CENTENNIAL — Aaron Thompson of Aurora is on trial in Arapahoe County District Court for the death of his daughter Aaroné, who was reported missing in 2005. The girl would have been 6 years old at the time of her disappearance. Her body has not been found.
Electronic devices cannot transmit from the courtroom, but The Denver Post is providing trial updates when possible.
2:15 p.m. Juile Herzog, a crisis and case worker with Arapahoe County human services, talked about driving a 9-year-old daughter of Shelley Lowe, Thompson’s girlfriend, to the hospital a week-and-half after he reported Aaroné missing.
Herzog made chit-chat with the girl, who has been described by another case worker as being “developmentally delayed.” Then Herzog asked her about the sleeping arrangements at the Thompson home.
She told Herzog where most of the kids sleep, then Herzog asked her about Aaroné. “Aaroné gone,” the girl replied.
Earlier, through closed-circuit television, the girl testified.
The girl has trouble speaking but has been working with therapists since she was removed from the Thompson home in late 2005.
The girl, like other children in the home, talked about getting a “whuppin” when she got in trouble. She said she would get hit with the belt by “Big Aaron,” as Thompson was often called.
Lowe didn’t hit her with the belt, but she did hit her with a bat more than once, the girl said. She also testified that Lowe punched another sibling who lived in the home.
11 a.m. Andrea Woods, the Arapahoe County case worker who handled the Thompson and Lowe children, continued on the stand. She testified that one of the sons of Lowe talked about the last time he saw Aaroné.
The boy, who would have been 8 years old when Aaroné was reported missing, said he was told to clean up blood in the basement after Aaroné was beaten there, Woods said. It was not clear when that happened, but police believe Aarone died two years earlier than when she was reported missing on Nov. 14, 2005.
The boy was told to clean the blood on the carpet with bleach, according to Woods. He then saw Aaron Thompson carry Aaroné upstairs into the bathroom. Then Aaroné walked out of the bathroom, according to the boy.
Another child in the home, Lowe’s daughter who was 12 at the time of the reported disappearance, told Woods the last time she saw Aaroné was also in the bathroom, Woods said. Then she heard Thompson say, “damn,” Woods said.
9:30 a.m. Woods says that all the children in the Thompson home were checked out by doctors as well as human services. She noticed marks on the body of one of Lowe’s sons.
The boy, 8 at the time Aaroné was reported missing, said marks on his left hamstring, left elbow, right hand and foot were due to beatings he endured. He said he was hit with an extension cord.
Woods also recalled a story she was told by several of the girls who were living in the Thompson home on East Kepner Place in Aurora. The girls said Lowe was watching a movie on the Lifetime network and asked them a “weird” question.
“She asked them if she killed one of them, would they stand by her,” Woods testified.
