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FRIDAY UPDATE FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A spokesman for the father of a missing 6-year-old girl whom police say was probably murdered in her home said today that the father denied any involvement.

Check back with DenverPost.com for more on this developing story.

Aurora – The 6-year-old girl reported missing Monday by her father was probably murdered in her home and may have been dead for months, police said Thursday.

Aurora Interim Police Chief Terry Jones said investigators have no suspects but that both the child’s father and his girlfriend are “people of interest that we would like to interview.”

“We believe she is dead and she was murdered,” Jones said.

He said police received information Wednesday “from an individual close to the family” and pursued the information throughout the night and into Thursday afternoon.

He said the information led police to believe that the child, Aaroné Thompson, had been killed in the house within the past 18 months. No body had been found as of Thursday night.

Thursday afternoon, police took seven children, ages 8 to 15, from the home and placed them with Arapahoe County child protective services.

The search for Aaroné began Monday when her father, Aaron Duane Thompson, told police she had run away.

Throughout the search, police reported that the family was not particularly cooperative and noted that they could only produce a photograph that was a year and a half old. Aaroné also had not been enrolled in school.

Thompson initially described the child as a runaway and failed to say that she was only 6, police said. When he did offer an age, he said she was 7.

“They postured themselves in such a way that it is impossible for us to comprehend,” Jones said. “When you look at the picture, she looks like a frail little thing. Her life has been eliminated, and it appears that at this point everything that has been done over a number of months has been purely a cover-up. It’s heartbreaking.”

Sam Riddle, a family spokesman from Detroit, said the family has been cooperative.

“They had let their property be searched, had given DNA samples, allowed police to interrogate them, and they let them search the house,” he said in a telephone interview. “To say they weren’t cooperating was a slap in the face.”

Police searched the house three times with the family’s permission – including during the hour after Aaron Thompson reported his daughter missing – before getting a search warrant.

Riddle said Thompson and Lowe are seeking legal counsel and that “the family should enjoy the presumption of innocence.”

Jones said police will be “going through the home with a fine-tooth comb with our CSI investigators. Anything and everything that may be pertinent to a death investigation can be a piece of evidence. There is nothing specific we are looking for. It can be anything that sheds light on the disappearance of this little girl.”

Neither Thompson, 38, nor his girlfriend, 32-year-old Shelley Mary Lowe, has an arrest record in Colorado or Michigan, where they previously lived. Police said the couple are free to go anywhere and officers are keeping a close eye on them.

“We have absolutely no authority to put any hold on them,” Jones said. “We would have to have enough probable cause to make an arrest. The investigation will continue; hopefully we will have the father and girlfriend talk to us. But I don’t know if that will happen. I don’t know if we will find a body in the home. But that is why we have the search warrant.”

The search for the child was suspended Wednesday night, but since Monday, more than 70 officers per day have combed a mile radius around the two-story central Aurora rental home at 16551 E. Kepner Place.

An FBI plane with infrared detection flew overhead, helicopter crews peered down from above, and a bloodhound from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office tried to pick up the girl’s trail.

Aaroné’s mother, Lynette Thompson, who lives in Detroit, said earlier this week that she has not seen her daughter since 2001, when Aaron Thompson left for Denver with Aaroné, her brother, Aaron Jr., and another woman.

The brother was among the seven children in the Aurora home who were taken into social services’ care. The six others included Lowe’s 15-year-old brother.

In an interview Thursday with television station WDIV in Detroit, Lynette Thompson said, “I’m not going to be right for a while. That’s my baby girl. I’m gonna request that (police) check on the premises of every address that they had been in.”

Neighbors have said they did not know the children well and that the family generally seemed to keep to themselves.

“I’m pretty shocked, especially that she (Aaroné) may have been gone for a while,” said neighbor Janell Black. “This is the saddest event this neighborhood has ever experienced.”

Several neighbors said they weren’t surprised to learn that Aaroné is probably dead after her father could produce only one photo, which was more than a year old.

Parents always have multiple photos of their children on hand, said neighbor Angela Boivin, who lived a few doors away.

Lt. Bob Stef, who is leading the investigation, said the family’s body language was telling, adding that if it were his child missing, “I would have been turning over every bush. My heart goes out to the little girl.”

Jones said police still took the case at face value initially.

“Far be it from us to judge people at the front end of an investigation,” he said. “It’s part of the job description of a police officer, and we try to do the right thing until information comes in that tells us we need to be shifting gears.”

Staff writers Annette Espinoza, Kim McGuire and Manny Gonzales contributed to this report.

Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.