Edmonds arrives in Honolulu for his murder trial
Advertiser Staff
An Indiana man was brought back to Honolulu yesterday to stand trial in the 1975 murder of a 13-year-old Kailua girl.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
Delmar Edmonds, 46, charged with killing Dawn "Dede" Bustamante, has been held in lieu of $500,000 bail in Indianapolis since July. Two Honolulu police officers flew to Indianapolis Monday to take custody of him.
A Honolulu police officer escorts Delmar Edmonds, right, who was brought back to Honolulu yesterday from Indianapolis, Ind., to stand trial in the 1975 murder of 13-year-old Dawn Bustamante.
Upon arrival here yesterday, Edmonds was booked at the main police station cellblock and will get his trial date when he is arraigned in Circuit Court.
Edmonds was stationed at the Marine Corps base in Kane'ohe when Bustamante was fatally shot by a man who kidnapped her and another 13-year-old. The other girl escaped.
Edmonds had been held in an Indianapolis jail, unable to post bail. A warrant issued by a Hawai'i court in July charged him with murdering Bustamante.
Honolulu police said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and its effects on air travel had forced them to change plans for an earlier extradition.
A break in the 26-year-old case came last year when a former Marine stationed with Edmonds in Hawai'i contacted authorities to say Edmonds had asked him and other Marines to lie about his whereabouts the night that Bustamante was killed, according to court documents.
She and another girl were walking along a Kailua street when a man forced the two into his car at gunpoint and took them to an isolated area behind the Pali golf course.
Investigators could not charge Edmonds with other suspected crimes such as sexual assault and kidnapping because of the statute of limitations. Murder and attempted murder are not subject to a statute of limitations.
The new evidence led to Edmonds' indictment for murder in July.
