Man Pleads Not Guilty to Murder of Pregnant Ex

A man has pled not guilty to murder and arson regarding the death of his former girlfriend, who was five months pregnant with his child when she disappeared in Maui. S.C. was the last person to see C.S. alive. Authorities believed that after murdering C.S., he set her car on fire with her in it to hide the crime. After being indicted, S.C. pled not guilty to second-degree murder and third-degree arson on July 15.

S.C. arrived to court wearing a neck brace and orange jumpsuit. Several of C.S's family members and friends also appeared in court – a few wearing t-shirts that read "Justice for…" with both C.S. and the name she planned to give her child, J.S., also written across the shirts. The group took up the courtroom's front row.

None of the family or friends spoke to reporters after the hearing. No details of the murder were revealed in the proceedings. The First Deputy Prosecuting Attorney also declined to comment; he said that his office was in the process of filing motions in the case. During the hearing, the First Deputy Prosecuting Attorne asked the judge not to allow S.C. to contact any members of C.S.'s family, directly or indirectly. He also stipulated that S.C. was not to use "social media, as well" to reach out to C.S.'s family.

The pre-trial conference has been scheduled for September 32 and the jury trial date is October 6. S.C.'s bail is set at $2 million. C.S., 27 years old at the time of her death, was carrying a fetus that was five months old – the baby was S.C.'s. Hawaii does not recognize a fetus as a person in regards to a case like this. According to a University Hawaii criminal law professor , S.C. cannot be charged with J.S.'s homicide.

A spokeswoman for the state judiciary said that S.C. had been held at the Maui Community Correctional Center for the past month in an unrelated case. He was served with an arrest warrant at the center on July 14. The last time C.S. was seen alive by family was in her sister's home in Haiku. She was later found on the island's north shore, burned in her 1997 Toyota 4Runner. Prior to locating her police had located her dog nearby in Nahiku. The February indictment stated that S.C. had killed C.S "in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner, manifesting exceptional depravity."

Reporters previously divulged that S.C. admitted to seeing C.S. on the night she disappeared; however, he had nothing to do with her death. He claimed that she had picked him up and given him a ride to his own car that had broken down in Keanae. He then repaired his truck and followed her on the road. At some point, according to S.C., he lost track of her car in front of him and assumed she had gone on, safely, without him.