On the morning of January 14, 2022, the body of John Tokuhara, a well-liked and successful 47-year-old acupuncturist, was discovered by his mother in his clinic in Waipahu, Hawaii. He had been shot four times in the head. The scene was not a robbery; thousands of dollars in cash and his cellphones were left untouched.

It was a crime of intense, personal rage. The investigation that followed would unravel a sordid tale of a multi-year affair, a betrayed husband, and a meticulously planned revenge plot that was so nearly perfect, it took two full trials to bring the man responsible to justice.

John Tokuhara was, on the surface, a respected healer. But behind the closed doors of his clinic, he had a pattern of starting affairs with his married female clients. His final affair was with Joyce Thompson, a woman who, along with her husband Eric, had come to him for treatment.

Eric and Joyce were childhood sweethearts, a successful couple with a young daughter. Joyce, suffering from back pain and fertility issues, became a regular patient of John’s, and their professional relationship soon turned into a passionate, secret romance, complete with thousands of illicit text messages and photos.

In July 2021, the secret was blown wide open. Eric, away on a business trip, checked his home security camera footage and saw his wife sneaking out of their house at 1:00 AM. When he confronted her, she confessed to the affair with her acupuncturist. In a move that would later be heavily debated in court, Eric claimed he chose forgiveness over fury. He told Joyce he wanted to save their marriage, and she agreed to end the affair.

For six months, it seemed as though the family was healing. But on the evening of January 13, 2022, John Tokuhara was killed. With no direct evidence, police turned to a grainy CCTV camera from a nearby building. The footage showed a white pickup truck circling the area, and a figure in a white hat and scarf entering the clinic at 6:16 PM, only to flee seconds later.

What followed was a masterful piece of police work. Investigators painstakingly identified the make and model of the truck. They pulled the records for all 53 vehicles of that type registered in the area and found only one owner with a connection to the victim: Eric Thompson. His movements on the night of the murder were a damning, if circumstantial, timeline. His home CCTV showed him leaving in his white truck at a time that would put him at the clinic at the exact moment of the incident. Minutes after he returned home, a fire was seen in his backyard, which prosecutors argued was him burning the clothes he wore.

Despite this, the case against him was incredibly difficult. The murder weapon was never found. Two unlicensed rifles found at his home were not a ballistic match. DNA on the killer’s hat, which was recovered from the street, was inconclusive.

At his first trial in 2023, Eric Thompson’s defense team mounted a brilliant counter-offensive. They put the victim’s own character on trial, exposing his history of preying on married clients. They even brought two other cuckolded husbands to the stand, presenting them as plausible alternate suspects who had the same motive as Eric. The strategy worked. While nine jurors voted guilty, three had reasonable doubts, and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial.

Undeterred, the prosecution tried Eric again in February 2025. They presented the same circumstantial evidence but likely painted a more powerful picture of a man whose forgiveness was a facade for a cold and calculated rage. They highlighted a post-nuptial agreement Eric had Joyce sign just nine days before the murder, which gave him the house and full custody of their daughter in a divorce—a tool, they argued, for control and a sign that the conflict was far from over.

This time, the story stuck. After three days of deliberation, the second jury returned a unanimous verdict: guilty. Eric Thompson was sentenced to life in prison, a final, dramatic end to a classic tale of love, betrayal, and a quest for revenge that almost went unpunished.