On November 24, 2018, Denton Freitas, a 45-year-old man from Mountain View on Hawaiʻi Island, was found along a rural stretch of Anthurium Street/Road in the Fern Acres subdivision of the Puna District. The afternoon had barely settled when a nearby resident reported the crack of multiple gunshots, and patrol officers began moving toward the area; before they could arrive, a passing motorist spotted a body at the roadside and called it in.
When officers reached the scene, Freitas was lying face down beside the road, with spent casings nearby and gunshot wounds visible enough that the moment read like an attack that had ended only minutes earlier.
Investigators classified the death as a murder and placed the case under the Criminal Investigation Section, treating the Fern Acres roadside as both crime scene and puzzle: who fired, from where, and why there of all places. An autopsy later attributed his death to multiple gunshot wounds and confirmed the manner of death as homicide, sharpening the case from an urgent response to a focused manhunt for answers. Even as the official work continued, the outlines of his life surfaced in public memorials—he was known by the nickname “Dentz,” and after the shooting he was taken to Hilo Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
In the weeks that followed, authorities continued to pursue leads, but public updates stayed sparse. On January 3, 2019, police renewed their request for information, underscoring that detectives were still following up and that any detail—however small—might help connect the sound of gunfire heard that afternoon to the person who pulled the trigger. The renewed appeal did not announce any arrests, name any suspects, or describe a motive; instead, it emphasized that the investigation remained open and that detectives were still trying to reconstruct what happened on Anthurium Street/Road and who was responsible.
