CENTENNIAL — In an interview with police the day he reported his daughter missing, Aaron Thompson said he started “panicking” when he searched the home and couldn’t find her.
Thompson is on trial in Arapahoe County District Court in the death of Aaroné Thompson, who would have been 6-years old when he reported her missing on Nov. 14, 2005.
Police, however, believe she died two years earlier.
Just before 11 p.m. on that day, Thompson went to Aurora police headquarters, where he was interviewed by Detective Chris Fanning.
A video recording of the interview was played Tuesday in court.
In it, Thompson told Fanning that around noon, he prepared cereal for Aaroné and Kaila, the younger daughter of Thompson’s live-in girlfriend Shelley Lowe.
When the girls were done eating, Aaroné had a cookie and then asked for more, Thompson said.
“I look at her, and she just standing there. I said ‘I ain’t giving you no more cookies. Come down here and sit down.’ She came down and sit by me, then went back up to her room.”
That was about 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 14, Thompson said.
After about 20 minutes, the house seemed too quiet. “I just got that feeling,” Thompson told Fanning.
So he went back upstairs to check on Aaroné. He looked in her closet, under her bed, in the boys’ bedroom but could not find her, he said.
He said he noticed that the door was unlocked and it was always locked.
“Then I started panicking a little bit,” Thompson told Fanning. “I told Shelley to keep looking for her.”
Thompson said he drove around, checking a nearby park and strip mall, but did not see her. He went back home and called police, but did not use the emergency 911 number.
Police arrived and searched the house and area for hours.
Later that night at the police station, Fanning questioned Thompson:
Fanning: “Why do you think she left?”
Thompson: “The only scenario I could see, she seen her brother and Rajon do it, so she figures she could do it herself and come back.”
Fanning: “What do you think happened to her?”
Thompson: “I don’t like to say things.”
Fanning continued to quiz Thompson about where the child could be and asked “who would have been able to do this, to take her away for a long period of time?”
Thompson: “Nobody.”
Then Fanning asked Thompson what he thought should happen to someone who harms kids.
Thompson replied, “I think they should get arrested.”
Police say Aaroné was already dead.
During testimony Tuesday, Aurora police Detective Randy Hansen noted that after the child’s reported disappearance, he went to the house and asked for some of her clothing.
“We wanted to get a DNA sample so we could have something to compare it to if a body was found,” Hansen testified.
Thompson produced a pair of sweat pants and a white swet jacket, a pair of girls underwear and a blue T-shirt, all size 24 months.
The prosecution also played audio recordings of interviews with several children in the house.
Authorities believe Thompson and Lowe coached the kids on what to say, urging them to say they had seen Aaroné recently.
In one interview with Sgt. Rachel Nuñez, Lowe’s son, Andrew, 14 at the time, said the last time he had seen Aaroné was at about 5:30 or 6 a.m. on the day she was reported missing. He said he saw her on the bottom bunk of a bunkbed set.
“I hope they find her because I am missing her,” the boy told Nuñez.
Rajon Russell, Lowe’s brother, then 15, told Nuñez the same thing about when he last saw Aaroné, as did another of Lowe’s daughters, Kadezshia Smith, who was 12 at the time.
In an eerie scene at the end of Thompson’s interview with police, Fanning left the interrogation room.
Alone, Thompson appeared exhausted, placed his head on the table, sighed, then sats back up.
“Aaroné, where are you, man?” he muttered. “Where are you, Aaroné?”
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com.
