved murder: her...

Father Yod and the Source Family are one of the strangest chapters in 1970s cult history, Los Angeles counterculture, psychedelic rock, and Hawaii’s search for paradise gone wrong. This fully revisited episode follows James Edward Baker, the former Marine and Hollywood restaurateur who became Father Yod, leader of the Source Family and founder of The Source restaurant on the Sunset Strip. What beg...

April 12, 2007. On a quiet road in Pupukea, twenty-one-year-old Masumi Watanabe — shy, gentle, and far from her home on Sado Island, Japan — was last seen alive. Neighbors heard her cry out, a single word: “No.” By nightfall, she was missing. What followed was an island-wide search, the discovery of her glasses and blood in a pest control truck, a midnight witness at Kahana Bay, and a trial that w...

On Christmas Eve 1975, twenty-seven-year-old Ingrid “Lori” Ostrenga was found strangled inside her Kailua home. She was a Waikiki nightclub dancer connected to El Morocco, an avid horseback rider on Oahu’s Windward side, and a young woman whose life was reduced in the public record to only a few surviving lines. Days later, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported one detail that still changes the way...

Three lives ended in minutes on a quiet ridge above Honolulu . A taxi driver, Jason and Colleen Takamori, and the Tantalus Lookout — a place known for romance and city views — became the center of one of Hawaii’s most shocking crimes. On July 6, 2006, the Tantalus triple murder unfolded with chilling precision. A cab ride, a married couple’s evening out, and suddenly, three lives stolen execution-...

Today, we’re bringing you something different. A special preview from our sister podcast, Shadows of Siam — a series that dives deep into Thailand’s darkest crimes, mysteries, and legends. This story is about Si Quey Sae-Ung , a man whose name became a warning whispered into the ears of children for generations: “If you misbehave, Si Quey will come. And he’ll eat your liver.” Accused of killing ch...

In 1932, seventeen-year-old Margaret Enos of Hilo said no to Sylvester William Nunes. What followed was not romance, no matter how some old headlines framed it. It was stalking, abduction, gun violence, murder, and a sacred place forced to carry the weight of someone else’s obsession. This revisited episode of Beneath the Palms returns to the murder of Margaret Enos near Halemaumau Crater, the not...

On January 7, 2004, a meeting after a funeral turned into gunfire at Pali Golf Course on Oahu. Lepo Utu Taliese and Romelius “Junior” Corpuz Jr. were killed, Tino Sao was critically wounded, and before the case became a federal racketeering prosecution, two wounded men had already named the men they said shot them. This fully revisited episode of Beneath the Palms rebuilds the Pali Golf Course sho...

Hawaii couple Bobby Fort and Julie Montague were not who they claimed to be. In this Beneath the Palms episode, we trace how Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison stole the identities of two dead Texas infants, built false lives for decades, and carried one of those stolen names into the U.S. Coast Guard and later defense-contractor work. This is a fact-based deep dive into one of the str...

In February 2010, Laura Vogel sent one final text from Maui’s North Shore. She said she was camped near the birthing pools and meeting the locals. Then the woman who loved wild places, taught science, coached soccer, studied wildlife biology, and helped people see the natural world more clearly was gone. This revisited episode of Beneath the Palms goes deeper into Laura’s life before the disappear...

Malia Arciero’s Portlock case became one of Hawaii’s most talked-about true crime scandals because it was never just about meth. Behind the gates, the ocean views, and the carefully kept silence, federal prosecutors said Malia was moving serious quantities of methamphetamine across Oahu. But around that drug case grew another story: escort work, reported black books, powerful clients, misconduct a...

Legacy Episode 29 revisits the Hawaii cold case of Mary Sue Fink, the toddler identified through familial DNA after her remains were found in a galvanized steel can inside a Waikiki apartment closet in 2014. This Beneath the Palms episode follows the verified record, the murder investigation, the “Aunty” family story, and the long silence that kept Mary Sue’s name buried for decades. This Legacy r...

Gary Leslie Ruby was not a headline. He was a Montreal-born McGill graduate, a longtime Honolulu resident, a retired State of Hawaii Regulation Analyst, a lover of theater, music, literature, travel, family, and friendship. In 2022, Gary was expected in San Diego to see a friend’s play. He never arrived. Calls, texts, and emails went unanswered. Back home on Hawaii Loa Ridge, someone younger was a...

Amber Jackson came to Kauai to build a life. She loved the island. She restored homes, hiked its trails, walked her dogs on the beach, and surrounded herself with friends who became family. The people closest to her remember a woman who often said she was "living the dream." Then, in June 2010, she disappeared. When friends realized she had missed a dinner gathering and could not be reac...

The Disappearance of Commander Thomas C. Latimore: Pearl Harbor’s Unsolved Aiea Mystery In July 1941, months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Commander Thomas C. Latimore walked into the hills above Aiea on Oahu and never came back. He was not only a Navy commander and the commanding officer of USS Dobbin . He was also a husband, a father, and a man remembered for warmth, generosity, and steady...