Beneath the Palms: Hawaii's Darkest True Crime & Mysteries

Waikiki was alive that night—fireworks overhead, music on every corner, crowds spilling into the streets.

And then, just like that, Carlos Carrillo was gone.

He was 28. A club promoter. A fixture in Hawaii’s nightlife scene. On July 4th, 2000, he walked out of Evolution Waikiki—and vanished.

No phone call. No bag. No boarding pass. And no sign he ever left the island.

But that night, his fiancée was kidnapped by the same man who last s...

Two teens. A Friday night. A quick stop at the gas station.

They didn’t say where they were going.
But they never made it home.

By morning, the only trace of them was a folded blanket on the sand. Their phones. Their clothes. The car—locked.

And the waves crashing off Ke Iki Beach.

A massive search followed. Helicopters. Divers. Volunteers.
Then came the worst kind of answer:
Joey’s body—found in the ocean.

But Samantha Chun wa...

She got in her car that night to help the father of her child. Not out of love—maybe out of duty. Maybe hope. Maybe just the part of her that still believed people were good.

She was five months pregnant. Her name was Carly Joann Scott—Charli, to everyone who loved her. And she never made it home.

What started as a missing persons case turned into something darker. Her SUV was found burned near the cliffs of Maui. Her dog was still i...

The trail was overgrown. The brush, thick.

On July 3rd, 2010, the body of 57-year-old Amber Jackson was discovered deep in the remote wilderness of Kealia, Kauai—hidden beneath a cover of ferns, face down in the dirt. Ten days earlier, she had vanished without a trace. No signs of forced entry. No clear motive. Just blunt force trauma—and silence.

Amber wasn’t a stranger to standing up. She was a respected voice on Kauai, a union adv...

A dog digging in black sand. A skull just beneath the surface.

On June 1st, 1999, the remains of 22-year-old Matthew Joel Peak were discovered on a remote beach in Waipio Valley, one of Hawaii’s most sacred—and isolated—places. A quiet drifter from San Francisco, Matthew had been living off the grid, hitchhiking between towns, sleeping in a makeshift shack. Weeks earlier, someone had strangled him and buried his body where the valle...

They found her in the cane fields.

Decomposed. Unclothed. Forgotten.

Michelle Anne Bensinger was just 24 when her body was discovered off Thompson Corner near Waialua, Oahu in August 1999 — likely dead for weeks. She was never reported missing. There were no headlines. No public outcry. Just a quiet line in a police log and a case that faded into silence.

But Michelle’s story is more than a cold case.

She may have worked — or even mana...

🩸In August of 1999, the body of a 21-year-old woman was found behind a Honolulu florist shop—naked, bound, and wrapped in trash bags.
Her name was Jubilee Lum. Her family called her Maile. And she wasn’t supposed to be forgotten.

She had asked for help.
She went to the police.
She told people she was scared.
But help never came.

Days later, her body was found in the heat—discarded like waste.
But Maile was not waste.
She was someone’s dau...

In the summer of 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a seasoned U.S. Navy officer set out for a simple hike in the Aiea Mountains—and was never seen again.

Commander Thomas C. Latimore wasn’t just any officer.
He was a man of influence.
A former acting Governor of American Samoa.
A Naval Intelligence veteran stationed at Pearl Harbor during one of the most critical moments in history.

And then—without warnin...

There’s a house in Kaimuki that still hums beneath the silence. Hawaii’s most infamous haunted home—where screams pierced the night, furniture moved on its own, and even police felt something they couldn’t explain. This isn’t just a ghost story.

It’s the story of Glen Grant—the folklorist, professor, and late-night radio host who gave Hawaii’s spirits a voice. The man behind The Obake Files and Chicken Skin Tales.

In this special epi...

On a humid October morning in 2013, a woman’s body was found inside a dumpster behind the Hawaiian Colony apartments in Waikiki.

Her name was Janine Ululani Caldeira Meyer.
And she had tried—again and again—to warn us.

This episode unpacks the heartbreaking series of events that led to Janine’s death—and the failures that followed:

• Who Janine was, and the life she built in the heart of Waikiki

• Her repeated efforts to seek help, incl...

On a quiet January afternoon in 1972, nineteen-year-old Nancy Anderson was found brutally murdered in her Waikiki apartment. More than sixty stab wounds. No forced entry. No witnesses. No answers.

For five decades, her case haunted Hawaii.

Until one name finally surfaced.

This episode unravels the tragic timeline—from Nancy’s arrival in paradise to the moment police knocked on the door of a frail man in Nevada with a past he couldn’t ...

In this episode of Beneath the Palms, we uncover the tragic disappearance of Jonathan Fraser—a 23-year-old local kid whose life was quietly erased in the summer of 2016. He wasn’t part of a gang. He didn’t run with the wrong crowd. His only mistake? Surviving a car crash that killed his best friend, Caleb Miske—the son of one of Hawaii's most powerful and feared men.

Jonathan’s story isn’t a mystery. It’s a documented, proven, a...

In this episode of Beneath the Palms, we explore one of Hawaii's most chilling and obscure spiritual battles—the Honolulu Exorcism Case of the 1970s. A young woman’s life became the center of a terrifying clash between Catholicism and ancient Hawaiian beliefs.

Inside a small home in Kalihi on the island of Oʻahu, a family watched helplessly as their daughter descended into darkness. Unexplainable events. Voices in forgotten language...

In this episode of Beneath the Palms, we revisit a devastating case that shattered the quiet, close-knit community of Mānoa Valley. The Oda family—Paris, Naoko, and their three children—were beloved neighbors, a family who embodied the peaceful rhythms of life in Mānoa.

But beneath the surface, hidden struggles were mounting. Financial pressures. Emotional isolation. A father quietly unraveling.

On a tragic morning in March 2024, eve...

On March 10, 2006, 31-year-old Jason Nam was shot and killed while washing his car in the parking garage of his apartment building on South Beretania Street, across from Central Union Church.

No signs of robbery. No immediate witnesses. Nearly 20 years later—still no answers.

Who wanted Jason dead? Was it a targeted execution? A personal vendetta? Or something even more chilling—murder in broad daylight, with no one willing to talk?

I...

On February 6, 1996, Honolulu was rocked by one of the most intense hostage crises in Hawaii’s history. Former Seal Masters of Hawaii employee John Nahale Miranda stormed his old workplace on Sand Island, taking five hostages at gunpoint and demanding $20,000 in cash. As tensions escalated, Miranda shot his former supervisor, made chilling threats live on the radio, and forced SWAT into a high-stakes standoff.

But this wasn’t just a...

In this episode of Beneath the Palms, we dive deep into the true story of Michael J. Miske Jr., Hawaii’s most notorious crime boss, who built a powerful criminal syndicate in Honolulu’s underworld.

From operating legitimate businesses to orchestrating a criminal empire involving drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and murder, Miske’s influence spanned decades—until a massive FBI investigation brought him down.

We’ll break down:

Between 1985 and 1986, five women were hunted and murdered across Oʻahu. Hawaii’s first known serial killer, the Honolulu Strangler, left behind a chilling pattern—and vanished. In this episode of Beneath the Palms, we follow the full case timeline, explore the suspect who slipped through law enforcement’s fingers, and ask if modern forensic science could still crack this decades-old mystery.

🎙️ Featuring exclusive research from po...

In 1977, 16-year-old Dawn Momohara walked out of her Honolulu home, expecting a normal night with friends. She never came back. By morning, her body was discovered inside McKinley High School—sexually assaulted, strangled, and abandoned in a crime that shattered the community. Despite intense investigations, there were no arrests, no leads, and no answers for nearly 48 years. But science had other plans.

In this episode of Beneath t...