Aurora – Police say they have contacted more than 470 witnesses about Aarone Thompson, but it appears that not everyone has agreed to speak to detectives who are investigating whether the little girl was killed.
That’s the main reason authorities are bringing the case before a grand jury, hoping to compel reluctant witnesses to talk, Police Chief Dan Oates said Friday.
Six-year-old Aarone was reported missing by her father on Nov. 14. After three days of searching, police announced that they believed the girl was killed in the family home more than a year earlier.
Police have never announced suspects, but in the early stages of the investigation, they labeled the girl’s father, Aaron Thompson, and his girlfriend, Shelley Lowe, as persons of interest.
Oates said he believed his department had built a strong enough case to make arrests, but he was convinced to allow the case to go to a grand jury.
In Colorado, grand juries are allowed subpoena powers that neither prosecutors nor police have prior to charges being filed, said Leslie Hansen, assistant district attorney with the Arapahoe County DA’s office.
Defense cross-examination doesn’t occur during a grand jury proceeding, and people who aren’t at risk of being charged with a crime can be compelled to testify or face contempt charges, she said.
“The grand jury affords us two things that have the potential to be helpful in building a stronger case,” Oates said. “One is the subpoena power to get at records. The other … is the opportunity to compel testimony and the opportunity to ensure witness statements will be secret.”
Oates said records that the grand jury will likely request in this case include social services documents previously withheld from police. Lowe and Thompson are working through the courts to regain custody of eight other children removed from their care when police announced the homicide investigation.
Oates wouldn’t identify the reluctant witnesses who are likely to be compelled into talking before the grand jury.
So far, only one key witness has been identified. Eric Williams, Lowe’s incarcerated former common-law husband, told investigators that Lowe told him Aarone died in the house and that Lowe and Thompson buried the girl in a field, according to a document obtained in December by The Denver Post.
Williams is suspected to have testified in a trial last month in which a jury ruled that Thompson and Lowe were neglectful parents and couldn’t immediately regain custody of their children.
Oates said the investigation has developed other witnesses who haven’t been reported.
“As I said before, the evidence that we provided in the (custody) hearing is a fraction of the evidence that we have,” he said.
“The press has seemed to focus on one particular source, and we have multiple sources,” he said.
Attorneys advising Lowe and Thompson say they believe authorities are calling a grand jury because they have no probable cause to make an arrest.
Oates denies this.
“I am confident to say to the people who did this that their day of reckoning is coming,” Oates said.
