GUILTY HI - Carly Joann 'Charli' Scott, 27, pregnant, Makawao, 9 Feb 2014 - #3

[RunDaSurf]

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/...yfriend-of-missing-pregnant-maui-woman-speaks

Mileka: "What do you think might have happened to Charli? Do you think there's a chance she just got tired of life on Maui and left?"
Steven: "I don't think so, not under these circumstances. She was a very caring person and she loved her dogs. and to have one of her dogs show up in Nahiku and one of her dogs had been locked in her house for a whole day -- she wouldn't do that Above all else, she would not leave her dogs unattended."


He could replied giving any part of the "circumstances" as his reason for thinking she didn't disappear because she wanted to. He says the dogs.
He could chose any place to leave Nala. It was Nahiku. Why? Why was that going to make it obvious she didn't leave because she wanted to?

Something about him saying "she would not leave her dogs unattended" makes me wonder if he said that because he convinced her to leave Nala at his house unattended.



Mileka: "Was the dog Nala with Charli when she came to pick you up?"
Steven: "Yeah."
Mileka: "So does it make sense to you how Nala was found?"
Steven: "No."
Mileka: "But Nala was still in the car with Charli when you guys left Keanae?"
Steven: "Yep."

 

[RunDaSurf]

Mileka: "What do you think about the fact that the car was found torched and on its side?"
Steven: "I'm not really sure what to think about that yet."
Mileka: "Is that a problem area?"
Steven: "I mean, probably. Did they say that was the only car torched and flipped over, 'cause that's a load of crap. There's like a dozen of them down there.
Mileka: "Oh, really? So this is something that happens in that area a lot? I don't know -- that's why I'm asking."
Steven: "Yeah, Peahi is a pretty bad notorious area for people who steal cars to go and ditch them.
Mileka: "And so what do they do? Strip them and torch them?"
Steven: "From what I've seen just by driving by, yeah - it looks like it."
Mileka: "And I'm sorry, you said the spot was Peahi?"
Steven: "Yeah, or the Jaws area if that's what you guys want to call it but the road is called Peahi."
Mileka: "Peahi Road, okay -- we want to make sure we're being accurate."
Steven: "Yeah."


Why is he sensitive about whether that is a problem area and there are other cars torched there or not?
I think he was mad the location so close to his house cast the suspision on him and he thought it wouldn't matter cuz everyone knows that is just where cars are torched.

 

[puakenikeni]

Wow Pua - you just blew my mind. Not with any new infomation but with the idea that he wanted there to be no question that Charli and Joshua were dead. The jawbone though?

Where are their bodies????????????

If only wanting to know would help us see, we would know, right? I imagine the family prays for a vision in a dream. I would.
The jawbone, well, I wait to hear what the evidence says. Where exactly it was found -- was it hidden or exposed? What condition? Was it dropped by accident, fumbled, or placed deliberately? Without any information released by the police, it's all super speculative.
It does not sound like they got DNA other than Charli's off the jawbone and tooth. Only because they don't have results they need yet, and the jawbone was not mentioned in the request for retesting. Just the blood from the clothes. Gloves worn?

 

[puakenikeni]

Why is he sensitive about whether that is a problem area and there are other cars torched there or not?
I think he was mad the location so close to his house cast the suspision on him and he thought it wouldn't matter cuz everyone knows that is just where cars are torched.

I think that's a great insight, RDS. He's definitely edgy about it, and the reporter is just "I don't know, tell me" -- not challenging him at all. As you said, he's local and he thinks about it like a local that "everyone knows" that's where the stolen cars get torched. Somehow never occurred to him the location would implicate him.

I was going to say maybe the police had needled him on this, but they interviewed him before the vehicle was found, so not that.

 

[RunDaSurf]

So if he didn't think the torched car location would implicate him and he wanted enough evidence left Honomanu so people would know she was dead not missing -was he trying to frame someone specific or just leave reasonable doubt? Who else would stab her abdomen and let it look like it happened in Honomanu and then torch the 4runner at Pe'ahi days later. Did he really simply think no body and conflicting story would be reasonable doubt.

 

[Kapua]

So if he didn't think the torched car location would implicate him and he wanted enough evidence left Honomanu so people would know she was dead not missing -was he trying to frame someone specific or just leave reasonable doubt? Who else would stab her abdomen and let it look like it happened in Honomanu and then torch the 4runner at Pe'ahi days later. Did he really simply think no body and conflicting story would be reasonable doubt.

Exactly, RDS. Spot on.
And IF he wanted it known that she was dead and not missing, he clearly did not do his homework. Moira Monsalve is still "missing" and Bernard Brown is free and living on the mainland. Why? Because there's no evidence that she is deceased and nothing concrete that implicates him. It was not in SC's best interest for Charli's missing person status to be changed to homicide. He went to a lot of trouble to torch the vehicle and get Nala far, far away from Haiku/Makawao. Why would he deliberately plant other evidence?

 

[RunDaSurf]

Not hard to imagine he was just sloppy. Very different to plan it and be interacting with her and be violent and stab and murder than to do the clean up work alone with a dead body in silence after. I think there would be a change in him right after the attack. And to do clean up right after when he does not want to be caught with the body and still has work to do to the vehicle and maybe dog it's not hard to imagine he was sloppy.
But the clothes blanket and items found at Honomanu and the jawbone -did something unexpected make him hurry up and leave behind things he should known to pick up. He was able to hide the bodies and phone and laptop and 4runner for a while seems he could hide those too.
And the jawbone purposefully defleshed- if you go to trouble to do something that specific wouldnt you think twice about it not leave it. Too much was left behind.

 

[puakenikeni]

These are all really great points, RDS and Kapua.

1) I agree that an unexpected crime would result in sloppy clean up. And he's a non-cleaner.

Could he have gone for a helper afterwards? Could the helper have been more careless and dropped the jaw?
Could a jaw be defleshed the same night out in the jungle? I personally don't think so.
Why did the clothes not have maggots, but the blanket did? The simplest explanation that comes to me is that the clothes were taken off her soon after the murder, and the blanket was used to wrap her body for some amount of time, during which maggots developed.
Remember that the clothes and blanket were in a loose pile not far off the road. This would mean that the blanket and possibly the clothes were not piled where they were eventually found as of Sunday night. A two stage disposal of the remains would work with the defleshed jaw.

Was he spooked while at work? Maybe. The area is frequented by hunters and fishermen.

2) Re the excellent analogy to Bernard:
First, Steven could not follow in his footsteps legally. He was on probation, and could not leave the island without triggering a warrant. Crabapple (IIRC) told him to do everyone a favor and get on a boat and go. He declined. He always planned to stick it out on Maui. He doesn't know anywhere else and is not leaving.

3) Who would he be framing?
There is a lot of talk on Maui about a serial killer. People believe that authorities in Hawai'i simply ignore people gone missing if they can, because they wouldn't want tourists to think there is a SK on the prowl. A lot of talk about that around Haiku, with Laura Vogel, even with Mo.

Who else would stab in the abdomen? Well, we here and many others agree, but I'm not so sure he's the brightest bulb about criminology. Susan Atkins stabbed Sharon Tate in the womb. It's not unknown in stranger killings. Maybe a SK who hates pregnancy.

Other theories -- something to do with his drug dealing? Charli's "mouth on her" getting her in trouble with ruthless people?

4 - Torching the Forerunner at Peahi. Well this I think is solvable. Here Steven gets in trouble because he is local and knows how this goes. First the vehicle is stolen. Then someone unrelated finds it, strips it, and torches it. Sometimes it is even a third party who torches.

In the scenario he imagines, the killer does NOT torch the Forerunner. The killer waylays Charli, kidnaps her, kills her, abandons the vehicle. The dog has "run away" or something, possibly forced out of the car because it is going nuts, and is probably never to be seen again.
Step two, local delinquents find abandoned Forerunner, maybe take a joyride, strip it, take it to Peahi and torch it. To Steven, this is easy to imagine, because it already happens. It's really common, so common that Peahi has numerous burned out vehicles lying around already. Only the killer part is a stretch, but many think there is a killer around.

 

[puakenikeni]

As far as Steven's thought processes go, they are a mystery to me, so I can only deduce from what I see come out of his mouth or actions.

My point was: in the interview, he had an excellent chance to say he thought maybe Charli went missing on purpose. First it is the default assumption by police when people go missing. I know people who have said that about Laura Vogel. Families have to convince LE that the missing person was really not likely to skip out. So it's perfectly easy for him to suggest this if he wants.

Then Charli had recently left Maui to try to relocate to California with her half sister. She had tried to leave! But she came back.

So Steven has a golden opportunity here, but instead he tells Mileka L that there's no way she would have left her dogs untended; something has happened to Charli, because she is a responsible dog owner. Why does he say that? is he trying to protect Charli's legacy for the public? The person he just brutally killed?

Anyhow, when you think it is his best defense to have Charli permanently missing, then you have to reconcile this moment where he shoots a big hole in that theory, and he's not even back against the wall. He simply volunteers the reasoning.

It occurs to me that Steven felt guilty for leaving the other dog (name?) shut up at her house, so he had this on his mind about how it was a bad thing to do, because he is a dog person. That explains why he would come up with the thought, but not why he said it.

Second, as I said before, if he is really obsessed with his new girlfriend coming over, and a clean slate for her, maybe in his twisted mind he wants her to know there is no more baby or Charli. Maybe he even thinks she will approve. I don't know how nuts Steven is, but I do know there have been killers who thought that certain women they loved would approve of their evil acts.

PS. Another scenario he may have thought of: Charli got in an accident and is standed, but not dead. The person who found her is a serial killer trolling the road. The SK stabs her and takes her vehicle, then abandons it, dumps her personal effects at Honomanu.

I realize it's all pretty crazy, but he seems crazy to me to somehow justify to himself stabbing his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

 

[Kapua]

My point about Bernard was that, IF he killed Moira, as many suspect, he was able to get away with it by 1) keeping his mouth shut, 2) disposing of the body so that it would not easily be found, and 3) cleaning up any evidence. Most killers trip themselves up by not doing all of the above. SC did nothing to help himself. He could have said, "No, I didn't see Charli that night, and I have no idea where she might be." He could have refused to be interviewed. And he could have burned the vehicle with all of the parts intact instead of removing the grille and who knows what else and getting rid of the car parts.

The one thing that I can say for sure is that SC is way too stupid to pull this off.

 

[Kapua]

Puakenikeni - great point about SC not being able to leave the mainland. I had forgotten that. It again demonstrates his lack of ability to imagine what would happen AFTER he did the horrible deed. He was blinded by his own agenda and is just as dumb as a box of rocks. In his interview, he demonstrates that he already knows that he is the "prime suspect." And planning to continue to live in a rural area on a small island, a place where everybody knows everybody, as if nothing had happened is about as stupid as stupid gets.

 

[puakenikeni]

Kapua, that's a fine analysis of his stupidity. Well done.
A lot of the dumb behavior may be narcissistic overconfidence.

He may also not have realized he was undeniably the prime suspect until he had gotten through two interviews with MPD, a polygraph they said he failed and 1-2 days of Brooke (such a sharp person) pointing out inconsistencies in his story.

I mean, he always had to know he would be top of the list, but he may have thought he could do a better job of pulling it off back on Sunday than where he stood on Wednesday at the time he is talking to HNN. At that point he seems to feel that walking around freely and not cuffed and arrested is not too bad.

I think the fact he has been a petty criminal for so long put him at a disadvantage in doing PR. He's so used to being guilty and just working to stay shy of arrested, unlike an honest innocent person who would not be able to imagine getting cuffed without freaking out.

 

[Kapua]

Kapua, that's a fine analysis of his stupidity. Well done.
A lot of the dumb behavior may be narcissistic overconfidence.

He may also not have realized he was undeniably the prime suspect until he had gotten through two interviews with MPD, a polygraph they said he failed and 1-2 days of Brooke (such a sharp person) pointing out inconsistencies in his story.

I mean, he always had to know he would be top of the list, but he may have thought he could do a better job of pulling it off back on Sunday than where he stood on Wednesday at the time he is talking to HNN. At that point he seems to feel that walking around freely and not cuffed and arrested is not too bad.

I think the fact he has been a petty criminal for so long put him at a disadvantage in doing PR. He's so used to being guilty and just working to stay shy of arrested, unlike an honest innocent person who would not be able to imagine getting cuffed without freaking out.

Yes, narcissistic overconfidence, exactly. He didn't think the police were smart enough, persistent enough, or diligent enough to collect the evidence and build a case. I also think that he grossly underestimated the love that her family has for Charli and the huge hole she would leave in their hearts.

 

[puakenikeni]

Yes, narcissistic overconfidence, exactly. He didn't think the police were smart enough, persistent enough, or diligent enough to collect the evidence and build a case. I also think that he grossly underestimated the love that her family has for Charli and the huge hole she would leave in their hearts.

Yes.
Also there was no Maui Search and Rescue before Charli. That is one formidable terrain to search. He could not have foreseen them all taking it on as of that Sunday night. (But then why did he lead them so close to the spot?)
Many residents of Hawai'i are vocal about lacking faith in law enforcement here. MPD, KPD, HPD all get ragged for not doing enough with investigations. Also known for charging cases after the evidence has practically beaten down the door to be noticed.

 

[Kapua]

Yes.
Also there was no Maui Search and Rescue before Charli. That is one formidable terrain to search. He could not have foreseen them all taking it on as of that Sunday night. (But then why did he lead them so close to the spot?)
Many residents of Hawai'i are vocal about lacking faith in law enforcement here. MPD, KPD, HPD all get ragged for not doing enough with investigations. Also known for charging cases after the evidence has practically beaten down the door to be noticed.

The terrain is lush, but it is/was only necessary to search areas that a perpetrator acting alone could have deposited a body. It's challenging to find a body anywhere, really. Does anyone remember the case of Susan Powell, allegedly murdered by her husband Josh in Utah in 2009? He went on a long drive the morning that she went missing, just as SC did the night that Charli went missing. Susan's body was never found. No matter what the terrain, searching is challenging. I don't think SC foresaw the exhaustive efforts of Charli's family, friends, and community to find her, and to exact justice. Fortunately, he has been his own worst enemy.

 

[Nikki Lisette]

The Susan Powell story reads like a Greek tragedy. Terrible.

 

[Nikki Lisette]

Heads up to anyone living on the east side of Maui; I had an incident this morning that strikes me as a little weird. I leave for work early (dark thirty) in the am and as I was headed down Hana hwy towards Paia, an oncoming car flashed it's lights at me. On Maui that means cop ahead, slow down right? Well that flash was wasted on me because I wasn't speeding, no big deal. The problem is, I was alone on the road and I noticed the car that flashed me turned around about a quarter mile behind me and started heading my way fast. I kept my eyes peeled for obstacles in the road and sped up. I didn't want to be by myself at Hookipa with the weirdo around. This car tried it's best to catch up but I joined other cars right around Mama's/Kuau and the flasher ended up about 3 cars back. I lost track of it after that because all headlights look the same after a while.

It was a silvery, newer model Altima type 4-door sedan.

Hopefully I'm overreacting and it's an isolated incident.

 

[mrsobrien]

I can't believe I've lost track of this case... Time to back track and catch up.

 

[heartgoesout]

Trial is to start March 14th. Anyone who is at the trial and able to offer any insight would be much appreciated.

 

[Mamamerced]

Get out your calendars, flip to May...


http://mauinow.com/2016/03/09/state...again-scheduled-in-may/#.VuDJLAnTD7k.facebook