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Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504

November 06, 2022 / 55:08

This episode covers the investigation into the disappearance of Ayla Reynolds, polygraph tests, blood evidence found in the Depietro home, and family dynamics.

The hosts discuss Justin Depietro's claims about taking a polygraph test, his assertion that he passed, and the conflicting statements from law enforcement. Steve McClausen from the Maine Department of Public Safety is quoted regarding the investigation's direction.

Key evidence includes blood found in the Depietro home, which police believe indicates foul play. The hosts detail the timeline of events leading to the case being classified as a criminal investigation.

Family tensions are highlighted, particularly between the Depietro and Reynolds families, with accusations and confrontations occurring in public settings. The hosts reflect on the implications of the blood evidence and the lack of cooperation from those present during Ayla's disappearance.

The episode concludes with a discussion on the civil suit filed by Trista Reynolds against Justin Depietro, aiming to seek justice for her missing daughter.

TLDR

The episode discusses the investigation into Ayla Reynolds' disappearance, polygraph tests, and blood evidence found in the Depietro home.

Episode

55:08
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foreign [Music] [Music] garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host
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and our co-host knows that when the patient gets upset you clone them he's not a doctor ladies and gentlemen he's a
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Hayden Alabama and Mark and Alicia want to ban the van in Oregon City and last but certainly not least we have Joseph
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right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] [Music] well we've arrived at that time here Captain where we have to discuss a
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polygraph test some people get very upset if you talk about polygraph tests some people get upset if you leave them
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out we make our own rules in this garage and here we go we're going to talk about a
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polygraph test for everybody out there Justin depietro in one of his interviews with the main Sentinel Justin said that
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he did take a polygraph test he said I asked for a polygraph on day one I've taken one and the results I was
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never allowed to see them it's something you're going to have to ask law enforcement about
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this is not really true he did take the polygraph test however Steve mcclausen the spokesman for the
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Maine Department of Public Safety said quote he Justin knows how he did because we
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told him to say he didn't know is just not true end quote so how did Justin do on the poly mcclausen said that he would
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not say that was not going to be public information but Justin would tell us how
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he did he says I know I went in there and smoked it I told the truth and that's it
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but did police actually tell Justin that he passed Justin dodged this question you know how did you do did they tell
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you that you passed how did how can you say that you smoked it unless they told you that you passed and he dodged this
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question he said they can tell me whatever they want again I didn't physically see the
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results I don't know that that a lay person could physically see the results and know the answers or know
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how they performed on the test the Sentinel reporter pressed him on this issue and asked him if police told him
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he failed Justin said that's all irrelevant I wanted to see the results myself they're not letting me see them
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why don't they let the public see them we don't think we need to say any more about this polygraph here in the garage
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because I think at this point we've been clear that in this investigation as large as it was
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that the police have determined they're going to keep a lot of stuff close to their vest they're not going to release
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anything more than they have to so this is difficult when you look at this case from a national media
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standpoint because now you have Justin who is less forthcoming but at times does come forward and give interviews or
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answer some questions release statements and you have Trista who's doing a media
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blitz she's doing every media bit that she can when law enforcement when they're not telling us their opinions or
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what the evidence shows them were kind of left to observe these two individuals behaving a little
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differently from one another but they're also allowed to paint their own pictures
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who tell their side of the story and we're left with very little to back up either person's story but what we do
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know is there's no evidence of this child leaving the house you bring in multiple canine units to
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try to pick up a scent and they don't get one and we have law enforcement saying and if this is true that they
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gave a polygraph early on in the investigation is this part of the evidence that law enforcement then goes
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hey we don't believe that this child is alive we believe that there's Foul Play involved and you're exactly right
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Captain because this is the direction that the investigation is moving toward and we know that because on December
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30th there was more news out of Waterville but it wasn't good news it was news telling us that the case was
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officially declared a criminal investigation and would now be spearheaded by the Maine State Police
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Major Crimes unit Chief Massey's written release to the public said quote at this
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point we believe that Foul Play has occurred in connection with ayla's disappearance we base our conclusions on
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evidence gathered by investigators during the past two weeks this case has evolved from the search for a missing
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child to a criminal investigation end quote and sure enough a state police evidence response team was back at the
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depietro home right around the time of this statement being released to the public they're out there taking
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measurements of the driveway they're removing windows and doing other things that they simply would not discuss on
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the record the home was finally released back to the debitro family this on December 31st by this point in our
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timeline Captain Ayla has been missing for 14 days in the New Year dive teams plunged into
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sections of the cannabec river based on projections of where Ayla could be per map analysis but unfortunately found
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nothing the investigation continued with several members of the extended depietro
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and Reynolds families taking polygraphs and searches ongoing police would not discuss who took lie detector tests
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publicly but Alicia depietro told the Sentinel newspaper that she took one and quote vote did fine yeah she she said
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she smoked it right well she says she did fine and Justin said he smoked it like that's not the proper way to take
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the test sir the proper way is to answer the questions well look I mean not smoke
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detect let me just tell you he is uh what we consider uh douche I sat down for the SATs I didn't fill out that
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paper I rolled it up and smoked smoked it yeah on January 28th there was more not
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good news and this time it's going to be a doozy because police confirmed that they had
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found blood in the depietro home they would not initially say whose blood or how much but stating that blood was
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found in the basement of the house and it had been found via the crime scene text use of luminol and I'm sure most of
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our listeners know exactly what luminol is one to be more clear it was found in the basement but it was found where
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Justin was staying what they considered to be his bedroom that's right and the official statement was this we find the
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discovery of blood troubling and it's also frustrating that we think that three adults in the home that night
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haven't told us everything that they know there were three adults in the home in their version of events is not backed
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up by any forensic evidence that we have located although they also found Blood on the bottom of his shoes which would
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have been blood from his daughter and this is echoing something that you said earlier captain that in their statement
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says you know the three adults are basically telling us that they believe that someone slipped into the home in
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the middle of the night but all three adults were there and that that someone went into the bedroom where
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Ayla was sleeping alone removed her and vanished into the night and the three adults did not see or hear anything and
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police straight up saying this doesn't pass the straight face test as they called it
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and police said that they had received several hundred pieces of potential evidence from the depietro home
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what all of it was has never been officially addressed or released to the public we do know that they removed a
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window this was the window closest to ayla's bed and later it was said that they determined that the windows to the
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home could not have been opened from the outside and that they had not been tampered with
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the depietro family challenged the assertions that they were not being forthcoming with all of what they knew
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and in fact they said that the investigators had not done a very thorough job in their forensic
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investigation of the depietro home Alicia herself says there were things that they didn't fingerprint in ayla's
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room that they felt that they should have she said that they were referring to a table that was located directly
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beneath the bedroom window and some other items of furniture she says that the family learned that the window to
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ayla's room was unlocked on the night of her disappearance and it says and goes on to say that we
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do look they just make up their stories they're they're trying to control whatever narrative you have the police
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coming out saying these windows if locked would not be able to be open from the outside
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the if the police knew that that window was unlocked that night then that's more evidence towards the
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idea that there could have been impossible intruder right so to me this is just them
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controlling the narrative exactly and I don't think that Waterville PD or the Maine State Police
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would bother to go out of their way to tell us that hey these these windows were secure they weren't tampered with
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if they had reason to believe otherwise right or to believe that some of the windows were unlocked and so here let me
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break it down to you how it works if you have a table underneath a window that you don't believe was ever open
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what's the point there's no point of the table being put into evidence and people can
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question that as much as they want that statement or what the forensic detectives did inside the house that
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time during their investigation and what evidence they chose to collect or ignore
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but what people out in listener land that aren't familiar with this case do not know is that there's evidence that they
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were finding to suggest that not only did was Ayla not taken from that room that night in the middle of the night
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that something else probably went down in the house and it didn't go down in that bedroom yeah there was a lot of
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blood found yeah and and there's actually I saw something I think it was a like crime watch Daily where they had
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a blueprint of the blueprints they had blueprints of the house and they had all these indicators where they found
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blood it was all over the place and I believe that Justin's sister said well the baby was throwing up because she's
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lactose intolerant she's throwing up blood well see that's what's going to happen here captain in
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this part of our timeline where again new information comes out and like you said we have the depietros who come
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forward that's when they're willing to come forward all of a sudden talk when new information comes out and it doesn't
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make them look so good now they have a reason to come forward and talk to explain things away or push you or your
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attention into another Direction well that's why you don't explain things in the first place
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because then when the evidence comes out it doesn't contradict your first story well and this is where the Public's
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going to get a lot of their information on this case so let's go back to the end
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of January this is a vigil that was held for the still missing Ayla Reynolds where at the candlelight vigil Trista
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and Justin were seen talking briefly and it seemed like everything was okay between the two of them they're
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even seen hugging very briefly for the first time in this whole ordeal this being a little surprising to everybody
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that's been watching the coverage so far where they're kind of in a roundabout way pointing fingers at each other and
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especially Trista is pointing the finger at her ex pretty hard I think in in this situation and
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some of her interviews and statements now her family specifically her mother Becca's husband his name is Jeff Hansen
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he started a website called Ayla reynolds.com and on there they posted whatever information they felt
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would shine a negative light on Justin of course it's the idea of the website Captain is to help find
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Ayla provide information to the public that will help locate Ayla but when you view it
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you what you're going to see there is a lot of information that speaks negatively about Justin and his inner
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circle so after the comments about the blood being found in the house their website published more information
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even though the police did not want this information revealed the info was that the blood found at
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Justin's home belonged to Ayla remember they didn't say who the blood was from but apparently the Reynolds have reason
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to believe that they know that it's from they being law enforcement know that it
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was from Ayla they post this on the website and adding that the police told the family that the blood was more than a
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small cut would produce yeah is equal to a cup full pretty much by Justin's bed so then I
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wonder was there a rug there was there a towel there that was discarded that might have had even more blood on it and
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so if that cup full is more than a small cut would produce how big of an injury and what kind of injury happened to this
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poor child well and with this information somewhat leaked out to the public now the the authorities are
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backed into a corner so then they have to then confirm that the blood found in the house was in fact aylas to which the
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depietros are going to respond now and we have Alicia who told crime watch Daily that Ayla was lactose intolerant
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and sick and vomiting which she believed explained the police findings of blood in the house
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but I don't know I couldn't imagine a child is puking up blood you go to the emergency room yes that's that's the
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issue with this if that's truly what was going on giant pile of dog [ __ ] maybe
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she didn't add enough words to her statement maybe she meant to indicate or to to tell us
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that the girl could have been vomiting in the middle of the night you know when they weren't around when
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no one was around to see it but that's I'm with you Captain that's immediately where my mind goes if if I see anyone
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child or adult or otherwise vomiting blood we get some people with medical know-how
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involved in the situation yeah okay look with this Justin character you don't use your imagination to know what
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I think of him but I don't want to throw his mother under the bus or his sister under the bus and the fact of I don't
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know what they know his mother wasn't there that night you know supposedly this guy's girlfriend was there I'm
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either they're not together now but why the hell isn't she coming forward and then but his sister I can't give you
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a pass if my niece or nephew was over here throwing up blood and I called my sister and said hey your kid is throwing
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up blood and she said don't worry about us they're lactose intolerant I go no this ain't right
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they need to go to the emergency room they need to see a doctor we I need to have somebody tell me
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um that this is okay I've never heard of anybody throwing up blood because they're lactose intolerant
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well the website was eventually converted to a Blog in 2012 called answers for Ayla
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and it continued to release information and we should be clear here though Captain some of the information that
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they're pumping out it does paint Justin in a bad light and maybe his sister as well
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but law enforcement technically have not backed up a lot of the information that's being released on that that site
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at the time one thing that was curious was that they were stating on the website that Justin
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took out a life insurance policy on Ayla this would have been soon after he took custody of her so not
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something that he had from birth but according to their website if he did this this was something he did after he
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had her in his custody in February of 2012 Justin and his family and friends granted another
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interview with the Morning Sentinel they stuck to their guns that Ayla was kidnapped Justin said there were good
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reasons to believe Ayla was kidnapped but he would not elaborate on that later he said that he found out Trista had
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been in Waterville this is something that you had talked about had been in Waterville around the
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time Ayla vanished he's referring to that drive that Trista was on the drive from Portland
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and in fact everybody's right it would have taken her right by Waterville it's very
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it's weird yeah it's very suspicious the my other issue too is she's going to go
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see her boyfriend or fiance and he's in prison I mean is that correct that's the information I have so I'm so
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Trista just has a shitty ass picker I get a better picker you know like you you have it and not just for yourself
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but for your daughter you know you you have a 22 month old daughter and you're you're picking some scumbag
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that's in jail again who knows what he did right well he was in in there for and and maybe
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instead of taking this long trip to go visit somebody maybe you because Justin is not letting you talk to your daughter
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I believe the day before he said no you can't talk to her because she's watching
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Home Alone 2. now how much is a 22 month year old understanding of Home Alone 2.
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at that point when somebody says no you can't talk to your daughter yeah 75 miles away I'm driving up to check on my
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daughter but she wasn't doing that she was going up to visit her boyfriend because her life well true but she's
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also filed she's filed paperwork with the court system to get custody of her daughter back no she's taking legal
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matters into to her own hands and pursuing getting her daughter back I understand
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that but but when you when she says look I try to talk to my daughter he won't let me talk to her because she's
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watching a movie she found that to be fishy or suspicious it's like you're in that area stop by
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and and check on your daughter yeah stop by check on her and it also goes back to
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what you were talking about earlier that's why you need to have a plan in place you have to have these formalities
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of who gets Ayla win and where she's supposed to be that that's why you should have these things
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put into place so you don't find yourself in a situation because when you don't have that put into place you can't
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control what the other side is going to do you could be the most the best mother
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ever the most responsible parent ever and do everything right however you cannot control anything that the other
00:24:03
parent is going to do we all know that Captain loves his moms right but there just needs to be a lot more education to
00:24:13
be a a woman in today's age I mean after the age of 30 they start calling women geriatric mothers like how
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how how awful was that well you know we should be applauding people that decide to wait until they're financially stable
00:24:32
until they're in a better spot in their life to bring a child into this world but but we but we have the nerve to call
00:24:41
women geriatric mothers at the age of like 35 or whatever it is it's ridiculous but that's a whole nother
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rant but but again and I don't want to throw her too much under the bus but she then says well I was thinking
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once I visited my boyfriend or fiance or whatever the heck he is right that she was thinking that maybe she could stop
00:25:06
by on the way back and then obviously she got the call but we won't know if that's
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just her explaining a situation away after the information well twice in this case uh once on searches and once kind
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of happenstance there were remains found that people believed at least for a short period of time could have been
00:25:31
that of Ayla Reynolds and the first was in 2012 when they recovered a skeleton but very
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quickly determined that it was not Ayla because it was an adult-sized skeleton but when the first news of it came out
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they thought well maybe we finally found her right this turned out to be the remains of Stephen C Brandon of
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Waterville who this is very tragic like a tragic Side Story here he had been missing since February of
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2004 so eight years um it I've did a little digging and it appears that his death was a suicide but
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can you imagine the hurt of of Steven Brandon's family who went without answers for eight years in
00:26:22
his in his case he was missing all of this time the other was when a baby doe or who was later dubbed the Deer Island
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Jane Doe was found in June of 2015. this one looked like it might be a little more likely to be Ayla because it was
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the remains were that of an unidentified toddler but it was eventually proved that
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Ayla was not a possible identity match for those remains [Music] foreign [Music]
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[Music] cheers to all the good mothers out there and good Fathers out there and people in
00:27:33
the front in the back and cheers to the billy goat himself I don't like this new name the billy
00:27:41
goats no good um so the goat of True Crime what's going on here Captain what this is going
00:27:48
to devolve into in regards to the depietro family and the Reynolds Family is a lot of interestingly bad behavior
00:27:58
on both parts so we have a situation where the windows of Phoebe depietro's home were broken two of the windows were
00:28:08
busted out and police arrested 19 year old Jeremy Hansen for this act of vandalism who is a relative of tristas
00:28:18
and then we have a situation where in July there's this weird episode of Lance depietro so this is Justin's brother I
00:28:31
guess he's sort of the enforcer in the family or at least as the a judge would later refer to him as an enforcer he was
00:28:39
convicted of assaulting his sister Alicia's estranged baby daddy Justin linnell uh Lino was involved in a
00:28:49
custody dispute with Alicia over the child and apparently he had posted some comments on Facebook about his
00:28:57
suspicions of Justin depietro's involvement in what happened to Ayla and so after that
00:29:04
this is when the brother steps into action and assaults this guy and Lance I'm not going to get into it
00:29:13
but he already by this point in his life had a a pretty extensive rap sheet in July of 2013 Justin himself was
00:29:23
arrested for assault and this is interesting because the person he assaulted was Courtney Roberts his now
00:29:31
ex-girlfriend but she's the girlfriend that was staying with him on the night that Ayla vanished
00:29:39
the story goes like this that the two had an argument and Justin grabbed and pushed Courtney he was arrested again in
00:29:46
September for violating his bail and being in possession of alcohol you're look you're a [ __ ] wagon if you put your
00:29:52
hands on a woman the reason that this altercation is of interest to me is that look I I'm not thinking or believing
00:30:00
Justin's story of what's going on we're getting leaked this information about evidence that's
00:30:05
telling us something else happened now Courtney's got reason to go against Justin but
00:30:14
never really tells us anything bad you know doesn't come forward and say Justin was lying Justin did something to Ayla
00:30:21
we don't get any information from Courtney where now she's in a position to where she might want to join the other
00:30:29
side and finally tell the truth is she really or is she just in a position that we
00:30:36
know that this guy is now capable of violence and and maybe when they got an argument she said I'll I'll go to Cops
00:30:44
and that's why the the even escalated and is she fearful of her safety or did she also feel like it's too late that if
00:30:55
she comes forward now that she's had too much involvement yeah she'll be railroaded herself well around
00:31:02
the same time that this is all going on we have a situation behind the scenes Captain where the police contact both
00:31:09
parents both of ayla's parents Justin and Trista separately and they say look we don't believe that she's still alive
00:31:18
we're months and months into this investigation we have evidence that tell us that she's probably not alive and we
00:31:25
have reasons to believe that she's not alive and now we're conducting our investigation as such with that in mind
00:31:33
so the parents were notified by the police of that change in their investigation this leads us to late
00:31:40
September 2013. remember Justin has that assault charge against Courtney or on Courtney I apologize and
00:31:50
this gets interesting because there ends up being a headline regarding this his court date for September 2013 from
00:31:58
Central maine.com and the headline reads Ayla Reynolds Family Feud erupts outside
00:32:04
Courthouse this would be almost comical right if the subject matter weren't so tragic if
00:32:13
we didn't have a missing little girl here blood shows you how immature both parties involved are well let's let's
00:32:22
review what went down here according to Central Maine as they reported it they said a confrontation began when
00:32:28
depietro's mother Phoebe depietro called Reynold's Father Ryan Reynolds and obscenity in the courtroom prompting him
00:32:36
to follow her into a hallway where the verbal exchange escalated according to Witnesses Phoebe depietro walked past
00:32:44
Trista and Ron Reynolds and whispered something to them Ron Reynolds then stood up and followed her out into the
00:32:52
hallway shouting what did you say to me Phoebe depietro kept walking while Reynolds was restrained by security
00:32:59
officers and he's yelling your son killed my granddaughter now Phoebe depietro and
00:33:07
Ron Reynolds were escorted from the building by the marshals and this what followed shortly afterward
00:33:16
was Trista Reynolds and other members of the Reynolds Family were asked to leave
00:33:22
so this situation devolves into basically some of the Reynolds Camp shouting at the depietros we know you
00:33:32
did something wrong you know your son killed my granddaughter things of that nature but what's interesting here is
00:33:41
look you get you got people out there in listener land right now who are going well why in the hell would the Reynolds
00:33:46
Family even be at this hearing about Justin's domestic violence charge at all right it didn't involve them it didn't
00:33:54
involve their granddaughter or daughter Ayla the short answer is Trista had actually quite cleverly planned this
00:34:04
out she wanted to force some kind of confrontation with Justin a public confrontation to draw attention
00:34:13
to the fact that she believed that he should be charged in ayla's disappearance and his court appearance gave her a
00:34:22
platform to do this and she said quote I don't understand why Justin Alicia and Courtney have not
00:34:29
been charged yet those would be the three adults at the depietro home the night that Ayla went missing I don't
00:34:35
understand why they haven't been charged with lying to the police we respect the
00:34:40
dedication of the police agencies and the prosecutor's office in pursuing this case however we disagree with the
00:34:47
delaying arrest and prosecution so this gets very convoluted and then sometimes people say well follow the money and
00:34:55
maybe that will lead you to what really happened and what we do know is three days before she went missing that Justin
00:35:02
the father took out a life insurance policy on her now that can't be collected just because she goes missing
00:35:11
so he would have to or Trista would have to declare her deceased now in order to do this that's not that
00:35:20
easy you have to have some kind of evidence where you can submit that to the courts and then the courts have to
00:35:28
decide whether they're going to declare her as just deceased or not yes which doesn't automatically then trigger the
00:35:38
insurance money payout correct now I mean we're jumping ahead here quite a bit because it wasn't until 2019.
00:35:47
that Justin was specifically asked about the insurance policy and we now know that that was not just an accusation by
00:35:56
the Reynolds Family it was in fact true because his own words were yes we did have a life insurance policy on
00:36:04
Ayla Reynolds and according to his statement he bought a life insurance policy on
00:36:12
Ayla about a month before her disappearance is his statement let's get into the blood evidence that trista's
00:36:20
family is going to use to try to get her declared deceased well the blood evidence is more
00:36:30
yes it's it is used for that for that purpose as well but when the blood evidence gets released to the
00:36:38
public it's being released via the Reynolds website for Ayla the one that's putting out information putting Justin
00:36:47
depietro in a bad light so this information comes on their website magically shortly after this shouting
00:36:56
match outside of the courthouse at Justin's domestic violence charge case what they did was they posted documents
00:37:04
on their website they had a ton of information on them which if true are very damning it's very damning
00:37:11
information so I'll read through this it says on January 3rd of this year investigators from the Maine State
00:37:17
Police met with Trista Alex which is trista's boyfriend and Melissa which is Alex's mother for the
00:37:25
purpose of disclosing a slideshow of Select blood evidence collected from the depietro's property in ayla's case the
00:37:34
following summarizes the slideshow contents ayla's blood found the blood evidence
00:37:40
described here was visible to the naked eye so everything we are about to list for you here was visible to the naked
00:37:48
eye of the detectives in the forensic texts working the scene they found several drops of ayla's blood were found
00:37:55
on the left shoulder strap of ayla's car seat in Justin's vehicle ayla's dried vomit was found on the back
00:38:03
seat droplets of ayla's blood were found on pom-poms of her pink princess slippers a silver dollar size stain of
00:38:12
ayla's blood was found on a sofa in the depietro family's living room this would
00:38:17
be in the main floor of the house ayla's blood was found smeared on her baby doll's face and arms in the bedroom
00:38:26
that she shared with Alicia depietro's daughter what they State here Captain is that the
00:38:33
thought was that maybe Ayla tried to wipe blood from her mouth with the doll I've not seen the doll or the blood
00:38:40
evidence on this or or photograph of this as it's not been released to the public but I'm guessing that that the
00:38:48
smear of that blood would give the impression that that might have been something that occurred drops of ayla's
00:38:54
blood were found on a fan cord and Justin's basement bedroom ayla's blood spot ayla's blood splatter was found on a
00:39:03
plastic blue tote in the basement and a sheet that was found inside had ayla's blood
00:39:10
stains on it as well the Maine State Police said that they believed that this sheet
00:39:17
was used to clean up ayla's blood several drops of ayla's blood were found on the tongue and inside Justin's
00:39:27
sneakers in the basement beside his bed a fist-sized stain of ayla's blood was found on Justin's mattress and sheets
00:39:35
this sample contains saliva possibly vomit and a toy hair a toy like hair pink fiber which at the time the state
00:39:45
police had not identified but later we're going to learn that that came from a toy several splatters of ayla's blood
00:39:51
were found on sections of the cement floor and wall beside Justin's bed these blood splatters were consistent with
00:40:01
ayla's standing height and we're up to a dime in size State Police blood analysis determined
00:40:09
that the blood splatters were created by intense projectile vomiting and or blunt
00:40:15
force trauma several splatters of ayla's blood were found on a wood pallet leaning against a wall in the basement
00:40:23
now the state police detectives and a grief counselor from the Attorney General's office were there with the
00:40:31
Reynolds Family with Trista during this slideshow and after the photos of blood visible to the naked eye were shown the
00:40:42
state police began to show the luminal enhanced photo so this is blood that they only found by way of use of
00:40:49
aluminum well I bet these rooms lit up like a damn Christmas tree well the the collective impression from the slideshow
00:40:57
that Trista Alex and Melissa are seeing was that you know Justin's bedroom looked like a murder scene
00:41:06
from all of the blood evidence that they're showing coming from that basement area the state police
00:41:12
determined that the samples some of the samples of ayla's blood exhibited a spray pattern
00:41:19
so this is not consistent with like a cut like oh I cut my hand on a on a A can or or on some broken glass or
00:41:27
something of that nature this is blood that's being sprayed out some of the samples contained saliva of
00:41:35
course this could be from the vomiting but what the state police were saying was that they believe that the evidence
00:41:42
is showing them that Ayla was coughing up blood from internal injuries and they concluded that ayla's injuries were both
00:41:50
internal and external according to the blood evidence that they were finding makes you wonder if they gave her some
00:41:59
liquid to drink or or some items to drink or or to eat you know I mean yeah I I mean I don't cause death I mean
00:42:10
whatever happened was would have been a violent reaction yeah by the child if she was given something
00:42:19
but they're stating that they believed that the blood evidence is showing them that the injuries were internal and
00:42:26
external I mean how is that not enough to put somebody Behind Bars this poor girl how
00:42:33
could you do that to a child well and this is an interesting way to sort of spin it or bring some kind of Justice
00:42:42
for Ayla against Justin here because in 2014 Trista wrote a letter to the Morning
00:42:50
Sentinel newspaper this was requesting that the district attorney should bring child endangerment charges against
00:42:58
Justin depietro Tristan had acknowledged in the past that the murder charges were unlikely
00:43:05
without her child's body but she pointed out in this letter that police had found
00:43:10
blood they shared that information with her and believed it was of sufficient amounts to indicate a crime had been
00:43:19
committed now at this time in our timeline 2014 the statute of limitations on the child
00:43:26
endangerment charges would expire in months if not levied against Justin quickly
00:43:34
her letter said quote who can argue Ayla was not a victim of heinous abuse her father had a duty to protect her and
00:43:42
he did not and for that he needs to be prosecuted you may not have the authority to prosecute Justin for murder
00:43:49
but you do have the authority and the obligation to prosecute him for other crimes and then Trista went on to detail
00:43:57
the evidence that police had collected the blood evidence to back up her statement of hey at least charge this
00:44:05
guy with something now one of the confusing legal matters in this case wrapped up in the whole
00:44:11
case itself is unfortunately the district attorney didn't have any jurisdiction over this case because the
00:44:18
case had already been transferred early in the investigation to the State Attorney General's office so per main
00:44:24
law the attorney general has exclusive jurisdiction over homicides and other major cases and since ayla's case was
00:44:32
considered a major case that's where the jurisdiction would lie so Deputy Attorney General William
00:44:40
Stokes explained that the main criminal code a defendant can't be subject to separate trials for
00:44:48
multiple offenses based on the same conduct or arising from the same crime except in certain instances this means
00:44:58
that if they went ahead and nailed Justin for child endangerment then the state would lose the ability
00:45:05
later to prosecute him for murder so their hands are a little tied here and it looks to me like what you were
00:45:14
saying earlier Captain they have some evidence telling them that a murder is probably what we're dealing with that's
00:45:21
ultimately what they want to charge him with and that's the direction that their
00:45:25
investigation has been on for quite some time yeah it seems to me like this individual the father should be put into
00:45:32
prison and it seems to me that there's clearly enough evidence to know that that this child was murdered and
00:45:41
murdered in that house and that these adults four of them let's say because whether the mother was there or not she
00:45:49
has to know more than she's saying and why they're not coming forward is absolutely ridiculous why are you
00:45:57
going to try to save your son and and not protect your granddaughter it's absolutely just doesn't make any
00:46:04
sense we put this guy in prison you know he'd become a a knob Peddler butt junkie
00:46:11
real quick in prison the direction that Trista is going to go in and pursue again trying to seek some kind of
00:46:20
Justice unfortunately in 2017 she has to go in front of a judge and explain that her child is dead I need you to
00:46:30
legally declare Ayla to be dead here's some of the evidence that I was shown can you can you please make this uh
00:46:38
determination and of course no parent wants to have to go in front of a judge and ask
00:46:44
for this for anything like this at all you want to keep hope and hold on to hope that maybe there's a chance that
00:46:52
she's still alive but part of this is to try to get some form of Justice because
00:46:58
once Ayla is legally declared to be dead now we can pursue some civil action against Justin depietro if we can't get
00:47:09
him for criminal and the criminal courts will get him in a civil lawsuit Court we will charge you know we will come at
00:47:17
him with a lawsuit of uh wrongful death lawsuit and this opens up a couple of things one
00:47:25
it opens up the closed case files of Ayla Reynolds investigation and what the police findings were and what they know
00:47:35
and the facts that they collected along the way it opens those up to both sides the depietros and the Reynolds pursuing
00:47:45
those in reviewing that information in there in either a defense or a challenge against Justin it also opens
00:47:56
up Justin depietro his mother his sister his ex-girlfriend to a whole different line of questioning because in this
00:48:05
Arena Captain they will be deposed so they will be under oath they will be held to the standard that
00:48:15
they could perjure themselves or if they start telling different stories or even different stories from
00:48:21
one another that would warrant further investigation you can't have three adults in the house all telling
00:48:27
different stories that night again like I said it's just it's unbelievable that his family would have this they have the
00:48:35
evidence in front of their face and that somebody's not coming forward and saying
00:48:41
whether it's an accident or or not or whatever it's like they it's almost like they didn't care at all about this poor
00:48:50
little baby well and that's what's bizarre here in this case to me because we've seen other cases where something
00:48:57
bad goes down and years go by and then stories start to change or information coming out of
00:49:05
the bad guys Camp which sorry depietro's I'm calling you the bad guys Camp because you look like a bunch of bad
00:49:12
guys right now and and these other stories that we've covered there's information that comes
00:49:19
out later in from the bad guys camps that that start to tell us a little bit of what
00:49:25
may have happened that yes there was some kind of accident or there was some kind of violence that night or we gave
00:49:34
the child something and they had a reaction here it's Bizarro to me Captain that we
00:49:41
have all these years later and I'm glad I'm I'm I'm very happy that the Reynolds
00:49:46
pursued this civil suit to try to force these individuals to talk because I can't believe look at the end of the
00:49:56
day you could tell me maybe Mama depietro doesn't know what happened and I could believe that I could take a
00:50:04
bite off that apple and roll with it but I can't believe that his sister and his girlfriend I can't think of a
00:50:11
scenario that would go down that would show and leave this kind of evidence blood evidence in the house that they
00:50:19
didn't see anything or hear anything or not know I absolutely 100 percent believe that
00:50:25
Justin depietro knows fully what happened and is probably fully responsible for what happened to this
00:50:32
little girl why we haven't heard information from the sister or the ex-girlfriend is
00:50:38
anyone's guess and like you said maybe they're just too involved now according to Trista
00:50:45
she says that police basically told her that Ayla was killed wrapped up put in the plastic tote that we mentioned the
00:50:54
plastic tote bag found in the basement and disposed of of course but where is anyone's guess if
00:51:02
they had her remains I think they're moving forward with charges of murder against Justin depietro on the ninth
00:51:09
anniversary of ayla's disappearance in December of 2020 things were on hold they were pending preparation for the
00:51:18
Civil Trial trista's attorney William Childs said that he was awaiting documents from the State Attorney
00:51:25
General's office he pointed out that five hundred thousand dollars of Investigation by the state of Maine
00:51:32
went into ayla's case and had produced a lot of materials that he needed to review for the civil suit
00:51:39
trista's family set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for legal expenses now this is not for the attorney the
00:51:47
attorney is working pro bono here he's doing good work in trying to help out some people in need
00:51:53
the GoFundMe account is to help pay for legal expenses for expert witness fees child said that because of the pandemic
00:52:02
there would be a long delay before a trial happened since civil trials are less priority than a criminal trials so
00:52:10
we will sit captain and we will wait to find out what is going to happen in this civil
00:52:17
case and see if it leads to more information information that might lead to the recovery of the remains of this
00:52:24
little girl which could then lead to charges against Justin depietro maybe his ex-girlfriend Courtney and his
00:52:32
sister Alicia as a result of ayla's case Waterville 911 dispatch became the third in the
00:52:39
state of Maine to be certified in procedures designed to better handle 9-1-1 calls in a missing person's case
00:52:47
and that might help in cases where the caller genuinely is concerned and wants the missing person to be found however
00:52:57
if the caller is only pretending to seek police involvement and has no intention
00:53:01
of communicating helpful information all the training in the world will not help
00:53:07
police find the victim [Music] foreign thank you guys so much for joining us here every week in the garage to truly
00:53:29
are our best friends in the whole entire world Colonel any recommended reading how about a little
00:53:37
recommended viewing Captain let's remind everyone that the Sons of Sam is available for your viewing pleasure on
00:53:44
Netflix director and longtime friend of the garage Joshua Zeman's the Sons of Sam is a Netflix docu-series that
00:53:52
confronts a true crime Legend and speaking of Legends this is an added bonus the great Paul Giamatti narrates
00:54:00
the series and Giamatti is fantastic as a narrator we've had Joshua on the show in the past to discuss his other works
00:54:08
The Killing season and killer Legends and we had Son of Sam victim Carl De Niro on off the record on our other show
00:54:16
off the Record not too long ago to discuss his experience as a surviving victim of a serial killer watch Sons of
00:54:25
Sam on Netflix and until next week be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most heartbreaking
  • 80
    Most shocking
  • 80
    Most controversial
  • 75
    Most intense

Episode Highlights

  • The Beer Gods Praise
    Today we praise the beer Gods with a strong hazy IPA from New Trail Brewing Company.
    “This beer packs a strong punch and finishes with refreshing tropical notes.”
    @ 01m 11s
    November 06, 2022
  • Polygraph Test Controversy
    Justin claims he passed a polygraph test, but law enforcement disagrees.
    “Justin knows how he did because we told him to say he didn't know is just not true.”
    @ 04m 19s
    November 06, 2022
  • Blood Found in the Home
    Police confirm they found blood in the Depietro home, raising serious concerns.
    “We find the discovery of blood troubling.”
    @ 10m 21s
    November 06, 2022
  • Candlelight Vigil for Ayla
    A candlelight vigil was held for Ayla, revealing surprising interactions between parents.
    “It seemed like everything was okay between the two of them.”
    @ 15m 28s
    November 06, 2022
  • The Tragic Case of Ayla Reynolds
    Ayla's disappearance raises questions about parental responsibility and the search for justice.
    “You could be the best mother ever, but you can't control the other parent.”
    @ 23m 50s
    November 06, 2022
  • Blood Evidence Found
    Investigators discover significant blood evidence in the home of Ayla's father, Justin.
    “The blood evidence is showing them that the injuries were internal and external.”
    @ 42m 27s
    November 06, 2022
  • A Mother's Plea for Justice
    Trista Reynolds seeks legal recognition of her daughter's death to pursue justice against Justin.
    “No parent wants to have to go in front of a judge and ask for this.”
    @ 46m 40s
    November 06, 2022
  • Civil Lawsuit Against Justin Depietro
    The Reynolds family pursues a civil lawsuit, opening up the investigation into Ayla's disappearance.
    “This opens up the closed case files of Ayla Reynolds investigation.”
    @ 47m 20s
    November 06, 2022
  • Evidence and Perjury Risks
    The lawsuit could lead to depositions that may expose inconsistencies in the Depietro family's stories.
    “You can't have three adults in the house all telling different stories that night.”
    @ 48m 26s
    November 06, 2022
  • GoFundMe for Legal Expenses
    Trista's family sets up a GoFundMe to cover legal expenses for the civil suit.
    “The GoFundMe account is to help pay for legal expenses for expert witness fees.”
    @ 51m 57s
    November 06, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • I know I went in there and smoked it. I told the truth.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504
  • I couldn't imagine a child is puking up blood; you go to the emergency room.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504
  • You could be the best mother ever, but you can't control the other parent.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504
  • We should be applauding people that decide to wait until they're financially stable.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504
  • It's unbelievable that his family would have this evidence in front of their face.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504
  • I can't believe that his sister and his girlfriend didn't see anything or hear anything.
    Ayla Reynolds /// Part 2 /// 504

Key Moments

  • Beer Praise01:11
  • Blood Discovery09:48
  • Candlelight Vigil15:25
  • Parental Responsibility23:50
  • Seeking Justice46:40
  • Civil Lawsuit47:12
  • Evidence Revealed48:35
  • Recommended Viewing53:42

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown