WAILUKU >> Closing arguments are set to begin as early as this morning in a grisly murder case in which only a few body parts were recovered from the pregnant victim.
Steven Capobianco is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Carly “Charli” Scott and setting her vehicle on fire in February 2014.
Capobianco has said he saw Scott on the evening of Feb. 9, 2014, when her family says she went missing, but that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Police recovered remains — including a jawbone, clothing and personal belongings — in the Nuaailua area. The defense has suggested Scott’s body was torn apart by wild pigs, while the prosecution argued that she was dismembered.
The rebuttal witnesses for the prosecution Wednesday included Dr. Kanthi De Alwis, former Honolulu medical examiner.
De Alwis said she examined the jawbone and concluded the marks were made by a knife, not an animal.
“In my opinion, these marks are consistent with a sharp cutting instrument having cut through the bone,” she said. “It appears to be a cut with a sharp edge.”
In her more than 30-plus years as a forensic anthropologist, De Alwis said, she has observed animal damage to bones about five times, with one or two cases involving boars or pigs.
“Boars can make scoring kinds of marks, or furrowing,” she said.
When asked whether she observed any score marks on the jawbone, she said, “I did not see those scoring marks consistent with scavenging by a boar or pig in this mandible.”
Her testimony served as a rebuttal to remarks by defense witness Dr. Michael Laufer, who was called to the stand Nov. 10. Laufer said marks on the jawbone were caused by the teeth of an animal, possibly a wild boar weighing 150 to 200 pounds.
On cross-examination De Alwis was asked about her private consulting firm, Forensiscs Hawaii, and said that she gets paid $375 per hour. For a full day, she said, she is being compensated $2,400.
Defense attorney Jon Apo asked, “Would you agree with me that you’re not going to come all the way here and testify differently than what you’re expected to for the money that you’re getting paid, right?”
De Alwis said she gets paid for her time, not her testimony.
When she disappeared, Scott, 27, was five months pregnant by the defendant.
Last week Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza denied a prosecution request to introduce the results of DNA testing on a pair of bluejeans found over a guardrail along Hana Highway. DNA from bloodstains on the jeans was matched to Scott, and a black hair found in a pocket of the jeans was matched to Capobianco.
Cardoza ruled the evidence, which the prosecution worked for more than 2-1/2 years to obtain, couldn’t be presented based on the timing.
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The Associated Press
contributed to this report.