Missing woman was murdered, police declare

Helen Prestosa, a store manager at a Jack in the Box restaurant, disappeared in November, but now police say she was killed and are looking for a suspect.

“We are still reeling from the shock of finding out about her,” said Prestosa’s older sister, Josephine, of Mililani, who gave only her first name. She learned about her sister’s death from police Monday. “She’s a very cheerful person. She always has great things to say about others. She’s well loved in her workplace.”

On Monday police asked the public for information on the whereabouts of the suspect, identified as 25-year-old Jhun Ley Irorita.

Irorita is 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes. He drives a white 2013 four-door Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, is considered dangerous and is known to frequent the Kalihi, Windward and Waipahu areas, police said.

Prestosa, 39, who had been battling bone cancer, was last seen at about 7 p.m. Nov. 19 in Kalihi. Her family, concerned about her health because she needed medication, reported her missing the following day after she failed to show up for work in the morning at the Kalihi restaurant.

Sgt. Kim Buffett of Honolulu CrimeStoppers said police reclassified Prestosa’s missing-person case to a second-degree murder after receiving new information. She declined to say whether police recovered her body.

Prestosa, of Kalihi, was the youngest of nine children, grew up in the Philippines and was a loving, caring and cheerful person, Josephine said.

“Even if she has that (medical) condition, she’s always upbeat,” she said, adding that her sister’s death has devastated the family.

“It’s hard for us because she’s such a hardworking person,” she said. “And no matter how her condition is, she still wanted to fight for her life.”

She said Prestosa took careful measures to fight cancer, such as eating organic food, juicing her food and keeping all of her doctor’s appointments.

Josephine said her sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer about four years ago and was cancer-free for a period until the disease returned as bone cancer.

Her sister tried to shield the family by not disclosing the severity of her bone cancer, but the family eventually learned it was more serious than she led them to believe, Josephine said.

After her sister disappeared, the family has been concerned about whether she could survive without medication. “Until now we really haven’t moved on,” she said, adding that it was “heartbreaking to find out the truth.”

Prestosa’s family members are thankful police are pursuing the investigation and hope they can find answers to their questions, Josephine said. “We really don’t know where she is,” she said. “We’re still kind of in the blank about what happened.”

Josephine said she had never heard of Irorita before police named him as the suspect.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300 or *CRIME from a cellphone.