Honolulu police detectives opened a murder investigation after a body of a 65-year-old man was found late Tuesday night in his Whitmore Village home.

The body was discovered just after midnight in a home on Kaniahe Street by police following up report of a car burning in Waianae earlier in the evening.

Firefighters reported extinguishing a car fire at 11:11 p.m. at the entrance to Makua Cave on Farrington Highway. The car appeared to have been abandoned, a fire official said.

When police attempted to contact the registered owner of the burnt car on Kaniahe Street, they found the body.

The case was originally classified as an unattended death, but  aspects of the investigation prompted detectives to re-classify it as a second-degree investigation.

Fred Rulloda, a Whitmore Village neighbor, said he went to bed around 11:30 p.m., but woke up when he heard a woman screaming about 30 minutes later.

Minutes later, police cars and an ambulance arrived at the home near the end of Kaniahe Street,

Rulloda said he lived next to the victim’s home for the past 15 years, but he rarely talked to him and didn’t know his name.

“He kept pretty much to himself,” Rulloda said.

Rulloda noticed that the victim’s car was missing Wednesday morning from the garage.

“It was really shocking to hear that something happened to him,” he said.