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Murder trial opens with graphic description of crime scene

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Steven Capobianco appears in a Maui district court room on July 15, 2014. Capobianco’s muder trial in the death of Carly “Charli” Scott, who was five months pregnant when she went missing in February, began Monday. (Wendy Osher/MauiNow.com/Special to the Star-Advertiser)

A Maui path where police found body parts and bloody clothes of a woman who disappeared while five months pregnant will lead jurors to her killer, a prosecutor said Monday.

The path leads to Steven Capobianco, the woman’s ex-boyfriend and father of the unborn child, Deputy Prosecutor Robert Rivera said in opening statements of the trial.

Capobianco is on trial for second-degree murder in the death of Carly “Charli” Scott. Detectives, Scott’s family and even Capobianco’s friends presumed him guilty without considering other suspects, said his defense attorney, Jon Apo.

“Down this path is the end of Charli’s dream of becoming a mother,” said Rivera, who described Scott, 27, as happy about becoming a first-time mother. “One person who did not share that excitement was the father of her unborn child.”

Capobianco, who was three years younger than Scott, met her in 2009. They lived together for two years, but “the defendant would tell his friends that they were just roommates, and he did not like to take pictures with her,” Rivera said.

They broke up, but Scott continued to love him “even though she knew he didn’t care about her,” Rivera said.

While they were no longer a couple, and while Capobianco had another girlfriend, Scott got pregnant. Scott decided to continue with the pregnancy even though Capobianco insisted on an abortion, Rivera said.

Scott’s mother and two sisters last saw her on the evening of Feb. 9, 2014.

Capobianco has told Hawaii News Now that he saw Scott on the night her family says she vanished but that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

He said Scott picked him up and drove him to his pickup truck, which had broken down in Keanae. He said that after he fixed his truck, Scott was driving behind him, but he lost sight of her and figured she arrived safely at her destination.

His mechanic and other witnesses will testify that his story is fabricated, Rivera said.

Capobianco is also accused of torching Scott’s vehicle in an attempt to cover up the killing.

Scott’s mother, Kimberlyn Scott, pressured Maui police to focus on Capobianco “simply because she hated Steven,” Apo said in his opening statement. Capobianco was “coming around to the idea” of becoming a father, Apo said.

Apo alluded to a “big lie” Capobianco told regarding the investigation. The lie will be explained during the trial, Apo said.

An orthodontist will testify about records that show the jawbone belongs to Scott, and a forensic anthropologist will testify the jawbone, which was split in two, showed marks of “dismemberment, blunt-force trauma and the removal of flesh” with a serrated-edge blade, Rivera said.

Down the path, Rivera said, police found Scott’s long, black skirt with at least 20 puncture wounds concentrated below the waistband.

“Down this path, the defendant is responsible for this horror,” Rivera said.

Scott’s blood was also found on a pair of jeans that was recovered 5 miles away from where her jawbone was located, Rivera said.

Apo said that evidence to be presented by the prosecution is “subject to contamination and manipulation,” and said it “renders the whole CSI process a joke.”

In making his opening statements Monday, Apo said, “Steven Capobianco sits here today because everyone from Charli’s family and even his friends had determined him to be guilty by the time he was arrested.”

Defense attorneys argued that “the only investigation conducted was one to determine Steven Capobianco as the responsible and ignore any other possibility, no matter how substantive these other leads may have been.”

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Wendy Osher of mauinow.com contributed to this report.

4 responses to “Murder trial opens with graphic description of crime scene”

  1. keonimay says:

    A criminal of low regard for human life, who can stab a pregnant woman many times, whereby the victim becomes dismembered, and there are people who want to defend this criminal’s behavior & actions, are just as depraved as he is.

    • WizardOfMoa says:

      These “people” are only doing their job, ‘Innocent until proven guilty ‘! We, the public, can only hope the development of this trial ends with a guilty verdict!

  2. cocobean says:

    Why huhu? The police wouldn’t have arrested him if he wasn’t guilty…after all, this is 0Maui, not the Big Island.

  3. nodaddynotthebelt says:

    What I would like to know is how a DNA evidence that was crucial to this whole proceeding for the prosecution’s case was struck down by a judge. This evidence amounted to damning evidence. News regarding this was made but no details as to why it was struck down. From this DNA evidence the suspect is linked to the foul play that would be very difficult for his defense to overcome. Now, the prosecution basically is working handicapped because of this judge’s and defense’s strike out of the evidence due to a technicality. Further I would like to know who was directly at fault for this technical error or lack of oversight which now compromise the victim’s justice.

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