Hi everyone,
This is my first post. Ive spent the last few days reading through this whole thread. A lot of interesting stuff. Here some thoughts & perspectives of mine
I used to live in Haiku, right off Hana Hwy & Ulumalu Rd. (Steven Capobianco has a picture of this intersection on his Instagram for some reason.). I have also lived in several other areas of Maui and I know most of the island very well. I dont know SC or any of the tweakers and hoodlums of the area, theyre not people I want anything to do with. Haiku is considered one of the most desirable places to live on Maui due to its lushness, its laid-back, pastoral, rural feel, and the many nice houses with acreage. I loved living in Haiku and never had any bad experiences, but then again Im female, Im a homebody, and I loved spending time in my jungle ohana. I could step outside and pick star fruit, coconuts, and avocadoes the size of a large grapefruit. It was idyllic & peaceful, and this is how the most people (who dont know any better) view Haiku.
Theres definitely a dark side to this area of Maui. Beneath the lush beauty and prosperity of the area, there are a lot of homeless people who have moved into the coastal clearings and out of the way places. Lots of drugs, and the meth/ice wreaks bad havoc on people, making them lolo. In this area, there is an underlying subculture of violence that is not ordinarily visible on the surface, but by night the young people party and they join with other young people, homeless people, drugees, the down & out. Brutal fights, car chases & accidents, theft, sexual assault, disappearances and yes murders, are fairly regular occurrences along this beautiful stretch of the North Shore, much of it fueled by drugs & alcohol.
The place called Pauwela Point in Haiku has a nasty reputation as a gathering place: this is where the young girl Astara Evenstar was apparently gang-raped & disappeared, where the sweet teenage boy Yesuah Boerstler was brutally beaten & murdered by a group of local hooligans, and where Laura Vogel naively went camping, meeting the local homeless, never to be seen again. Its a very dark place.
Peahi Rd. which leads down to the famous surf break known as Jaws, is also infamous as a place of abandoning stolen cars.
And Maliko Gulch also has a reputation for occasional violent flare-ups. All of these places are within a couple miles of each other along Hana Highway in Haiku.
I dont really understand why this underlying culture of violence exists in such a beautiful and prosperous area, but a lot of these young hooligans seem to be haoles (i.e. Caucasian) and my theory is that they went to public school and were roughed up for being haole, so they become angry and they learned real quick to be tough, scrappy bad-asses like those who bullied them; a lot of them overcompensate and self-medicate with their drug use & outbursts of violence. These boys party very hard, pick a lot of fights, and love hunting, fishing, partying, surfing, riding dirtbikes, partying, tattoos, mud-bogging, partying, fighting, guns...
What is really sad about the murders & disappearances that happen is that it is generally known through the grapevine who it is that commit these acts but it is very rare for the people to be brought to justice. Hawaii tends to have lax notions of legal justice, from my own observation. The police seem to let a lot of horrible behavior slide, and its said that some of them are even in on it themselves i.e. some corrupt cops. Many perpetrators of horrible acts walk free, they have their Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook accounts, and are living a seemingly carefree life. Its kind of a sickness of the society along the N. Shore of Maui that this situation is allowed to flourish.
But anyway
the good news is that it seems Steven Capobianco is finally being brought to justice, thank goodness. Just a few thoughts on SC:
-When I looked at SCs Instagram, I noticed (in addition to an obsession with guns, drugs, and sex) that there was a skull painting that was lacking a jaw - just as Charli Scotts jaw was apparently violently removed during her murder. The skull is also buring in flames in the painting. Steven may have burned her body - the image of her [partial] face as it burned might have seared itself into his mind to the extent that he felt the need to try to exorcise the image by painting it just as he saw it. What a creepy thought.
- I also remember reading that along Hana Hwy when searchers found items related to Charli, one of things they found in the assemblage was a roll of duct tape. Well, on Stevens Instagram, posted 39 weeks ago, is a Meme picture specifically about the joy of duct tape:
http://scontent-b.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xap1/t51.2885-15/1208316_302670406538583_1187710799_a.jpg
-Let's see, what else....Steven's mother was apparently abusive and a drug addict who died a year & a half ago, and his father was not in the picture. In one of his Instagram pics it shows him as a young boy with a puppy dog. I can definitely see how an individual who felt unloved & rejected by people would tend to love animals more than human beings, because pets give unconditional love without judgment, so this dynamic might explain why Steven could be so cold-blooded to a person, but was incapable of hurting Charli's dog Nala. The pictures of him with his dog on Instagram show a very loving pet owner.
- And finally, regarding motive, from what Ive gathered, Steven always seemed eager to distance himself from Charli even when they were in a relationship together, almost as if he did not want to be associated with her. In an article I clicked on about Charlis familys dislike of Steven, they said she basically paid for everything, he treated her like a second-class citizen, and he never wanted to have his picture taken with her when the Scott daughters would take pics with their boyfriends - almost as if he didnt want to be associated with her. Why this was, I have no idea, but it seems based on things written in that article that he was not as smitten or enamored with her as she was with him. I would suggest that SCs alleged killing of Charli and the baby was yet another extension of him wishing to blot out his association with her and not have any permanent trace of their involvement (i.e. the baby) just like he never wanted there to be any evidence of their relationship in photographs. ? I dont know. Im just brainstorming. I do think there was likely the motive of getting rid of the financial burden of a child, but as others have written, I think it may have gone a bit deeper than that.
Anyway, if youve gotten this far, thanks for reading this long college dissertation of a post. This is a really great site, a lot of very caring & perceptive posters Ive noticed. Aloha!