Ayla Reynolds /// Part 1 /// 503 | Forensic Files

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let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] o [Music] on the morning of Saturday December 17th
2011 at 8:51 a.m. A call came in to 911 emergency services in Waterville Maine a
small town of about 16,000 people 24-year-old Justin dietro told the operator that his daughter Aya
Reynolds was not in her crib that morning Justin said he had placed the little girl in the crib the night before
when putting her to bed for the night he told the dispatcher that when he woke up
and went into her room she was gone the dispatcher asked if it was possible that the little girl somehow
manage to get out of the crib and could she be hiding somewhere no the father assured the
dispatcher adding that he and his sister had already checked the entire house he then described for the
dispatcher what his daughter looked like and what she was wearing when last seen
the night before the operator finished taking the caller's information and dispatched
Waterville Police Officers to the address of the call 29 Violet Avenue and to quot
central.com that call set off a chain of events that have eventually grew into the largest criminal investigation in
Main's history most of what happened in this investigation has been kept Under Wraps
by the Waterville Police Department and the state police of Maine but quite a bit was also
leaked this week's True Crime Story is A parents worst nightmare and this is true
crime [Music] garage Waterville police logs reflect that two officers were sent to the 29 Violet
Avenue house within 10 minutes of the 911 call searches of the house for the little girl proved fruitless she was not
under a bed she was not hiding in a closet or anywhere else that little kids are usually found by police when helping
parents look for a little one within 90 minutes the officers were joined by two more Waterville PD Officers two
detectives and three units from the fire department the search for the little girl was ramping up and quickly
Waterville Police Chief Joe Massie himself was on the scene but 90 minutes in and we still don't have any sign of
this missing little girl let's review the 911 call here Captain so that everyone will have a better
understanding of the information that the Waterville Police are armed with going into this search for AA Reynolds
from the transcript Waterville Communication Center what's the address of your emergency it is then
communicated via another dispatcher that they are putting through a caller that is reporting a child missing from a
residence after a quick hello the dispatcher at the Waterville Communication Center asked how long ago
did you see your child as we said earlier the caller is 24-year-old Justin dietro he is the father of the missing
girl Aya Reynolds he answers when I put her to bed last night my sister had checked on her um woke up this morning
went to her room and she's not there okay how old is she 20 months old so you last saw her last night sometime in the
evening yeah I put her to bed at 8:00 I got officers on on the way over there what is your name sir and we
already know his name it's Justin dietro all right what was she wearing the last
time you saw her she had on some pajamas they were green pajamas okay can you remember the exact time you saw her last
or somebody saw her last in the crib um Alicia so Alicia is just into Petro's sister he says that um Alicia says um
Alicia when was the last time you went in her room last night when you saw her he's now not talking to the dispatcher
Captain he's asking his sister who is in the background and can be heard in the background of the call Alicia says 10:00
what is a good number for you sir he then provides a phone number and the call gets
disconnected Justin very quickly calls back to 911 emergency services and explains that his cell phone died during
that call okay says the dispatcher what is your daughter's name the daughter's name is AA Reynolds okay have you
checked all through the house is there any way she could have climbed out of her crib no ma'am there is no way she
could have got out there's no way she could have then the officers are there they arrive on the scene and the
dispatcher and Justin agree to end the call so it's a brief 911 call there is not audio of this call the police have
determined that they're not going to release the audio for this call but they did release these transcripts that we
just went through this is early in the morning on Saturday December 17th 2011 and as we said the 911 call goes in at
8:51 a.m. we have two officers on the scene within 10 minutes of that 911 call and then we have more officers
detectives fire department showing up to help assist in the search for this girl
and the police chief as well they're checking the house obviously but they're also spreading out and searching the
immediate area of this house as well in the area surrounding it so we know that it's Justin's mother's house but it
seems like only Justin and his sister live there and his girlfriend was spending the night so as more law
enforcement Personnel continue to arrive at the scene we have the state police the main Warden Service two more
Detectives and three more officers from Waterville PD all are looking for AA Reynolds who despite the now over 2
hours of looking in our timeline and all the Personnel involved still she's not turned up so Searchers spread outside
peeking into dumpsters and trash containers and walking through neighbors yards out buildings under decks even
going into residents homes and woods Rivers streams and Fields everything you can think of a tracking dog was unable
to locate aa's scent to follow any kind of scent Trail Aya had vanished now according to the Waterville
Police Chief Joseph Massie he released a very brief statement that says quote we
are approaching almost 24 hours and no one knows where a 20mon little girl is and last seene only in pajamas here's
the description of Aya provided by Justin Depetro to the responding officers blonde hair with blue eyes and
she was wearing green one piece pajamas with polka dots and the words Daddy's princess on them she was 2 feet9 in tall
and weighed approximately 30 lbs and little Aya had an aircast on her left arm because she had broke the arm 3
weeks earlier you started to get into this Captain about the living situ situation
but let's talk about what was going on at the dietro house on the night that they put her to bed and then AA vanished
mhm so Justin lived at the house with his mom his mom's name is Phoebe she was not at home that night Justin was home
with Aya his sister Alicia who is 23 years old and his girlfriend Courtney Roberts who is 24 years old Courtney it
sounds like lived in Portland but was staying there at least on this night all three of the
adults had their little kids with them so there were six people in the house in total three adults and there three kids
Justin told investigators that on that Friday night Aya was put to bed alone in a separate room on the main level of the
home Justin his girlfriend and her son slept in the basement that night the the basement of Phoebe dep Petro's home is
partially finished and has one bedroom down there which was where Justin had been staying and you know he's sleeping
in the basement overnight Alicia and her small child slept together in a bedroom
on the main level where Aya was in her own room Justin said on the 911 call that Alicia checked on Aya around 1 p.m.
then when Justin checked in on Aya on Saturday morning her crib was empty and this is when he calls the police so
naturally the police sit down with the adults and they interview them to figure out what exactly was going on meanwhile
they dispatch officers to check in with others who it was thought might for some
reason have collected Aya this would be like her mother Trista or her grandparents so most of the time when
you have a kid that is missing and it's not as simple as you know you find the kid at a friend's
house playing or they were hiding somewhere often it's a custody dispute of some sort and here we have parents
that are separated they're not together so that will be an early Avenue a natural early Avenue for the
investigation but custy at this time would reside with Justin that's correct and it sounds like there was no formal
agreement about who has Aya and when and we'll get into the details of that as well so let's introduce Aya's mother and
what she was up to so back to Saturday December 16th we know that Justin called 911 at 8:51 a.m. where was Aya's mother
Trista well at 10:00 a.m. 23-year-old Trista Reynolds was asleep she was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by
Robert Fortier Robert was making the 4-Hour drive so a 4-Hour trip from Portland to
machiasport to visit his son Raymond who was incarcerated at the Down East Correctional Facility Trista and Raymond
were engaged so Trista was traveling with the forers to visit her fiance their son in the prison facility there
Robert's phone rang this is at 10 A.M it was Ron Reynolds trista's dad calling to tell
them that Aya was missing so this is when mom finds out that her daughter is missing so I'm assuming that Justin
called Aya's grandfather to let him know that she was missing possibly my guess would be that Trista may have lived with
her parents and so it could have been a call that was originally directed trying
to get a hold of Trista right because what this phone call is Captain is the detectives it's Ron Reynolds on the on
the call but he's saying hey A's missing and the detectives want to speak with Trista they are going to so they're on
this drive but they're going to have to turn around now and drive back to Waterville well you bring up a good
point Justin might have never contacted her or her family they could have been contacted by the detectives yeah and I
don't know how much that matters I mean Justin's got if if he's there his daughter's missing he's got his own
concerns it may not even been something that he thought about until directed to do so by the detectives I mean keep in
mind the police are on the scene within 15 minutes if we believe his story M within 15 minutes of him noticing that
she's gone so everybody's different um some people once the authorities arrive or once help arrives they sit back and
let help take over I don't know exactly what went down but this gives us a good indicator of where Trista was and what
was going on with her that morning and she's not alone right she's with a group of people traveling in this vehicle so
her whereabouts are pretty much accounted for as far as we can see here so now they're going go ahead but they
did on the trip pass through Waterville they passed by Waterville yes that's correct now Trista later said that she
was in shock at the hearing the news about her baby missing says quote I had no words I didn't know what to say I was
thinking like am I in a dream right now it was all just a shock the only thing I
could think about was where the hell was Justin if he was in the house this shouldn't have happened if he was
protecting Aya this shouldn't have happened now Justin and Trista had never actually been a couple it was a one
night stand sort of thing and they were both surprised when Trista ended up getting pregnant Aya lived with her
mother Trista and visited Justin's home at scheduled times but again there was no formalized custody agreement between
the two parents it always surprises me that people are surprised after having sex that the result of sex is conceiving
a baby that's what can happen yes that's one of the things that surprise and October of
2011 so this is the same year just two months before Aya would go missing M Trista entered a 10day rehab program and
during that time for reasons we will get into in a second Aya was with Justin so
daughter's going to go stay with dad while Trista enters this rehab program since Trista since Trista got
out of rehab she lived in Port Portland with her family with no address of her own now we should point out here that
Portland is about 75 mil away from Waterville when Trista arrived at the Waterville Police Station on that
Saturday she was interviewed for 2 hours by detective David Karen who was no doubt aware that child of broken
marriages or no relationship at all are often the subject of custody disputes and the victim of non-custodial parent
abductions Trista told Karen the detective that she had last seen Aya on November 21st so this is more than 3
weeks earlier she had spoken to her on the phone on December 8th now what's even more interesting in that situation
is that Trista had filed for custody of Aya on December 15th right we said there was no
formalized who gets who win version of this parenting and where Aya is to go so according to this information Trista
filed for custody of her daughter on December 15th that's the day before she was missing she comes up
missing according to Central Maine quote Trista Reynolds filed a complaint against Depetro Justin de Petro for
determination of paternity paternal rights and responsibilities and child support according to documents obtained
from the Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland end quote when Trista had entered the 10day rehab program her
mother Becca and sister Jessica they took Aya in but while she was away child welfare services placed Aya with Justin
the child's father Aya had been living with him for 59 days so 59 days when little Aya vanished it's very important
for especially a situation like this where they're not going to get married they're not in a relationship where you
set up boundaries and rules and the custody issues through the court system because what it seems to happen is she
was obviously in a situation that she wanted to get help and try to get her life back on track so then she said okay
well Mom I'll have my mom and sister watch her I trust them and then here comes a a situation where there is no
laws in place or no rules in place and he can then say look it's first right or refusal so he could then take the child
there there's a lot of times where this stuff happens where especially you know these fathers that are not that involved
they posture by doing this oh you're not around so now I'm going to take in uh my
child and I I don't even think this is going by what Justin wanted but more so what his mother wanted him to do and
this seems like a weird situation to me I I know this happens all the time you know there's a lot of great situations
great parents kids having wonderful time growing up situations out there that are
similar to this but what is odd about it to me something that I just have no experience with is it's a little weird
that you are a parent of this daughter but the other parent you don't technically you don't really know them
very well now do you I mean there was no real relationship right so it wasn't like
they're showing up to family parties yeah you or opening up Christmas gifts you don't know the grandparents that
well you don't know the the father of your daughter's uh you don't know his friends very well things like that it
seems a very weird for me it's something I can't really wrap my head around too much well that's why there needs to be
more education for women based on their cycles and and also just you know more don't forget about the dumb guys
out there well no that's what I mean you got to again whole IDE full of dumb guys
the whole idea that we're surprised you know was there any birth control used uh
did the guy wear a condom what why are you so surprised by this pregnancy I don't know the details of that uh I
don't don't really well I think it's they're surprised because of ignorance and immaturity so the key thing here Captain
is little Aya had been living with Justin dietro for 59 days when she disappeared the papers that Trista filed
were an attempt to get her back so Trista told the detectives that she and Justin were not on speaking terms at
that point and that he had refused to put Aya on the phone when Trista called to talk to her daughter on December 11
however Trista also told ABC news that Justin did not know that she filed the papers that would restrict his access to
Aya Reynolds so this is very interesting because when you see something like this
and we've seen custody battles in the past in other cases where somebody files something with the court and magically
the next day the kids are hard to get a hold of they vanish they disappear or dad took them states away MH we've seen
that before but we have Trista in her own words saying look it's easy to make that leap that that this happened
because I filed these papers however he didn't know that I filed these papers so Justin would have been unaware
of this information at that time again we're assuming he didn't know or didn't hear through the Great Vine we don't
know exactly what her state is at this moment and I'm talking about the mother because like we said she entered rehab
she then exited rehab it didn't seem like she was clean at this point again that's something that I have no
knowledge of well that's what I'm saying is I I I'm saying if we can assume that
she left rehab before the treatment was fully established we can just assume that she's not completely sober at this
point that's something again that I don't know anything about I don't have any or couldn't find any reason to doubt
what her belief was that Justin was unaware that she had filed these papers right now this is going
to that's pretty much the early part of the interview with Trista in the information that detectives are able to
get from her it seems like they were somewhat comfortable with believing that Trista didn't have anything to do with
taking her own daughter from Justin's home so the search for Aya continues so now we need to introduce the FBI card
team you know it's a garage party when they start busting out the acronyms right so this stands for the Federal
Bureau of Investigations child abduction rapid deployment team card team which works to recover victims as quickly as
possible and helps apprehend those responsible for taking them A Brief History if you will here captain the C
team was created in 2006 and has deployed more than 100 times for approximately 108 victims both
domestically and when requested abroad numerous children have been located and safely returned to their loved ones
tragically the remains of victims have also been found the 60 or so agents who make up the card team are stationed at
field offices around the country each is assigned to one of five Regional teams that cover the northeast southeast North
Central South Central and western United States and are deployed at the request of a field office members of the card
team are seasoned investigators with experienceing crimes against children cases that are often
multi-jurisdictional and multi- agency these are people who have purposely chosen this line of work because they
care deeply about the welfare of all children well the fact of the matter is we have police and detectives that show
up at the scene of where they claim that this toddler this 22mon old child goes missing there's no
sign of her outside of the the house there's no there's no dog that's tracking a scent that
leads you know from her crib to outside and you've talked to both parents you can't find anywhere so now
you start wondering who is telling the truth and who is lying to [Music] [Music]
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Dirties and those dirties in the middle cheers to you Colonel all right cheers to you Captain so on Sunday the 18th of
December FBI agents from the Northeast card team joined 75 state and local Law Enforcement Officers as well as
neighbors and Volunteers in the search for little Aya as we mentioned before the break there the C team these are the
season professionals that you want involved looking for your missing child they conducted a Knockin talk canvas of
the area going house to house and asking residents if they had seen anything and
also going into the homes which people would allow them to come in and search their homes members of the main Warden
Service searched treacherous outdoor areas that it felt Aya could have possibly walked to one area of concern
Captain was this melinsky stream which was about an eighth of a mile away from the dietro home parts of this stream
which was like a high and fast flowing stream were drained so that Searchers could get a better look at the depths of
the Waterway and police chief Massie held the first of many press conferences to update members of the public about
the search for AA Reynolds saying the FBI and the main Warden Service had been called in to help the major
investigation he's already referring to this as a major investigation it was truly all Hands-On deck at this point
and we also had two search dogs that sniffed for any sign of the missing toddler but again couldn't come up with
anything in that area of Investigation as well investigators said that they were not ruling anything out but the
first imperative obviously was to find Aya as temperatures in Maine in December at night are generally not
survivable by a toddler of course for extended periods of time on the weekend that Alo went missing temperatures at
night were in the teens and single digits so this is a big concern for all searching for this little girl and Aya
did not qualify for an amber alert because there was no vehicle or suspect description this is one thing that I've
always been a little weird about like they're they're Federal they're not necessarily
requirements they don't like to use that word they use more of like suggestions for these Amber Alerts but I don't
understand why just don't use it like let's peel back some of the the reasons for not using it and just use it you
know use it more often you got a missing kid seems like something you might want
to use but again we have no suspect we have no vehicle information to send out to
anybody so they chose not to use it in this situation but police did use an automated phone notification system
which called everybody within a square mile of the depature home and alerted them that there was a child missing
which gave a description of Aya well and that makes a lot of sense cuz you wouldn't expect her to be seen Miles and
Miles Away but again back to your back to your Amber Alert if you have an amber alert to go hey here's a description of
this child and somebody's at a gas station and sees somebody uh with a child that they don't seem either
familiar with or maybe the child is crying uncontrolled it might be something that somebody pays
attention to that gives you evidence later and right now during the investigation they're doing all the
normal things that you would expect with a missing child you have the okay kind of behind the scenes we're checking into
the custody issues between Mom and Dad is there any should we be concerned that a loved one took this girl in a custody
battle so you can see they've already have been working that Avenue they're also interviewing the three adults that
say they were there the night and morning that Aya went missing hold on it's time for a true crime standard the
cops I feel are doing their due diligence there you go but they're also working under the assumption at this
point that little Aya may have wandered off that somehow she got out of the house and made her way somewhere another
thing investigators did on that Sunday was Interview all three of the adults again who were in the dietro home on the
night that Aya was last seen this again was Justin his girlfriend Courtney and his sister
Alicia Alicia is admittedly between the three the last person to see Aya this is
the information that was provided to 911 during the the initial call police said
that both of aa's parents were cooperating in the search for the girl and any questions that police had police
also impounded two vehicles belonging to Justin and Courtney but would not say why on the Tuesday the main State Police
evidence response team truck was seen at the dietro home this is like seeing one
of those crime scene Tech trailers or Vans outside of someone's house I bought one and just it sits outside my house
permanently it's empty inside yeah just like just like my soul grid SE es continued in the State Police Special
crime incident command and Communications truck were on site at the Waterville City Hall this was serving as
an investigation headquarters searches also occurred at some locations that were less expected and this was things
like dumpsters which immediately you get concerned when they're searching dumpsters and the Champions Fitness club
on Elm Plaza on December 20th even though Waterville PD was still labeling Aya's disappearance as just a
missing child case not an abduction or anything else Justin Depetro felt the need to release a statement through the
Waterville PD which read quote I will not make accusations or insinuations towards anyone until the police have
been able to prove who is responsible for this AO was in my sole custody at the time of her disappearance agreement
between her mother and I because she was unable to care for Aya I have shared every piece of information with the
police contrary to some statements floating around out there I have been in communication with aa's Mother over the
last couple of weeks the Waterville Police have transcripts of my phone for verification of those Communications it
has always been my intention to have a Shared Parenting Agreement with aa's mother and I will continue to work
toward towards that when Aya is returned to us end quote if you recall Trista had
said that she and Justin weren't really on speaking terms Justin statement concluded by saying that his family and
friends will continue to do everything we can to assist in this investigation to get Aya back home MH so the searches
continued aided by 50 members of the main Association for search and rescue but by this point the search area
covered an area 5 miles wide and 2 and 1/2 mil deep but on day five December 22nd crime scene tape went up around the
the Petro home and homicide investigators and prosecutors were seen entering the house the house remained
sealed off and on December 26th police announced that this was no longer a missing child case but a probable child
abduction quote we feel comfortable at this point in our belief that Aya did not walk away from her home under her
own power for several reasons the physical layout of the home and the steps she would have needed to take to
get outside make it very unlikely we think it would be very very difficult for her to open the door and get herself
out we don't think she could have gone very far we also considered her stature she is a toddler and although she was
walking her Mobility is still developing we believe that someone was involved in
taking her out of the house and that's where the focus of this investigation has turned that was from Chief Massie
well just to go back to what you're saying about them not being on speaking terms Trista is going to rehab leaving
her child with her mom and her sister and then Justin goes no we're not we're not doing that my daughter's staying
with me that's why they're not really on speaking terms and then because she's a
toddler she has to call Justin and say hey I would like to speak with my daughter and and I think that also at
this point he is maybe and I'm not this is not very clear but it seems as if he is letting
her father watch the child every now and then so there's these reports of you know oh she has you know bruising on her
legs and she has this broken arm and and so there's becomes questions of what the
hell is going on at your house mhm that she's getting all these injuries right and just one like for example when she
had all these bruises all over her leg he was like well we went to Chuck-E-Cheese or something and she was
in a ball pit and some stranger kid like was kicking at her or something like that and then they come to find out that
there was no ball pit so just like these little white lies and his story not adding up to them well and I find the
police chief's statement very interesting here in regards to switching announcing that we've switched the focus
of the investigation from a child who wandered off to a child abduction and he's simply saying in very
short words there that we look we've looked at the house and given how short this little girl and how small she was
we don't believe she would even have been able to get out of the door right and we can't find anything to show us
that she left via window or any other method of leaving this house well there's no sign of breaking and entering
correct so obviously we can tell by this statement that police do not believe that Aya being so tiny and having the
broken arm would have been able to open any of the doors and walk out of the house under her own power Massie laid
said that also because Violet Avenue is very densely populated it's a residential neighborhood with small
houses close to one another that the police felt that it was very unlikely that Aya could have gotten out of the
house and been wandering around the neighborhood without anyone seeing her they couldn't find anybody to say
that they had seen anything or heard anything that night so at this point police received more than 300 30 tips in
the missing child case 100 of them came in after a $30,000 reward was announced this was offered up by local businesses
putting together some money trying to help out do some good deeds police said that they spent 5,000 man hours on the
case in the first 11 days meanwhile father Justin Depetro decides you know what I should issue a second
statement and this comes out on the 28th he was refusing to give interviews but apparently felt the need to explain
some things so he wrote after thanking all the people working to find his daughter quote it is important that the
public hear it from me personally that I have no idea what happened to Aya and that I am not hiding I would never do
anything to hurt my child the questions of aa's arm or bruises or anything else being said are simply ludicrous
I have to believe that Aya is with somebody and I just want that person to find the courage to do the right thing
and find a way to return her safely even if that means dropping her off at a church or a hospital or some safe place
and please aren't buying this because they're also saying that the house is so small that they just believe with three
adults in the house that somebody would have heard something that night my only issue with
that is that if you take Justin statements and you believe that any of them are true he is saying his hunch is
if somebody came into the house and took his daughter it would have been somebody
that she knew uh possibly a family member or somebody connected to her mother yes that's kind of what he's
saying there and you wonder like is he very strategically kind of planting that seed to watch the plant start to grow
and take root and and so he can change it at some point into this fullon full-blown hey I think she was involved
somebody involved with the mom knows what happened here or is responsible for this and maybe you can answer these cuz
I couldn't find these one no comments about like well we leave the doors open it's a safe community so we leave the
doors unlocked so no no comments that I could find about that and also we know that they didn't have much of a
relationship so there would be no need to be like you know where where um where Trista didn't ever live with
Justin that that I could find so why would she or anybody in her family have like keys to their
property yeah that's correct and there is some talk from police regarding windows and doors that I have here in my
notes and we'll get into that some of it's a little confusing though I'm not going to lie but from the police
statements that we've already reviewed it seems to be that they are under the impression which that's all they can go
off of they show up they interview the three adults that are at the home that night all three say hey we always lock
the doors so they're going to be under the assumption that these doors were in fact locked now the police steadfastly
refused to say anything of the status of their investigation however they did confirm that they knew where Trista was
on the night her daughter vanished although the police would not clarify they're simply saying we know her
whereabouts we know where she was but they're not saying exactly where that was also they wouldn't say whether
they're was another child in the same room with Aya that night as had been reported both ways in the National media
so think about how scary this story is that's being pumped out to our nation where they're saying not only is this a
child abduction but uh we think that there was another child sleeping and staying in
the same room somebody was able to sneak into that room that night make off with
this girl leaving another child sleeping in that room alone the other thing that
they wouldn't comment on at this time in our timeline was the forensic evidence if there was any this would be things
such as blood found inside the home now authorities are not making Court affidavits filed in this case public so
some of the cases that we've reviewed here we've got a lot of information from Court affidavits that are filed on
behalf of the police department investigating certain crimes or cases and what they're here is hey media
you're you're you're in our way here with this search for this little girl don't bother go going looking for things
that we're filing through the court system because we have made that so you would not be able to view those at this
time this means that they this could mean that they are on to something and they don't want that information
released to the rest of us they don't want to clue anybody in as to where they're putting putting their efforts in
their investigation at this point we do know that they were searching the house the Dio's garage They seized the two
vehicles from the driveway of the home so as you can see here Captain they're doing a lot of work but they're keeping
everything very close to the vest here I have another question for you Billy Goat
maybe you maybe you were able to find this what was the distance from triss's house to Justin's house well the city
where she was staying in to the city where he lived 75 miles so but what's interesting is the day that she went
missing we do know that Trista passed through that town before she got a call stating that her daughter was missing
well passed through the town is one way of saying it yes the the other thing is driving the freeway and passing the exit
and never having stopped off in the the town itself is another way of saying it as well yes I and I think that's the
better way to say it I believe I think two of I think the two things are completely different and paint a very
different picture right if you're on the freeway and you just pass the exit well that's one thing but if you
got off the freeway it's there's no need to go through Waterville on your way to
uh your destination right but if you do well then things look a lot different and maybe that seed that Justin was
trying to plant is the correct seed uh and that he has it right the entire time what you could also see in this
case at this time in our timeline via the national media coverage early on is that everyone could see the obvious
differences in how each of these parents were handling the sit situation Justin is refusing to Grant interviews with the
media but on the other hand Trista she goes on a media blitz appearing on Nancy Grace Good Morning America and other
news shows on the 23rd of December Trista appeared on NBC's Today Show and said that she blamed Justin for not
keeping AA safe on the 29th she appeared on the Today's Show again asking Justin
to please talk to her and tell her what happened Justin was starting to really look like he was hiding something at
this point with her going out and pleading through the media to get some answers from him about what could have
happened that night yeah Trista kept claiming again how well does she even know Justin I mean because they they
just had a one night stand and then they ended up having a child together but she
claims that she could tell in his eyes that he wanted to tell her something that he wanted that he had some answers
that he wanted to basically confess to her well I don't know if it was pressure or not but Justin and his mom phebe and
his brother Lance pH buet sat down with the main Morning Sentinel and this was to dispel rumors that there was a party
okay so there was a rumor going around that there was a big large scale party at the dietro home on Friday December
16th that being the night that Aya was last seen they come forward and say there was no party at our house that
night then in a weird turn of events Phoebe dietro appeared on CNN saying that on the night AA vanished this is
one of there's several weird things in this case this is one that stands out to me Phoebe Depetro is on CNN saying that
on the night that AA vanished she did not hear anything happening in her home the next day she appeared again on the
news network to clarify that she was not actually in the home that night she was
not at home the entire evening she says she couldn't have heard anything obviously because if we're to believe
her she wasn't even present which seems to go along with what the other three adults were telling investigators from
even their early interviews I look at this thing and I go okay this is a bit confusing but I think it might
be a situation where she may have just misspoke or said something in a certain way that she didn't realize until later
kind of implied that she was home that night when in fact she wasn't right Justin also appeared on the Today's
Show and this is where he's stating you know I'm here to help in any way I can by coming on this show it's in
hopes of reaching out to the person that does have my daughter to let them know that what you're doing isn't right you
may think what you're doing is right for Aya but it's not you have no right you are not her parent she belongs home with
her family on the 6th of January Justin felt the need to explain Aya's broken arm
which was of course of interest to the general public and I'm sure of interest to the investigators working the case as
well and he says that that was completely accidental I would never harm my daughter he said that he had taken Aya
to a grocery store with him on a rainy night in November he was carrying her remember she's I mean she's very small
she's 20 months old he's carrying her under one arm into the home while carrying groceries in the other arm and
he says I usually would let her walk but it was raining out that night and it was
dark so I carried her he said he walked into the side door of the house and climbed the short Stairway to the
kitchen area and says I came up the stairs and slipped it happened so fast I don't know exactly how I fell on her but
I fell on her and Phoebe his mother backs up this story saying I was sitting in the living room with my daughter and
we heard a big thump I immediately went to the kitchen and Aya was scared so I so I picked her up the family said that
Aya was fussy after Justin fell on her but it was not until well into the next day before they decided that the
swelling in her arm warranted a trip to the emergency room Justin was worried about his daughter he said so he left a
commercial driver's license course at Lawrence adult education in Fairfield this was a class that he had
signed up for he left that class early and took his daughter to the hospital to Petro said said some people have
suggested that he didn't take Aya to the hospital immediately because he may have
been intoxicated at the time he said that's untrue I don't know Captain I don't know
that we have definitive answers here on if this was a accident if it was something else if it was anything other
than an accident did he delay taking her to the hospital I don't know that you can fault
somebody in every scenario if they are not quick to take somebody to the hospital right I mean how many I
understand that she's a very little girl but how many of us have rolled an ankle
or had an accident and had some type of injury and we don't decide for ourselves
for the sake of our own health until 24 hours later I better get this looked at I don't know how much blame there is to
pass around here it is certainly something to consider and to look at because look kids don't go missing every day and
here we have a scenario where we have a very small child who does go missing and
she happens to have a cast on her arm at that time well again I think the big thing here is that law enforcement go
from we have a missing child to we have a missing child where we believe Foul Play is
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Ayla Reynolds /// Part 1 /// 503

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Ayla Reynolds was just a little more than 19 months old when she disappeared. She was last seen the night before in her crib. At 8:51a.m. the next morning Justin Dipietro called 911 emergency services to report his daughter missing. That call set off a chain of events that eventually grew into the largest criminal investigation in Maine’s history. Join us in the garage for the details of this ongoing investigation.

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Brief Summary

Aya Reynolds, a 20-month-old, went missing in Maine, leading to a complex investigation involving custody disputes and potential foul play.

Key points

A Child Goes Missing. On December 17, 2011, Justin Dietro reports his daughter Aya missing after checking her crib.
Custody Disputes Unfold. Trista Reynolds filed for custody of Aya just days before her disappearance, complicating the investigation.
FBI Joins Search for Missing Child. FBI agents team up with local authorities to search for little Aya, intensifying the investigation.
Investigation Turns to Abduction. Authorities shift focus from a missing child case to a probable child abduction, raising the stakes.
Justin's Public Statement. Justin Depetro releases a statement insisting he is not hiding anything regarding Aya's disappearance.
Media Blitz for Answers. Trista appears on multiple news shows pleading for information about her missing daughter.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I had no words. I didn't know what to say.

Trista Reynolds reacts to her daughter being missing.

17:32WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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