Lino Nedelec, a 22-year-old Native Hawaiian man from ʻAiea, died after gunfire tore through what should have been a quiet Christmas morning in Hālawa. Just before dawn on December 25, 2023, he was riding with friends inside a white sedan as they pulled away from the Pūʻuwai Momi Housing Complex. The car rolled toward the exit, tires crossing from the parking lot onto Kamehameha Highway, when a man outside opened fire on the vehicle.

In the chaos that followed, the sedan kept moving long enough for help to be summoned and for Nedelec to be rushed to a nearby hospital. Doctors fought to save him, but the wound proved fatal, and he was pronounced dead from injuries caused by a gunshot. The case was treated as a second-degree murder investigation, and authorities asked the public to come forward with anything that might place the shooter at the scene or explain why the car was targeted at that hour. 
Investigators publicly described the shooter only as an unknown male, and the early updates did not include a name, a photo, or a clear description that would allow the community to recognize him on sight. A public appeal circulated with identifying details about Nedelec—5’7”, about 210 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes—while urging anyone who saw a man with a gun near the complex, or any suspicious vehicle movement as the sedan exited, to speak up. 
No arrests or charges were announced in the information released alongside these public requests for help, and no suspect or suspects were formally identified there. Instead, the message to the community was simple and urgent: if someone had a fragment of the story—an argument overheard, a figure seen stepping from shadow to curbline, the crack of shots and a glimpse of where the gunman ran or drove—it could be the piece that turns a Christmas-morning killing into a solvable case. 
