Dawn “Dede” Bustamante Revisited: 1975 Kailua Abduction, Murder, and Unsolved Hawaii Cold Case | Revisited: 048

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. On March 14, 1975, Dawn and Cherie were walking through Kailua when a man with a gun forced them into a white car and drove them toward the secluded area near the Pali Golf Course. This episode follows Dawn’s story, Cherie’s survival, the composite sketch that shaped the early investigation, and the long silence that followed. It also revisits the arrest and indictment of former Kaneohe Marine Delmar, also reported as Delmer, Jerome Edmonds Jr., whose case was dismissed after DNA testing excluded him from key biological evidence. Edmonds was once a suspect; the verified record does not allow him to be called Dawn’s killer. At the center of this story are two thirteen-year-old girls, one family’s decades of grief, one survivor’s lasting trauma, and an open Hawaii cold case still waiting for the truth to reach daylight. Mahalo to Yoza for the use of “Broken Wings.” Sources: No healing for Dede’s mom | The Honolulu Advertiser https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Jul/20/ln/ln02a.html Corrections | The Honolulu Advertiser https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Jul/21/ln/ln38acorrections.html Family backs suspect of ’75 slaying | The Honolulu Advertiser https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Jul/22/ln/ln07a.html Key witness in ’75 case was murdered in 1986 | The Honolulu Advertiser https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Jul/29/ln/ln01a.html DNA clears former Marine Edmonds of 1975 murder | The Honolulu Advertiser https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Sep/07/ln/ln01a.html Ex-Marine Edmonds indicted in Bustamante slaying | Honolulu Star-Bulletin https://archives.starbulletin.com/2001/08/08/news/story14.html ’75 murder suspect arrives for trial | Honolulu Star-Bulletin https://archives.starbulletin.com/2001/10/19/news/story15.html Bustamante suspect let go | Honolulu Star-Bulletin https://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/09/07/news/story1.html Judge rules Edmonds case dismissed for now | Honolulu Star-Bulletin https://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/09/11/news/story6.html #DawnBustamante #DedeBustamante #BeneathThePalms #HawaiiTrueCrime #Kailua #Oahu #UnsolvedMurder #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #HawaiiColdCase