Sonny Leopoamo, 28, was a Native Hawaiian man from Waipahu, Hawaiʻi, whose life ended late on the night of November 25, 2018.
Just after about 10:30 p.m., Honolulu police officers were sent to the area of 94-867 Waipahu Street after reports that gunshots had been heard. When they arrived, they found Leopoamo on the ground, unresponsive, with a gunshot wound.
The scene quickly shifted from a call for help to a homicide investigation, with detectives left to piece together what happened in the dark moments before officers reached him.
In the days that followed, investigators turned outward, asking the public for what the streets might have seen and what frightened witnesses might have heard. CrimeStoppers Honolulu and the Honolulu Police Department publicly appealed for witnesses, emphasizing that information could lead to the identification of those responsible, and noting that tips could be provided anonymously and could qualify for a cash reward if they resulted in an arrest. The public-facing notices for the case did not name a suspect or provide a description of one, reflecting an investigation that—at least publicly—was still searching for the crucial thread that would turn a killing into an arrest.
An obituary notice recorded his dates of birth and death, and community memorial listings marked his death as gun violence in Waipahu, but neither offered answers about who pulled the trigger or why. As of the publicly available case summary, the investigation's most concrete call remained the same: someone out there knew what happened, and the case depended on a witness stepping forward with the detail that could finally put a name to the violence.
