Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Ayla Reynolds (Maine)

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

MAINE MISSING PERSON, 2011: The Ayla Reynolds case is both the largest criminal investigation and the third largest search for a missing child in Maine’s history.If you’ve lived in Maine or New England in the last decade, you probably know the high-level details of the night she went missing from her father’s home, but there is so much to this case. There’s so much that Ayla’s mother Trista Reynolds has fought for. There’s an overwhelming feeling of knowing what happened to Ayla Bell Reynolds, that night in her father’s care. And yet, the search for justice in Ayla’s case continues 9 years later.If you have information regarding this case, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - Central at [phone] or toll free at 1-800-452-4664. You may also report information about this crime using the leave a tip form. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/aylareynoldsFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

On the night of December 16, 2011, little Ayla Bell Reynolds was with her father, Justin DiPietro, at his home on Violet Avenue in Waterville, Maine. Justin lived with his mother, Phoebe, his sister, Alicia, and his sister's young daughter. It was quite the crowd for the small, one-story, three-bedroom home. The night of December 16, 2011, Justin's mother wasn't home. His girlfriend Courtney Roberts and her son were staying over. 8 p.m. was bedtime for 20-month-old Ayla. According to her father, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby was wearing footie pajamas as he tucked her in that night. It was a light green zip-up set with white polka dots. The embroidery on the front of those pajamas said Daddy's Princess. To this day, nine years later, what happened between the hours of 8 p.m. on Friday, December 16th and 8.51 a.m. on Saturday,

December 17th, 2011 is an apparent mystery with two very different theories of the truth about what happened to Ayla in that tiny Waterville home. Ayla's case is both the largest criminal investigation and the third largest search for a missing child in Maine's history. If you've lived in Maine or New England in the last decade, you probably know the high level details of the night she went missing from her father's home. But there's so much to this

case. There's so much that Ayla's mother, Trista Reynolds, has fought for. There's an overwhelming feeling of knowing what happened to Ayla Bell Reynolds that night in her father's care. And yet, the search for justice in Ayla's case continues nine years later. This is the disappearance of Ayla Reynolds. I guess you could say we were friends who had a child together. That's what Trista Reynolds told centralmaine.com. Ayla Bell Reynolds was born to her mother, Trista,

and her father Justin DiPietro on April 4, 2010. They were dating, unofficially maybe, but when Ayla was born, Trista claimed that Justin denied Ayla was his daughter until a paternity test proved that he was, in fact, her biological father. Justin wasn't always present in Ayla's infant days, but they did share custody. In late fall 2011, Trista decided to take action to face a past hurdle that had resurfaced. She voluntarily entered treatment for substance abuse so she could reclaim her life and be the mother she wanted to be for Ayla. Before entering the rehab program, Trista arranged for her sister to take care of Ayla, with the help of Trista's mother.

Somehow, this plan for Ayla's aunt and grandmother to watch over her while Trista sought the help she needed was turned on its head when DHS came knocking. Justin and his family had apparently pleaded their case to the Department of Human Services. Ayla was supposed to be in his care, they claimed, though there was no formal custody arrangement at the time. Without a home visit, Ayla was removed from her aunt and grandmother's care and instead placed in Justin DiPietro's home that he shared with his mother and sister. A home visit would have been standard procedure, but this crucial step was skipped, Trista and her family claimed. The

representative from DHS who placed Ayla in the DiPietro home was a woman named Karen Small. She was related to Justin DiPietro's mother, Phoebe. Now looking back on that detail, and many of the other details of this case, it really brings to mind the phrase, hindsight is 20-20. Maybe if a home visit was conducted, it would have revealed conditions that might have kept Ayla out of that house. Maybe if the DHS representative wasn't a relative, Ayla would not have been removed from Trista's sister's home, or maybe Ayla's placement would have been handled differently altogether. Word got back to Trista that Ayla was with her father, and she wasn't happy. This went beyond annoyance or frustration that her wishes as Ayla's mother were circumvented. Trista had reasons for keeping Ayla out of the

DiPietro house. Trista felt that Ayla wasn't safe there. Although the pair had been voluntarily co-parenting Ayla, she started coming home from Justin's house with unexplained bruises. When Trista asked what happened, Justin pointed to an incident in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. But Trista knew Chuck E. Cheese didn't have a ball pit. Then on November 11, 2011, Ayla's arm was broken while in Justin's care. Justin claimed she sustained the injury when he was carrying her into the house in his arms and he slipped, falling on top of her. He didn't seek medical treatment for her until the next day. Ayla's tiny arm was later placed in a soft cast to heal.

Knowing her daughter was in Justin's home, Trista checked herself out of the substance abuse treatment program and tried to get Ayla back, but the DiPietro family refused. They played games with her. When she called to speak to Ayla on the phone, Justin and his family made excuses as to why a toddler, this toddler, Ayla, wasn't available at the moment. Trista remembered the text messages she claimed to receive from Justin, his bold statements, you'll never see Ayla again. According to ABC News, in an aggressive effort to get her baby back, Trista Reynolds filed for full custody of Ayla on December 15, 2011, without telling Justin at the time. On Saturday, December 17, 2011, at 8.51 a.m., Justin DiPietro picked up his cell phone and dialed 911.

The Department of Public Safety, Maine State Police released the transcript of both 911 calls. There were two. According to the transcripts, the dispatcher asked Justin when he'd last seen his daughter. Justin responded, quote, 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. End quote. The dispatcher asked what his daughter was wearing when he last saw her, and he described the green pajamas. Then the dispatcher asked,

Okay, can you remember the exact time that you last saw her, or somebody saw her last in her crib? At this point, Justin spoke away from the phone and asked his sister, who may have been in the room with him, what time she checked on Ayla. He asked, when was the last, when is the last time you went in her room last night when you saw her? Alicia responded, 10 o'clock. And then the line went dead. Again, Justin dialed 911, reconnecting with the dispatcher, claiming his phone died during their first call, but he had a different cell phone now.

It's during the second 911 call that Justin says his daughter's name for the first time. The dispatcher asked, what's your daughter's name, sir? And he responded, Ayla Reynolds. The dispatcher continued to question Justin over the phone, asking if they'd searched the house or if there was any way she could have climbed out of her crib on her own. Justin said, By that point, an officer was on the scene. The dispatcher asked Justin to go outside to speak with her and ended the second 911 call. The photo that circulated at the time of Ayla's

disappearance and the one that's most associated with her case, is of Ayla, a sweet little toddler frozen in time, with a toothy grin in a pink and green dress, with a ring of drool around the collar. She was probably teething, with just those two little baby front teeth poking in. In an interview with Crime Watch Daily, Trista Reynolds recounted how she found out Ayla was missing. Trista's dad, Ronald Reynolds, called her the morning of December 17th. He said the police were at his house. They told him Ayla was missing. While early reports say Justin DiPietro, his sister Alicia DiPietro, and his girlfriend Courtney Roberts were cooperative in the investigations,

Ayla's father wasn't making any statements to the press. Some reports said he didn't even speak to Ayla's mother Trista after Ayla was reported missing. Actually, DiPietro waited two whole weeks after his daughter went missing to appeal for her return in the media. During those two weeks, Waterville Police, Maine State Police, the Maine Warden Service, and the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team all searched for clues. They searched the house with a specially trained dog, looking for clues that Ayla was hidden or concealed there. They looked in dumpsters and dog houses. They searched the woods near her home. They questioned Ayla's relatives and searched their homes on the chance that someone was hiding her. While they were displaced from their Violet Avenue home, evidence

tape sealing the doors and windows, Justin and the entire DiPietro family stayed with their family friends, the two DeLas. Police were tight-lipped on details of the open investigation, but said in the days immediately following her disappearance that they were treating it as a missing persons case and that there was a possibility Ayla was abducted. Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said in a news conference, quote, Authorities announced they'd be searching Messolansky Stream near Justin's home on the third day of the search, noting that the proximity to the home made it a logical place to look. This was the day of the investigation that I saw firsthand. As a reporting intern, I went on the scene with another journalist as divers suited up in freezing conditions to dive the stream,

searching for clues. They continued on then to the Kennebec where the stream feeds in. The frigid water dives revealed nothing in the search for the sweet missing toddler. On December 19, 2011, police seized two cars from the Violet Avenue home, one belonging to Justin DiPietro and one belonging to his girlfriend Courtney Roberts. When Justin finally spoke to the press, it was with a formal written statement. The statement said in part, quote, Ayla was in my sole custody at the time of her disappearance per agreement between her mother and I because she was unable to care for Ayla. I have shared every piece of information with the police. Contrary to some statements floating around out there, I have been in

communication with Ayla's mother over the last couple of weeks. The Waterville police have transcripts from my phone for verification of those communications. It has always been my intention to have a shared parenting arrangement with Ayla's mother, and I will continue to work towards that when Ayla is returned to us. I have no idea what happened to Ayla or who is responsible. I will not make accusations or insinuations towards anyone until the police have been able to prove who is responsible for this. End quote.

Then, on December 26, 2011, as the search continued without any new information, a group of locals, among them a prominent Waterville attorney, announced a $30,000 reward for the person or persons who bring about information leading to the return of Ayla Reynolds. The reward was the largest of its kind in Maine's history. It feels kind of cliche to say, but the Waterville community was truly shaken by Ayla's disappearance, as the case continued to make headlines across the state and the country. Businesses along Kennedy Memorial Drive, one of the main through roads in Waterville, displayed messages of support. Fast food restaurants swapped to their marquees to plead for Ayla's return. Four days after the reward announcement, on December 30, 2011, the case for Ayla Reynolds changed. Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said in a press release

that the case was now in the hands of the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit. He stated, quote, At this point, we believe foul play has occurred in connection with Ayla's disappearance. We base our conclusions on evidence gathered by investigators during the past two weeks. The case has evolved from the search for a missing child to a criminal investigation. End quote. On January 3rd, 2012, after weeks of searching and following hundreds of leads on a local and national level, Maine State Police met with Trista Reynolds and her family.

Investigators wanted to share some information with Ayla's family that they wouldn't be sharing directly with the media at the time. The Maine State Police spokesperson, McCausland simply said, quote, I'm not getting into specifics, but we shared the status of the case with Trista as we had with the relatives from Waterville, end quote. Police left it up to the discretion of the family to share the information publicly, and they did. In an independent statement released by the family,

here is what Trista learned from police that day. It is believed that Ayla was met with foul play within the DiPietro household as determined by blood evidence found at the scene. I'm going to read the following verbatim so I don't miss any details. This full report from the case for Ayla is linked in the show notes for this episode at darkdowneast.com. The blood evidence found at the 29 Violet Avenue home included Several drops of Ayla's blood found on the left shoulder strap of Ayla's car seat in Justin's vehicle. Ayla's dried vomit was found on the back seat. Droplets of Ayla's blood were found on the

pom-poms of her pink princess slippers. A silver dollar-sized stain of Ayla's blood was found on the sofa in the DiPietro family's living room upstairs. Ayla's blood was found smeared on her baby doll's face and arms in the bedroom she shared with Alicia DiPietro's daughter upstairs. It appeared that Ayla tried to wipe blood from her mouth with her doll. Drops of Ayla's blood were found on a fan cord in Justin's basement bedroom. Ayla's blood splatter was found on a plastic blue tote in the basement, and a sheet that was found inside had Ayla's blood stains on it. Maine State Police said that it had been used to clean up Ayla's blood. Several drops of Ayla's blood were found on the tongue and inside Justin's sneakers in the

basement beside his bed. A fist-sized stain of Ayla's blood was found on Justin's mattress and sheets. This sample contained saliva, possibly vomit, and a toy hair-like pink fiber, which at the time, Maine State Police had not identified. Several splatters of Ayla's blood were found on sections of the cement floor and wall beside Justin's bed. These blood splatters were consistent with Ayla's standing height and were up to a dime in size. Maine State Police's blood analysts determined that the blood splatters were created by intense projectile vomiting and or blunt force trauma. Several splatters of Ayla's blood were found on a wood pallet leaning against a wall in the basement. This blood evidence was visible to the naked eye and not luminol enhanced. The Maine State Police determined that the samples of Ayla's blood

exhibiting a spray pattern could not have been the result of any cut. Police believed the injuries Ayla sustained in Justin's household were both internal and external, with some of the blood evidence containing Ayla's saliva, so she could have been coughing up blood. It is important to remember that the report of those discoveries was, quote, the collective recollection of Ayla's mother's family, based on a police slideshow of evidence. Ayla Reynolds was in Justin DiPietro's care in the home he shared with his mother the night of the disappearance

and the night it's assumed that blood appeared in the home. With all of that blood evidence, you'd think it would be enough for authorities to at least name someone as a person of interest or suspect in the case. But when shown the same blood evidence, Maine State Police said that Justin, quote, had no reaction, end quote.

He allegedly told Trista in a later conversation that it was As the search for Ayla continued, local residents held vigils and placed stuffed animals in front of the home where she was last seen. Trista Reynolds made appearances on local and national television, calling out Ayla's father and the adults who were in the home that night, accusing them of not telling the whole truth, an accusation that was supported by the Maine State Police. State Police spokesperson Steve McCausland said in a news conference, Meanwhile, Justin maintained that he had no idea what happened to Ayla and had no idea where she was, all while perpetuating his theory of abduction. In an exclusive interview with the

Today Show, Justin said he decided to speak publicly on television, quote, in hopes of reaching out to the person that does have my daughter to let them know that what they're doing isn't right. You may think what you're doing is right for Ayla, but it's not. You have no right. You're not her parent. She belongs home with her family, end quote. I'll link the video of that exclusive interview in the show notes for this episode at darkdowneast.com. Justin's delivery, in my assessment, is dudpan. It's not pleading. And in my opinion, it does not feel like a desperate father hoping for the safe return of his missing daughter. His answers to other questions are short and vague. When the host asked him about the night Ayla disappeared, he said very little, allowing only that it was

just a normal night. The abduction theory that the DiPietro family pointed to in every public statement didn't, quote, pass the straight face test, said state police spokesperson Steve McCausland. He continued to say that there was no evidence that they found that would point to an abduction, further saying, Despite those divergent theories of what happened the night of December 16, 2011, it appeared that both Trista and Justin were cooperating with the continued investigative efforts. They were even photographed together at a late January 2012 vigil on the steps of Waterville City Hall. They talked privately for about 10 minutes before hugging. Both parents submitted to a lie

detector test prior to that hug on the City Hall steps, but police never revealed Justin's results. Justin, however, told the Morning Sentinel that even though he didn't see the results, he said, I know I went in there and smoked it. I told the truth and that's it. That's quite the analysis of a polygraph test as part of the investigation into the disappearance of his toddler daughter. He sounds like a teenager who just landed a kickflip on his skateboard or something. Trista was actually unable to complete her polygraph due to a medical condition. She didn't elaborate on what that meant, but investigators were apparently satisfied with an incomplete test. Regardless, polygraph results aren't admissible evidence in court.

Six months after Ayla's disappearance, Trista told WMTW, quote, Divers took to Messolonsky's stream again in April of 2012. According to some reports, they discovered items potentially connected to Ayla, but they didn't say what they were or how they were connected. It appeared investigators were very interested in the waters of Messolonsky Stream and the Kennebec River where the stream feeds in, but they've never really revealed to the press or even to Trista why the water was of any particular renewed interest. That same week, nearly 100 people gathered alongside Trista Reynolds in Portland's Monument Square to celebrate what would have been Ayla's second birthday.

They handed out balloons and sang happy Birthday together. Two years later, in 2013, Justin DiPietro was arrested and appeared in court for an unrelated domestic violence assault charge. The charge involved his girlfriend, Courtney Roberts, the same girlfriend who was in the Violet Avenue home the night Ayla disappeared. Trista Reynolds, her friends, and family were there at the court date to confront Justin. They shouted at him, accused him. Trista begged him to look her in the eyes and admit what he did with Ayla. On April 4th, 2014, friends, family, and supporters in the local community held their

final birthday vigil for Ayla Bell. The vigils had capped Ayla's name in the press at least once a year, but Trista was ready to move forward. She told WMTW, quote, it's not like I'm giving up or saying I'm done. It's just, I simply need to take a break for my family and just to stay focused on the next step to getting justice for Ayla, end quote. Three years later, the case was still open and active. Four years later, five years later, still an active and open case, but with no new developments. In 2017, Trista Reynolds took a massive step forward in the fight for justice for her daughter. She was seeking an official declaration of death for Ayla Reynolds.

A death certificate would give the family closure, but it would also open up the door for a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Justin DiPietro. To my understanding, in civil cases, penalties are monetary and there's a lower burden of proof than in a criminal case where the standard is to prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. A civil case requires proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Basically, is the evidence convincing enough? What is the probable truth or accuracy of the evidence? Basically, is the evidence convincing enough? What is the probable truth or accuracy of the evidence? Even with the ongoing criminal investigation, with Ayla's case still open and active, a declaration of death and a civil lawsuit for wrongful death would be a

completely separate process. A wrongful death lawsuit would force Justin to answer questions under oath about what happened the night their daughter disappeared. The effort was supported by an ongoing fundraising effort via a GoFundMe page labeled Justice for Ayla Reynolds. The pursuit of a civil case against Justin DiPietro would not be cheap. But the first step in the new effort for justice was cleared when the judge officially declared Ayla Reynolds dead, her certificate noting she died on December 17, 2011, the day her father placed those 911 calls to report her missing. About one year later, in November 2018, Trista announced her official plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Justin DiPietro. But Justin wouldn't make things easy for Trista's legal team. In the years since Ayla disappeared, her father had moved to California

and somehow made himself almost untraceable, making it all the more challenging to serve him with that wrongful death lawsuit. Trista and her attorney asked a judge for an extension to serve Justin, and in March 2019, she was granted 60 more days. With a narrow window to take action, Trista's legal team got creative. So here's something I didn't even know was a thing, but Trista's attorney had the legal notices printed in the Morning Sentinel and newspapers in California three Fridays in a row as an alternate way to serve Justin with the lawsuit. With the publication of the notice, Justin had 41 days to answer or the case would move ahead regardless. In May of 2019, Justin's attorney announced his client would file a

response to the lawsuit. Their unconventional method had worked. On behalf of Justin DiPietro, attorney Michael Waxman appeared in court on May 15, 2019 to respond to the 43 allegations in the wrongful death lawsuit. And under oath, he answered the questions everyone had been eager to ask. The way this type of court appearance works is the averments, or assertions, are read and the defendant responds to those assertions, either admit or deny, objection or qualification. The first of the assertions established the known facts.

Justin was the father of Ayla Reynolds. Trista is the mother of Ayla Reynolds. Admit. Then the allegations shifted to the day Justin took custody of Ayla from her aunt while Trista was in treatment. A7 read, Officer Charles Weaver of the Lewiston Police Department was at the scene when Justin took Ayla from Jessica's apartment. According to Officer Weaver's official report, Ayla was in the kitchen and was laughing and playing and attempting to make conversation with Officer Weaver. Then the officer had Justin come to the apartment door. When Ayla saw Justin, she immediately broke down crying and attempted to flee through the kitchen. Ayla continued to cry uncontrollably as the officer picked Ayla up and handed her over to Justin. Attorney Waxman

responded with a combination of deny, qualify, and object, saying that Justin wasn't sure who the officer was, but that there was an officer with him that day, and then he flatly denied the remaining statements in the paragraph. A9 revealed something that I had previously uncovered while researching the case, but took it with a cautious grain of salt. It was just too typical true crime to seem factual to me. It just felt like a rumor, not anchored in truth. But A9 read, after Justin took custody of Ayla, and approximately one month before Ayla disappeared, Justin purchased a life insurance policy on Ayla from an individual named Derek Tudela. To which Justin's attorney responded,

admit. A life insurance policy on a 20-month-old baby. At the same time, he took physical custody of Ayla despite the care arrangements her mother had made before entering the substance abuse treatment program. So I had to do some digging into whether it's typical for parents to buy life insurance for their toddlers. Some sources say it's a step for ensuring your child is insurable in the future and that it could be borrowed against in the future, while other sources say that the fees of maintaining that policy don't give these policies a great return, and most younger adults don't have a problem getting life insurance without a policy that was established as a child. I couldn't find any hard stats on what percentage of parents buy life insurance for 20-month-olds, but it just feels strange to me.

If you're a life insurance agency and you know more than I do, please send me an email at darkdowneast at gmail.com. Because without qualification or explanation from Justin, I'm left here to wonder why a father would take such a step. If I go back to the classic true crime reason for taking out a life insurance policy on anyone, it's much darker than simply setting up his child for future opportunities. And then the name of the insurance agent who sold Justin that policy was also particularly interesting to me. I'd only read the Tudela name in one other place during my research for this case. The Tudelas were the family that took the DiPietros in during the early stages of the investigation. Justin had known Derek Tudela and the entire family since he was a kid.

So I'm going to derail from the wrongful death lawsuit for just a minute here because I was, and I still am, stuck on this connection between Justin and the man who sold him a life insurance policy on his toddler just a month before she went missing. I refocused my archive searches for the Tudela name in relation to Ayla's case. That's when I found an article behind a paywall on centralmaine.com headlined, Father, Friends Say It's Possible, Cops Say No Way, by Ben McKenna. In that piece, the Tudela family gave their assessment of the case. Derek, along with his parents Daryl and Heidi, supported the abduction

theory, despite law enforcement saying it wasn't likely based on evidence. Heidi, Derek's mother, told CentralMaine.com, quote, When McCausland says it doesn't pass a straight face test, I guess I don't understand that. It is possible. It does happen. If you're quiet enough, if you're someone who knows the house, for example, then you can be in and out of that house really fast. She continued on to say, quote, everybody thinks that is so outrageous and crazy, and yet the alternative to them is so much more believable, that he would harm his child and then talk other people into covering for him, two of which, Alicia DiPietro and Courtney Roberts, have babies and are very loving moms, end quote. As for the life insurance policy, Derek spoke to that in the interview for

CentralMaine.com, saying, quote, I approached him about it. It's very inexpensive. I told Justin it's the same policy I have on my son, and it's one of the best gifts you can give. I would do the same thing for any one of my friends, and I have, end quote. And then Derek spoke to Justin's character, the man he'd known since they were boys sharing a paper route together, the friend who went on family vacations with the whole Tudela family, who spent lots of time around their home. Derek said, quote, I've known Justin for most of my life. He's been one of my best friends.

I know the type of person he is and the integrity he has. It irks me that they make him out to be a bad parent and that he could have any involvement. I trust Justin with my child any day of the week. Returning to the court appearance in the wrongful death lawsuit against Justin DiPietro, dozens more assertions were read. All pertaining to the night Ayla Reynolds disappeared. And to each one, attorney Michael Waxman responded on behalf of his client. A37 read, On information and belief, Justin DiPietro, acting alone or in concert with one or more other persons,

a. wrongfully, through intentional actions, caused the death of Ayla Reynolds on or about December 17, 2011, and or planned and or participated in removing Ayla's body from the Violet Avenue house and concealing and disposing of Ayla's body from the Violet Avenue house and concealing and disposing of Ayla's body, all with the intent and purpose of preventing the discovery of information concerning Ayla's death by law enforcement personnel. To which DiPietro's attorney responded, Deny. In an article published in the Bangor Daily News on May 17, 2019, Justin's attorney said,

The fact that he doesn't have the answers she seeks doesn't mean that he is guilty of causing his child's death. End quote. This year, 2020, marked nine years without answers in the case of Ayla Reynolds. Trista Reynolds spoke to Morning Sentinel writer Amy Calder to mark the Grimm anniversary. Trista said, quote, I have put things up on my grandparents' graves in memory of Ayla. It's a place for me to feel connected to her. Her body isn't there, and I don't have closure, and there are still all these Meanwhile, the wrongful death suit presses on, slowly, in the midst of the global pandemic. According to the Morning Sentinel, Trista's attorney, William Childs, is awaiting documents from the state attorney general's office relating to Ayla's disappearance. He said, quote, I did hear from the AG a couple of weeks ago saying they were still working on what they can and can't give me. It's a painstaking process,

end quote. Moving the civil case forward could take a year or more. Childs explained that civil cases fall into a low priority category, with criminal trials coming first and the coronavirus delaying all proceedings even further. Primary co-investigators Ryan Brockway and Josh Birmingham continue to field new leads in Ayla's case, 42 leads just this year. Some coming in from psychics and other sources,

and they press those against the evidence and facts they know to be true in the case. Ayla's disappearance is among the many cases they work, homicides and child abuse. But as time allows, the search for Ayla continues. Trista Reynolds told Crime Watch Daily the theory that she says law enforcement shared with her many years ago. Ayla's mother, through tears and sniffles, said, quote, They actually think that it ended with them rolling her up in a blanket and sticking her in a tote.

End quote. I have not encountered a confirmation or denial of that theory in any other public report. State Police Lieutenant Jeffrey Love oversees the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit and AILA's investigation. He told the Morning Sentinel, quote, we're hoping to receive that piece of information that will either solve the case or lead us to Quote, End quote. He believes that Ayla's case will be resolved. Ayla's mother keeps a pink bulb in her porch light, an illuminating tribute to her missing daughter.

December 16th, 2020 marked another 365 days without Ayla Bell Reynolds. I was 21 years old when Ayla disappeared and I was a reporting intern at WVII, a TV news station in Bangor, Maine. When the news reached our assignment desk, I just remember the entire newsroom being focused on the story. It was locally a very slow news season, and for a sweet little baby girl to be missing, we were all kind of locked on the

developments, both as the job of a journalist requires, but also just as Mainers, as humans, shocked by the news in our home state. The case has stuck close to my heart since then. It's actually Ayla's story that made me angle my journalism studies into the investigative side of the field. Although I was just an unpaid intern at the time, I was shadowing Lindsay Mills on the scene in the earliest days of the investigation in December 2011. You might know her name from WCSH 6 these days, but back in December 2011, she was a multimedia journalist, an MMJ, and a fill-in anchor at WVII. She gave me the go-ahead to knock on the door of the home where Ayla was last seen in search of a comment from anyone inside. It's a unique cocktail

of nerves and determination when you're looking for interview subjects. I still feel it to this day when I knock on the figurative doors in search of interviews for this podcast. Not everyone answers. No one did at Ayla's home that day. But still, we keep searching. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East, and thank you to my sources for this episode, including several articles from the Bangor Daily News, centralmaine.com, WMTW, WCSH, The Morning Sentinel, and recorded interviews by Crime Watch Daily and NBC's Today Show.

Also, press releases and news conferences led by the Waterville Police Department and Maine State Police, along with original court documents and materials from the Department of Public Safety and Cumberland County Superior Court. All of my sources for this episode and others are listed at darkdowneast.com, including links to specific articles so you can keep digging and learn more. A special thank you to Fat Knuckle Freddy, a South Portland police officer and musician, and a Dark Down East listener whose music you just heard in this episode. I've linked his new album titled Corruption, Deceit, Murder in the show notes at darkdowneast.com. Subscribing

to Dark Down East is free and it not only supports the show it's the best way to ensure you never miss an episode of maine and new england true crime stories if you have a story or a case i should cover i would love to hear from you at darkdowneast at gmail.com follow along with the show at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I am honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is Dark Down East.