Carly Scott Disappearance: No Link To Moreira Monsalve Case, Cops Say

The disappearance of Carly Scott, the 27-year-old pregnant woman missing since February 9 on the Hawaiian island of Maui, is not linked to the disappearance of another Maui woman less than a month earlier, police said at a heated community meeting on the island Tuesday night.

Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta said that while investigators are “doing everything we can,” and “not sleeping at night peacefully” as they try to solve not one but two cases of missing women, investigators do not believe the two cases are linked.

But there is the coincidence that both women were last seen by former boyfriends and both ex-boyfriends are now named as “persons of interest” in their separate cases.

A “person of interest” is not a suspect, but someone who police believe may have information about a case, though may or may not be involved in a crime.

The baby carried by Carly Scott was probably fathered by Steven Capobianco, 24, resulting from a recent “hookup,” though the pair ended their full-time relationship five years ago, Capobianco said, in the one interview he has given since the pregnant woman went missing.

But Capobianco “absolutely” denied doing anything to harm Carly Scott or to cause her disappearance. He has also taken a polygraph examination, which he said that police told him he failed. Capobianco expressed doubt that police were giving him the accurate results.

In the earlier case, 46-year-old mom of three Moreira “Mo” Monsalve disappeared January 12, after being last seen with her ex-boyfriend, Bernard Brown. But police say that unlike Capobianco, Brown has not cooperated with their investigation. A purse and other articles belonging to Monsalve were found in a dumpster near Brown’s residence.

Brown has since left Hawaii and police have had no contact with him.

At Tuesday’s meeting, held at Kihei Charter School, Maui Police Captain John Jakubczak attempted to calm islanders’ fears that a serial killer is operating in the island.

“Our information right now, there’s no serial killer on Maui,” Jakubczak said, responding to attendees’ questions.

But police declined to answer questions regarding whether either Capobianco’s or Brown’s residences had been searched, or when information on forensic evidence would be released to the public.

Carly Scott was last seen by Capobianco when, according to his own account, she was driving behind him to assist him if he had car trouble, but he lost sight of her vehicle headlights in his rear view mirror.

Since then, several items of the missing pregnant woman’s clothing have been found, as have two rolls of used duct tape and a pair of gloves. Her SUV was found burned and flipped on its side and her pet dog turned up unhurt about 20 miles from where Carly Scott was last seen.