Charli Scott Was Murdered Six Years Ago in Maui - Police Won't Let her Family Bury her Remains

Carly Joan “Charli” Scott, 27, was last seen alive in Haiku, Maui on a Sunday in 2014. Charli was described as a woman completely devoted to her family and friends, to her dogs Zoe and Nala, and to her unborn son, Joshua Scott, with whom she was five months pregnant. Six years later, a man is in jail for her murder, but her family is far from at-peace, in part because police bureaucracy has prevented them from burying their beloved Charli.

During the investigation, Charli's jawbone, one of the few pieces of her body that was recovered, was entered into evidence. Now that there’s been a murder trial and conviction, her family can’t imagine why Charli’s remains — including the jawbone — cannot be returned to the family. “The use of actual human remains in a courtroom is rare due to advances in DNA and technology,” Charli’s mother, Kimberlyn Scott, explained. “High definition, high resolution, magnified, giant screen TVs have become the norm because they are the best way to show/display evidence to a jury.” Even if the case were to go to court again, there appears to be little need for the physical remains, according to Kimberlyn.

However, the Captain of the Maui Police Department told Charli’s family not to ask questions about Charli's remains, "not now, not ever,” Kimberlyn said. Some or all of Charli’s remains were further left out of proper storage for over a year.

Steven Capobianco, Charli’s ex-boyfriend and Joshua’s biological father, was the last person to see Charli alive. Charli went missing after Capobianco called her out to a remote part of the island on a Sunday night to help him with alleged car trouble. Charli’s friends said Capobianco had not wanted Joshua, and that Charli planned to raise and co-parent her son with friends instead. She’d told Capobianco she planned to get an abortion, but shortly before her disappearance he learned that was not the case.

After 24 hours passed with no sign of Charli, Kimberlyn used the Life360 app to track Charli’s phone to its last-known location. Kimberlyn filed a missing person’s report after realizing Charli’s phone had last pinged at the Ke’anae Peninsula — somewhere her daughter was unlikely to be of her own volition — at 10:56 p.m. on the last Sunday she was seen.

What police later found in a search of the Peninsula was a grisly scene: “five fingernails, two jawbone fragments matching Scott’s dental records, a tongue piercing with flesh still attached, skin fragments, clumps of Scott’s red hair and a maggot-infested blanket,” reported The Maui News. There was evidence that Charli had been dismembered.

Also at the scene was a black maternity skirt with at least 20 stab “punctures” from a sharp object, just under the waistband.

In 2017 Capobianco, who is now 29, was found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend after luring her into the wilderness under the guise of truck problems, and was sentenced to a 50-year minimum prison term, with the possibility of parole. He was also found guilty of arson for setting Charli’s car on fire after executing her. Capobianco could still receive a reduced sentence, however, and continues to try to appeal the verdict.

To compound the devastation of her murder, Charli’s apartment was robbed after she went missing, and her property later turned up at the home of her landlord, Nafetalai Finau of Makawao. Finau, who claimed he didn’t do anything wrong, has since been ordered to pay $3,000 for the theft.

Charli’s family has said they’re unable to move forward without the ability to bury Charli’s remains. The police refuse to release the remains to the family, as they’re still technically considered bio-evidence. But according to Charli’s family and friends, the case has been solved and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to provide a burial for the few remains that were found of Charli.

Amidst the uncertainty over how justice will be carried out in this case, Kimberlyn told The Maui News in 2018 that, “In order to live with what’s going on, I believe we’ve just resigned ourselves to the fact that this is what our lives are going to be like.”

Charli’s family and friends have launched a petition to have her remains released for burial.