Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt.

And the story I have for you today is about a reign of terror that plagued one of the most

idyllic places in the world. A time when young women began disappearing one by one only

to be found brutalized and tossed away by someone who couldn't see their humanity because

he had lost his own. This is the story of the Honolulu Strangler.

It's a Tuesday evening in January of 1986 when the Honolulu Police Department receives

a report from local parents who say that their daughter is missing. Her name is Regina Sakamoto.

She's 17, and her frantic parents explained that the last time they saw her was around eight

that morning when she left for school. But she hadn't come home, and now they're convinced

something is wrong. Now as far as I can tell, it seems like police do take the report, although

I'm not sure how much they're able to actually do that night. Okay, but at least they take

it instead of telling her parents to wait. Yeah, but any plan they may have had to hit the

ground running the next morning gets derailed, or at least redirected, because they get

another call. This time it's from a local fisherman who is found a body of a young woman floating

in nearby Keihei Lagoon. As soon as they arrive at the lagoon, it is clear that whoever she is,

she didn't end up in the water by accident. She's naked from the waist down with clear

ligature marks around her neck. Her hands are bound behind her back, and there's an electrical

cord tied around one of her ankles. And that cord has then been secured to the rocks along the shore.

Like, her body is basically tethered to the land. That seems super intentional. Like,

her body was supposed to be discovered. I think so, right. So they know it's Regina right away?

Well, not immediately, because I'm not even sure that they got enough info that night before

to know what Regina even looks like. But this girl, I mean, she's young, and it doesn't look like

...