In the dark hours before dawn on May 12, 2017, Sheldon Navor, a 40-year-old Native Hawaiian man from Hilo, was found gravely wounded inside a residence on Hīnano Street, in the Waiākea Houselots area. Police were called to the home at about 1:55 a.m. after a report that a man had been shot. When officers arrived, Navor was unresponsive with what appeared to be a single gunshot wound to the head, and he was rushed to Hilo Medical Center in critical condition.
For days, he remained hospitalized as investigators tried to piece together what had happened inside that home and who had pulled the trigger. The initial public updates offered no motive and no named suspect, only the stark fact of the injury and the plea for anyone with information to come forward.
Navor died at the hospital on Monday evening, May 15, 2017, turning the case from a shooting investigation into a death inquiry. Hawaiʻi Police classified the death as a coroner's inquest and announced that an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
Away from the flashing lights and official statements, the public remembrances described a working man rooted in the Big Island—someone born in Hilo who worked as a construction laborer and belonged to the Hawaiʻi Laborers' Union, Local 368. The obituary placed his death at Hilo Medical Center, echoing the timeline investigators had shared.
As for accountability, later reporting indicated that investigators did identify a suspect and forwarded the case to prosecutors, but that no one had been charged as of January 2021. The story conveyed a family still waiting—years later—for the moment when the person believed responsible would be arrested and the case would move publicly into court.
