PORTLAND, Maine — When his wife’s young granddaughter disappeared, Jeff Hanson felt helpless as the family anxiously awaited word from law enforcement authorities. He decided he needed to do something constructive as the investigation, now more than three months long, drew out.
So Hanson created the first of two websites aimed at drawing attention to Ayla Reynolds, the Maine toddler who disappeared on the night of Dec. 16 from her father’s home in Waterville.
The original website has received more than 1 million clicks, and there are now more than a dozen websites, blogs and Facebook pages dedicated to the case of the blond, blue-eyed youngster, helping to raise awareness along with billboards, posters and other conventional means of spreading the word about missing children.
“We have a new information age where there are many tools available for the public to either participate or inform themselves. The websites are part of that. In this case, it’s all positive because it keeps her name out there,” said Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Ayla, whose second birthday will be celebrated Wednesday, was 20 months old when she was last seen the night of Dec. 16. She was reported missing the following morning after her father, Justin DiPietro, said he found her bed empty, prompting a massive search effort. Searchers lowered the level of several streams, and divers searched icy rivers, as well.
They’ve found no sign of her.
Investigators declared the disappearance a crime, disclosed that Ayla’s blood was found in her father’s bedroom and dismissed the possibility that Ayla was kidnapped from the small house where three adults were present.
Beyond that, investigators have been mum on details.
But there’s plenty online, including discussions about the amount of blood found at the scene, a timeline leading to the toddler’s disappearance and debates over investigative details and theories of what may have happened.
Hanson originally launched AylaReynolds.com to raise awareness, and it received more than 1 million hits. Little more than a week ago, he started a new website, answersforayla.com, to give the family a place to air its thoughts and to set the record straight on details. The website reported that DiPietro took out a life insurance policy on Ayla and details about blood evidence, information police have not confirmed.
But that’s only the beginning. There’s another blog, justiceforayla, that reported last week about a suspicious van seen near DiPietro’s house, and another blog that analyzes public statements made by those involved in the case, aiming to ferret out the truth. A blog entitled JustStopTheLies aims to debunk false claims.
Hanson said he passes along anonymous tips he gets to police, and he hopes they provide information police need to bring Ayla home. He tries not to let his mind entertain the possibility that something bad happened.
“I’m holding out for the best,” said Hanson. “That’s how we get by every day.”
Ayla was placed in her father’s care after Trista Reynolds entered a substance abuse rehabilitation program in Lewiston, and the Reynolds family has questioned the care he provided for Ayla.
After being placed in his custody, Ayla broke her arm. DiPietro said she broke it when he fell on stairs while carrying Ayla and groceries. They say Ayla suffered bruises on one occasion that DiPietro blamed on a scuffle with another child and on another occasion suffered a pulled leg muscle that the father blamed on “horseplay.”
He didn’t return a message left on his cellphone.
While the investigation goes on, family members wait with growing frustration as they prepare to observe Ayla’s second birthday with cake and balloons on Wednesday at Portland’s Monument Square. The vigil is being sponsored by the family and nonprofit LostNMissing Inc.
The family is taking it day by day.
“It’s not easy,” said Ronald Reynolds, Ayla’s grandfather. “It’s not easy at all to go through every day, not knowing if she’s OK, if she’s being taken care of.”
He said he has begun to fear the worst. But regardless of the outcome, the family needs to know what happened.
Trista Reynolds believes Justin DiPietro knows more than he’s telling. “I hope that soon enough he decides it’s been long enough and that he can’t hide her forever. What’s really on my mind on a daily basis, I’m wondering every day whether my daughter is dead or alive. That’s what I want to know.”
Hanson’s website is very one sided. It’s supposed to be about Ayla but instead it’s all about Trista. A visitor to Hanson’s site for their first time, if they had not heard about this case, would not know that the baby even had a father. Justin is mentioned maybe once in the entire site.
Because he is most likely guilty of the crime…
Oh he is guilty, and somebody else is too. A baby with a broken arm doesn’t loose more than a cup of blood without somebody hearing it.. she is at peace in the arms of Jesus. The adults who have to stay behind however have to live with everything they had their part in robbing her of.
Did the mother ever re-take the lie detector test? I know she was unable to complete it due to a :medical condition” but have not seen any follow up.
She never had to…they had heard enough, by the time she had to stop, to know she was telling the truth.
Justin is not…and never was WORTHY of being that baby’s father!!!! why mention him!
Tick tock tick tock, the walls are going to come crashing down on all involved. The hardest part is the waiting, the wondering. I hope and pray Ayla is returned safely, I fear she will not though and that truly leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach. Ayla where ever you are there are millions of concerned and caring people. You have become a part of all of our lives and through the good or the bad you are never ever forgotten. Much love to you. God is always by your side.
It’s pretty simple, cannot get the DA to approve of an arrest of someone without a body and without anyone talking. Girlfriend of DiPietro wasn’t going to share him with anyone, including his own daughter. Narcissism comes in all forms, gender, ages, races, et cetera. I want to call them numb, but the girlfriend and sister and seemingly the father are totally street smart. Kudos to them when they meet their maker. Let’s see, what have I accomplished in life when I show up at the pearly gates? Oh nothing really, I reproduced, made money dealing drugs, lied, cheated, committed thievery, potentially severely injured a beautiful innocent little girl…other than that I’m good. NOT!!!!!!! Can’t wait to see handcuffs around these morons.
Sounds like the South Carolina mom (smith), that drove her two kids in the lake because her bf did not want kids
IF Only
Sorry, but I can’t let the father off the hook so easily. I BLAME him for allowing any harm to come to his child. I agree with most of what you said other than holding the girlfriend more accountable than the father. It was his duty to protect his child and most likely he was her murderer.
I emailed the women Theresa caputo and asked her to come to waterville to speak with the police and the family to find out if she could help finding Ayala .zip, nada, no response.I guess this story to her has not enough glitz.I tried sorry to everyone it did not work out.
Uh, there are no such things as psychics or mediums…
Yes there is, wake up
[Rolling my eyes.]
Laughing at your eye-roll. (is that like a danish?)
In this day and age everything is true and is in existence… It’s Monday, How dare you harsh our mellow in such a way… I Believe!!!
You roll your eyes alot i see
…
Maine Psychic Shirley Harrison once told a gathering of skeptical police chiefs that the body of missing BDN news carrier Cyrus Everett, could be found near the apartment where the body of murdered Ft. Fairfield cocktail waitress Donna Mauch was found. She added, that police could find the missing boy’s body under a large object that had been placed on it.
Police found the boy’s body under a large tree stump in a ditch, not far from the apartment of the murder victim.
Incidentally, Ms. Harrison was asked by one of the chiefs if she could shed any light on the case of the missing boy.
As a psychic, I predict that numerous blasphemous notes will follow this posting.
No i believe you i know a few good phsycics that have brought murders to jail time for people, but you got commenters like ryan robbins that know it all
If the psychic were real, then why not just say te body was under a tree stump? “Large object” could mean anything. It could even mean buried in a shallow grave under a tree in the woods.
But look, you provide no specifics of this “gathering.”
And so what if a police chief got suckered in?
Well, although Ms. Harrison – a real person – didn’t give the exact spot, the scant information proved more than adequate. Police found the body almost immediately. As best I remember the case, it was along the same street, as she pointed out, very close to where the cocktail waitresses body was found. It was not a wooded area. A roadside ditch.
Your attempts to ridicule what was proven be most valuable to police and the family.
I an unable to answer your many skeptical questions pertaining to how a person is able to make such observations. Your last remark about getting “suckered in” didn’t phase the officers, apparently, who recovered that young boy’s body.
It is easy to scoff at information you obviously feel is false. If you are so keen on dismissing such evidence, may I suggest some research on your part. Most Maine newspapers carried the story about Ms. Harrison’s address before police. She also has published a book, which I referred to. The murders referenced here actually occurred and are not a figment of my imagination.
End story.
Such scoffing overlooks the fact that psychics, or, those with Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) do indeed exist. In Maine, too.
Whether to accept, or, dismiss this fact, is entirely up to the individual, of course. I offer it purely out of having known one, and also having read about others over the years. I’m sure much derision will follow.
One of the best known is Shirley Harrison, a Maine psychic, who recounts several of her involvements with similar missing persons cases in her book “Psychic Search.”
Another, who dismissed assertions that he was psychic, did lend his mystical observations in two criminal cases. Missing 13-year-old Mary Olenchuck of Ogunquit, he believed, was not out of state, as many speculated, but in an enclosed area which police had searched without success. He even noted that the structure – a barn – was close to water – fresh water, not the nearby ocean.
Her body was found under a bale of hay in a barn, not far from a stream which emptied into the nearby ocean.
This man, now deceased, said police would never admit that tips offered purely by “speculators” would be acknowledged. Actually, he preferred it that way.
In another case, a Bangor homicide, upon request – not by police – he suggested that police, although they had diligently scoured the homicide scene, had missed an area of the apartment they had not checked. Further scouring of the murder scene revealed a hand print which was lifted from the apartment floor. Additionally, he disclosed that the suspect could be located in a tight specific corner of Bangor. They were just “suggestions.” But, they ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
Whether to believe, or, not believe, is left to the individual. My interest stems from a personal fascination with such unexplained phenomena.
Whether this contradicts or lessens the extent of your blanket erasure of the existence of psychics, is of course up to you, and others. I merely offer two instances, knowing, or, hopefully wishing, there were more.
[Laughing.]
Look, there is ZERO — NADA, NONE — evidence that people can communicate with the dead or read other people’s thoughts, or any other similar mumbo-jumbo. I challenge you to go to any psychology professor and ask what the research shows. The conversation wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes.
I feel sorry for people who are so desperate to believe that someone can communicate with a dead loved one (or even a live loved one miles and miles away). They foolishly ignore the “psychic’s” misses, latch onto the “hits,” and basically do the “psychic’s” work by making connections that are just not there. Then they get sucked in by believing the “psychic’s” generalities when it comes to what the loved one is saying.
Even when a “psychic” misses, the fools will grasp anything that, at best, is a tenuous connection.
If “psychics” were real, they wouldn’t need to fish for information before giving the fools a bland narrative that is simply what the fool wants to here.
It says a lot that your evidence is anecdotal without any specific references or documentation.
You sound good on that lofty podium. Like many pompous and postulating politicians you dismiss fact and rewrite information to suit your own skepticism and narrow minded thinking.
Not once is there any mention of spiritual communication with the dead. Read.
You are good at calling people fools, without first weighing your own cryptic and sarcastic comments for their own foolishness.
One Maine “Water Diviner” would have willingly lent a hand in this case. Unfortunately, he has passed on. He sought neither fame or glory. He just liked to help. I witnessed two instances where did – successfully.
There are many ways to get people to talk. Most logical if drugs were involved set up a sting. When everyone is arrested ,you would be amazed at how fast people start talking. But. I don’t think this is over yet. State Police took a lot of evidence out of the home. It takes a long time to get all that evidence back and then they have to put the pieces together, It’s just a matter of time . Justin be a man fess up. work with authorities you can’t hide forever and you certainly wont be able to hide from Big Bubba, he will own you when your in jail.
There are always consequences to our actions.
– Trista and Justin have a child together…but really don’t want anything to do with each other.
– Trista has another child with another young man…and another flaky relationship.
– Trista develops a drinking problem requiring professional help.
– Justin wants to be a father, but continue to have another girlfriend and her child in his life.
– Ayla comes under Justin’s questionable care.- Ayla “disappears” from the face of the earth.
– Nobody in DiPietro’s household knows anything about her disappearance.
The consequences of this series of poor choices is a little girl missing with diminishing expectations of her safe return. Does anyone think about the things they do anymore?
There are many similar situations out there everyday. A society in decay and you don’t even have to leave the area to watch it happen.
Just wait till some psy Dr. comes up with some dam excuse of why this happens, the dad had anger explosive disorder or some dam crap like that. No one has any responsibility in this country anymore there is always a dam excuse.
As I tell my 9 year old son, using the term “crap” actually diminishes your point. It makes you look primitive and robs you of any intelligent point you might have. Add in a misspelled curse word and the deal gets even worse.
That’s crap!
I’m not sure that there’s much room in this fiasco for hysteria and over-generalization. Has there ever been a point in human history where “people have thought about the things that they do”? I appreciate your appeal for us to return to the good old days, but I’m not sure they ever really existed.
AMeN!!!
it must be fun to be a 9 year old in your house (bangorian)… whew.
It’s going to take someone breaking Justin DiPietro’s hold over his girlfriend and sister before the truth comes out.
It will just take time. The people capable of this will turn on each other sooner or later, and the first one to run to the cops and spill wins.
this is a copycat of the Casey Anthony case will go on forever
As a father, I would not be able to sleep, eat, or function on any kind of human level knowing my daughter was missing.
I would be walking the streets of Waterville knocking on each and every door handing out flyers and asking if anyone has seen her.
I would be camped out at the police station, the Morning Sentinel, and the WABI satellite station offices.
I can’t fathom the paternal apathy exhibited in this case. It makes me sick…
As a mother I would, too.
Which is why this whole thing truly baffles me.
It’s that apathetic attitude of the parents, the girlfriend and the sister, that has puzzled police, and the rest of us, too. The remainder of the family doesn’t add much to the overall picture.
None of them have reacted the way a distraught family would have reacted in similar circumstances. I mean, the whole family, not just the mommy, who appears unruffled, and the daddy, who hired an attorney. The other two who shared the house the night before the toddler was said to have disappeared, remain distant, apparently sharing a pact of secrecy.
Obviously, the silent trio, who shared the house the night before the child was reported missing, know what happened to Ayla.
It should the spr@m donor did something to her forsure.Pig
it is beautiful and heartwarming that the grandfather did this…question: why didnt the mom or the dad? where are they when searchers are looking? they have time to do tv interviews. how were there that many adults in the house and none of them heard her…one of them is a mother,correct? what happened to her mother hearing? i just dont get it and my heart goes out to the grandparents,i cant imagine what you must be going through…i cant seem to have any sympathy for the parents
The answer to that is obvious. They are too into themselves to bother. If they put someone in jail who was there and charge them with obstructing, they would find out what happened.
There is no statute in Maine which covers “obstruction” You can NOT place a suspect in jail to entice a confession.
Geez folks, this is The U.S.A. not Iran Nazi Germany, or England under Cromwell. We have PROTECTIONS for EVERYONE. removing these protections would devalue our system to a point where it would be indistinguishable from the one in place in Syria.
Ben Franklin said; “Better to let 6 guilty men go free, than to jail one innocent.”
Sorry, but that is the price you pay to live under our system… I pay it gladly.
Well Harry, I agree with you reluctantly. I hear what you are saying, but something has to be done to break this stalemate. Ayla has rights too! I think, with the propper influence, someone could be inticed to sing like a bird to save their own skin. No real father would let this happen to their little girl!
I agree that no real father/or/mother would sit by passively while nothing occurred in the investigation, but there are lots and lots of folks out there who do not rise to the standard of being a true parent.
I agree 100% they are acting way too into themselves and not to mention suspiciously as well. I wouldn’t be surprised that the police do in fact find the missing girl and when they do that both parents WILL be implicated.
I know, and what gives with Trista’s weird persona. Everyone is picking up on it. I’m not saying the Father is in the clear either but it’s painfully obvious that something is written all over the mothers face that directly has to do with her daughters disappearance. Even if she was on drugs to cope or if she had some sort of “professional” background in front of the camera she is NOT acting at all like a mom would that didn’t know where her daughter is. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s written all over her face and personality.
You waterboard the father(and YES this is legal) & you’ll get all the answers you want he knows EXACTLY what happened to her..I’ve said it once & I’ll say it again.. What type of a parent DOESN”T check in on a 20 mth. old toddler AT LEAST 2-3 times before going to bed?? he didn’t even look in on her ONCE!!!
So it is your position that torturing suspects to gain a confession is legal?
What law school did you attend? Those dopes down at N.Y.U. where I took courses told me that torture, and extracting confessions by force was unconstitutional, but what do they know … right?
Innocent until proven guilty… This is all well and good once you reach the courtroom but I was under the impression that there are laws against deliberately misleading or providing false information to investigators?? Can’t those adults present the night Ayla went missing be charged and held for that?? Give them some time in a holding cell out of their comfort zone and their entertainment and I would imagine it would’nt take long to sweat the truth out of them in interrogation. The state police investigators seem fairly certain that these three are not forthcoming or truthful in their answers. Get all of them locked up and distressed and their apathetic demeanor will evaporate like morning fog off the Penobscot river
How do you know what they have told detectives? Refusing to talk when you might incriminate yourself is a constitutional right we all enjoy.
Also, you cannot lock people up simply to scare them. You have to have a legal reason to lock them up.
Doesn’t anybody understand their constitutional rights anymore?
Looking at the small bungalow style home it would be impossible to enter
the house and abduct the child without being heard even if they were
not night people. I pray she is alive living with a relative somewhere
but think it is highly unlikely. I believe that one or all staying in
the house that night know what happened to Ayla. I also believe that
the police bungled the investigation from the start. They have never
said what happened with Justin’s lie detector test or mentioned anymore
about a car that allegedly pulled up in front of the house during the
early morning hours. I wonder why? There have been too many things
that just don’t seem right from the start of this case.
They never do. Never seem right, that is. It is easy to condemn the police. But try to put yourself in their place. The adult trio, which, obviously is sitting on the answers to Ayla’s disappearance, sooner or later, will break. There is, I imagine and hope, a lot of evidence. The mysterious van must be a vital link. Disclosure of that, and results of the Lie Detector Test on daddy, could provide a pivotal point in the investigation. There are others, who must know something, that I’ve seen highlighted on Tab TV that never mentioned.
I’m getting red flags still from not just the father but from Trista’s overly elated attitude. It’s almost like she enjoys this attention. There’s just something obviously wrong there.
my heart goes out to this family… there truly are no words. That being said I must say the grand fathers web site talking about suing DHHS…. I’m not lover of that agency, but holding them responsible for what her mother should have been doing? She left that baby with those people. Take some responsibility. Your recovery depends on you being real MoM. Your addiction came first your not totally blameless. Holding an agency at fault for not doing what you should have been doing all along is wrong. Trying to make money off this suing them is disgusting at best.
BTW… You can’t sue DHHS.. cause their like super special terrorists
Actually truth is it comes right bk to the mom. If anyone could prove she knew he was abusive and she let the baby go there. That in no way says she deserved for anything bad to happen to her child.
She didn’t “let” him take the child…numerous articles have stated that she left the child in her mother’s care. Justin came to took the child from the grandmother while Trista was in Rehab. because he was her father he had a right to do so. From what I’ve read she had no prove that he was abusive, any bruises she witnessed on Ayla when she returned from his visits were all explained away by Justin just like he was able to explain away the broken arm at the hospital and to DHHS when they were called in.
DHHS have been in hot water before , the little girl who was in the care of a former DHHS. Died
the grandmother has lied from the very begining. she lied about being home that night alya disappeared. she said she was home. later she admited she lied. she was not home. i think she took ayla from the home that night. my hope is that ayla is alive . are there family members in another state that may have ayla ? have the police checked into this ?
the grandmother has lied from the very begining. she lied about being home that night alya disappeared. she said she was home. later she admited she lied. she was not home. i think she took ayla from the home that night. my hope is that ayla is alive . are there family members in another state that may have ayla ? have the police checked into this ?
the grandmother has lied from the very begining. she lied about being home that night alya disappeared. she said she was home. later she admited she lied. she was not home. i think she took ayla from the home that night. my hope is that ayla is alive . are there family members in another state that may have ayla ? have the police checked into this ?
there should be some kind of a charge the police could come up with to lock those involved, up for a while. it must be ok to misplace or lose your child.
they have not found a body and i feel ayla should be on the amber alert.
I said it once and I’ll say again… cut all welfare benefits and payment sto those involved and one of them will start singing pretty quickly. Mother, father, sister, boyfrien,and grandmother!!!
I said once and I’ll say agin… Cut ALL welfare benefits and payments to those involved and one of them will start singing real quickly. Mother, father, sister, boyfriend, and grandmother.