Interesting, Nikki. The person I am can't imagine letting myself sound more guilty of murdering my pregnant girlfriend in order to not worry a new girlfriend. But if we go with the theory that the murder was prompted (in part?) because he wanted to clear the decks for this romance, then I guess that would have been a huge priority. It's so hard to be in his place mentally, as if any young woman would be excited to join her life with a guy whose ex and unborn baby have mysteriously disappeared.
About that present tense:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/...yfriend-of-missing-pregnant-maui-woman-speaks
I looked at it again. Parts of the interview are about what happened earlier in the week or when they lived together, and so forth. Those parts belong in the past tense. Statements that cover who Charli is as a person, should be in present tense if she is alive. Loved ones of missing persons are extremely sensitive to avoiding past tense that would essentially admit the loved one is likely to be deceased, even years later. Here it has only been four days, and her clothes were not yet found, only her torched car. Charli's family certainly kept it all in present tense until the MPD declared the case a homicide.
Steven: "So I
knew Charli because she was my ex-girlfriend from three or four years ago {asks someone, "Does that sound right?"} Five years ago, it was five years ago and we have kept in touch this entire time.
We were still friends. We still knew each other." (Are they no longer friends? Do they not still know each other?)
She
was a very caring person and she
loved her dogs. (What, she no longer is caring and does not love her dogs any more? No other reason possible other than she is not alive.)
But, I mean, she
had kind of a mouth on her ... (What has changed? Has she changed how she talks, or does she no longer have a mouth on her?)
For a native English speaker, the brain automatically selects tense in most cases where a simple past or present will do. One can theorize that Steven's brain was so aware of her death that it by default tripped him up here on these more casual statements. Of course if he is asked about his hopes for her to be alive, he will think that through and pretend he has hope.
It's hard to see what he hopes to accomplish with this interview, but it might be something like this:
Charli left my presence alive, but she was driving alone at night on a lonely road, so SOMETHING or SOMEONE other than myself happened to her.
No, she did not run away to start a new life, because she left her dogs untended, and she would not. He wants the door on Charli's existence to be closed, not open-ended. Probably so that he can "go on" with his life and "plans." He wants to be clear of her family. He really singles them out in this interview as a problem for him and even for the old relationship with Charli. As long as Charli is "missing," he and the family are linked together as "people who want Charli and Joshua to be found and should be trying to find her."
I think that is a possible reason why those clothes were findable, not hidden. I don't think he wanted people to know he did it. I think he wanted Charli and Joshua to be pronounced dead, stupidly thinking that would be some sort of closure to the matter. I think he likely believed that he could not be convicted without a body found.
