A cold case from 2010 has found momentum after human remains were finally identified as William Hans Holling Jr., who went missing in 1985; Honolulu Police are now seeking the public's assistance to unravel this decades-old mystery.
The skeletal remains were stumbled upon during a home renovation on Oahu Avenue in Manoa, where a construction crew made the morbid discovery beneath the building's foundation, which has since turned into a long-standing unsolved case, according to KHON2. Holling, who was last seen by family and friends in January of that year, was believed to be a frequent traveler to Australia via Honolulu and went through a high-conflict divorce before his disappearance.
Investigators faced a dead end even after a composite was created using the skull's genetic markers, but a breakthrough came when further DNA testing by the FBI Laboratory in Quantico firmed up the link between the remains and Holling's son, "It was determined that the skull sustained a gunshot wound and that the remains had been placed under suspicious circumstances," Honolulu Police Department Criminal Investigation Division Detective Ryan Kaio described, in a statement obtained by Hawaii News Now.
A local resident, Norman Quon, remembers the unsettling day when the remains were unearthed across from his home saying, "I couldn't believe it was across my house," Quon expressed relief upon the identification of the remains, which he felt brought a measure of needed closure, he said in an interview with KHON2.
