Eight men and four women of an Oahu Circuit Court jury, after deliberating Friday and Monday, found Thomas Lewis Garner, 63, a Florida dental hygienist not guilty of second-degree murder in the 1982 cold case assault and strangulation death of a visiting 25-year-old Delta Air Lines reservations clerk.

Atlanta native Kathy Warnette Hicks’ body was found by joggers in a secluded area down a grassy slope off Nuuanu Pali Drive 10 a.m. Sept. 19, 1982.

Although otherwise fully clothed, her bra was pulled down below her breasts. Hicks had two black eyes, and a cut to her lip from biting down while being strangled to death after a “ferocious” assault, deputy prosecutor Scott Bell told jurors.

Garner, then a 22-year-old Navy dental technician stationed at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station, said he met Hicks at a Waikiki lounge, went to her Ilikai Hotel room that Saturday night, Sept. 18, 1982, and met her roommate. The two eventually went to his hotel room, where they had sex but he denied killing her.

He said they went dancing after they had sex, and he paid for a cab to take her back to her hotel at about 2:30 a.m.

His DNA was found on her underwear, but the defense raised issues about possible other contributors to the DNA.

“Mere speculation or guesswork is not a reasonable doubt,” Bell had told jurors. “The prosecution does bear the burden of proof, but the prosecution is only required to prove what is required by the law.”