A Maui jury has found Bernard Brown guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend Moreira Monsalve. Brown was found guilty of second degree murder and is set to be sentenced on November 23, 2022.
More than thirty witnesses, including two of Moreira’s children, testified in the trial which began earlier this month. Despite multiple searches including the use of cadaver dogs, Moreira’s body has never been found.
Moreira Monsalve’s Disappearance
46 year old mother of three Moreira Monsalve was last seen on January 12, 2014 in Wailuku, Hawaii.
At 3:00 pm she dropped her son off at the University of Hawai’i Maui College campus in Kahului, then dropped her daughter off at the Kahului Airport afterward. That evening Moreira stopped by the residence of her ex-boyfriend, Bernard Brown, in Wailuku.
According to Brown, she left his house around 10:00 or 10:30 pm, leaving her car behind after telling him she was having car trouble. Moreira didn’t place any calls that evening asking for a ride, and Brown reportedly dropped her car off at a repair shop the next morning.
Moreira was reported missing by her daughter, Alexis Felicilda, on January 14, 2014. When police picked up Monsalve’s car at the repair shop later that day they found nothing wrong with it.
Police found Moreira’s phone had accessed multiple airline and financial websites after her disappearance, including a search for airline tickets with Bernard Brown’s name entered as the passenger.
On January 16 her purse and some of her personal belongings were found in a dumpster at the Velma McWayne Santos Community Center, near Brown’s home.
In September 2019 Bernard Brown was arrested in California and charged with Moreira’s murder after being indicted by a grand jury. He was extradited to Maui to await his trial.
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