On her last night in Waikiki, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant got a hibiscus tattoo and made plans for the next day — and her family has spent the months since trying to learn how she ended up beside a dumpster at dawn.
The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office announced on Oct. 14, 2026, that Jenny Lupton, 50, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant from Moore, Okla., died of multiple injuries she sustained in a fall from the 24th floor of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and ruled the manner of her death a suicide. Resort staff had found her dead nearly two months earlier at the beachfront Waikiki resort.
Her family says the ruling is wrong and does not accept it. Relatives have called the circumstances suspicious from the start, and they have kept pressing investigators for answers they say they still do not have.
The Honolulu Police Department said after the ruling that it had no further details to release and that the investigation “remains active and ongoing.”
A Hotel Worker’s 6 A.M. Discovery
A hotel worker came upon Lupton’s body beside a dumpster around 6 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20. Her nephew said she landed in a waste bin.
Lupton had spent the night of Aug. 19 at the hotel on a Southwest layover. The medical examiner tried to reach her Oklahoma relatives shortly after noon on Aug. 20, but the family did not see the message until the next morning.
Honolulu police initially logged the case as an unattended death investigation. Hawaii applies that designation when nobody witnesses a death, or when a death happens outside the care of a physician, and the term points to a procedure rather than a conclusion. Such cases generally stay open until autopsy and toxicology results return, a wait that can stretch on for weeks.
The case later moved to the Honolulu Police Department’s Homicide Detail. Detectives conducted interviews, recovered and reviewed surveillance video and examined evidence, and the department said it was working closely with the family.
Investigators had drawn no immediate conclusions about how she died while the case remained active, police said, and some details were being held back so the integrity of the case would not be compromised. The department said it would notify the public if investigators identified an immediate threat.
Cameras Rolled, but Nobody Called the Family
Hotel security told the Luptons that more than 70 cameras cover the area and that officers were going through the recordings. Relatives say nobody has told them whether any recording caught the fall, and nobody has said whether there were witnesses.
Relatives said in August that the medical examiner’s office had been their sole point of contact and that no officer had reached out, according to what they told KOCO 5.
Relatives then asked the Oklahoma attorney general for help with the investigation. That office said it had been in contact with the office of Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez to help ensure a proper investigation.
“We have no reason to think that Jenny would have intentionally harmed herself,” her nephew, Sam Lupton, said.
The Phone Police Cannot Open
Tresa Lupton, her sister, said a fellow flight attendant went dancing with Jenny Lupton that night. She texted relatives before heading back to the hotel and made plans with that colleague for the next day.
The family says detectives are still following up on tips and leads. Tresa Lupton said the medical examiner talked with relatives himself and had never been given certain information and evidence that could matter to his findings.
According to the family, the medical examiner granted that an autopsy by itself could not establish whether the death involved foul play, was self-inflicted or was accidental. He wanted to review her phone data to understand her state of mind, and the ruling came without it.
The medical examiner acknowledged that “additional information could warrant reconsideration of his findings,” Tresa Lupton said.
Police have held the phone since her sister’s death but have not been able to access it, Tresa Lupton said. She added that samples taken from under her sister’s fingernails during evidence collection were never run against a database.
The family has also raised questions about hotel security and room access records. Relatives point to physical evidence suggesting that none of the balcony furniture was pushed against the railing.
“We just want to know what happened,” her sister said.
A Tattoo She Meant to Finish
Lupton got a hibiscus flower tattoo the night she died, and she planned to have it filled in with color once she was back home in Oklahoma. She worked as a flight attendant for 29 years, 26 of them with Southwest.
She was born and raised in Moore, a suburb just south of Oklahoma City; the medical examiner listed her hometown as Cleveland, Okla. A 15-year-old son survives her.
Southwest Airlines said it was “deeply saddened by the passing of our colleague during a layover in Hawaii.” Condolences and support had gone to her family and coworkers, the airline said, and it was engaged with local authorities as they investigated.