Kathy Hicks, 25, a Black female, arrived in Honolulu for what was supposed to be an ordinary company trip — a softball tournament and a few nights away from home — and ended up becoming the center of a mystery that would linger for decades. On September 18, 1982, Hicks was found dead on a grassy slope along Nuuanu Pali Drive, with investigators reporting that Hicks had been assaulted and strangled.

In the hours before Hicks was discovered, the trail of the night narrowed to fragments: a hotel, a late-hour encounter, and the uneasy memory of coworkers who realized too late that something had gone wrong. Hicks had been staying at the Ilikai Hotel, and coworkers later told investigators Hicks left with a man they knew only as “Tommy,” riding the elevator down from the 24th floor and heading toward the lobby and pool area. Not long after, joggers came upon Hicks’ body off the roadway on the Pali, and the violence showed — scratches at the neck, a battered face, and signs of a struggle that ended in strangulation. 
Detectives pushed forward with what the era could offer: interviews, canvassing, and the human details witnesses could still picture. Witnesses provided sketches of the man Hicks had last been seen with, and police circulated descriptions down to build and hairstyle — a clean-cut male with black hair and brown eyes, about 5’11” to 6’0” and 150 to 160 pounds, described as having “an African American mixed ethnicity.” But without a name that held up, the case slipped into the long cold, waiting for science to catch up to the silence. 
Nearly four decades later, modern DNA work pulled the past back into the present. Investigators said DNA recovered from Hicks’ body matched Thomas L. Garner, and on June 18, 2021, an O‘ahu grand jury indicted Garner and charged one count of Murder in the Second Degree in connection with Hicks’ killing, with bail set at $2,000,000. Prosecutors said Garner was extradited from Florida, where Garner was serving a life sentence for the 1984 killing of Pamela Cahanes. 
In court, the case turned on what the DNA could prove — and what it could not. At trial, Garner’s defense argued the state didn’t have enough evidence beyond the genetic link, while the prosecution pointed to the DNA advances that had revived the investigation and led to charges. On July 11, 2023, the jury returned a not guilty verdict, and the court’s decision meant there was no conviction for Hicks’ killing despite the decades-long pursuit that led investigators to Garner. 
