Hi everyone,
I've been having some thoughts about an accomplice.
So it's been established by witness testimony that SC was in Hana on both Sat & Sun night.
In my mind, this was either to:
a) scope out a locale (Saturday night) and dump (Sunday night) Charli's hacked up remains in the locale, which was either in or beyond Hana-town.
or
b) meet with a hired hit-man/accomplice (Saturday night) and deliver (Sunday night) Charli's body to hired hit-man wrapped in the green blanket with Charli's Twilight DVD accidentally sandwiched in between her body and the folds of the blanket. Whether Charli was dead, unconscious, or merely subdued at the point of delivery is unknown - the Hana hit-man was essentially unknown to Steven and was simply hired by him to make sure Charli totally and utterly disappeared with no trace.
What leads me to believe in the Hana hit-man theory is that Steven borrowed money IIRC (supposedly for new tires) from someone at work around this time, but isn't it true that it's never been established what the money was actually spent on?
Additionally, although SC undoubtedly has a very dark side to his soul, he does not have a known history of violence and bloodshed. He is a smooth-talker, and it seems like he might not relish doing the bloody, "dirty-work" of actually violently killing and disposing of a body. There are some very tough, cold braddahs who would have no problem doing that for a nice price. The hired guy would have told Steven of his plans when they met, but all of their dealings might have taken place in person in Hana - and none through cell-phone contact of any kind. In my mind, the hit-man would have been a "friend of a friend," someone recommended to him, and all contact between the two might have taken place through this middleman, almost like a big drug deal. The trip to Hana on Saturday night could have been their first meeting, to feel each other out, discuss details, and possibly even pay the man a deposit.
This "hit-man" scenario would also explain the poor clean-up job at Nua'ailua/Paraquats - because the guy might have been high, clumsy, or simply not invested enough to care about doing a truly thorough clean-up. He would have filled SC in on what he intended to do and where he intended to do it...So Steven knew it happened at Paraquats, but SC could not have known *exactly* where, which is why even though SC was seen pulling out of Paraquats dirt road, the evidence remained scattered about in a fairly obscure part of the valley: because Steven didn't find the actual scene of the crime. He went there and looked, but didn't see anything, so he was satisfied and left.
In this scenario, SC simply met with Charli on Sunday night, subdued her perhaps with light violence, and then he delivered her, bound in her own blanket. The blanket was spread out in the back of her 4-Runner, the Twilight DVD was lying haphazardly on the blanket...SC plopped her down on it with her cell-phone (maybe her whole purse), accidentally pinning the DVD under her between her and the blanket. Then he wrapped her up and bound her with zip-ties in the blanket, drove to Hana and delivered her like this to the man at a meet-up place. Then they each left separately. The man took Charli and went to Paraquats.
Remember, SC was driving slowly, doing 20mph at night into Hana despite the fact that he liked to drive fast. Why? Because he had precious cargo in the back and did not want to be pulled over. He delivered her to a third party to do all the actual horrible stuff - to do the killing and disposing. Maybe there was even a boat involved, with the man possibly putting her remains in a container and taking them out to sea at night. That might have even been what made that option attractive to Steven. We can't know such a level of detail...but we can speculate.
I welcome any thoughts.