Ten years to the day that Justin DiPietro reported his daughter, Ayla Bell Reynolds, missing from their Waterville home, he will be interviewed as part of a civil lawsuit seeking to hold him accountable for her death.
It’s an indication that progress is ramping up in the case of Ayla a decade after her disappearance, which is giving her mother, Trista Reynolds, renewed hope.
“I’m actually hoping that this is the year my Christmas wish will come true,” Reynolds said this week.
Ten years ago this month, the 20-month-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed Ayla was in the care of her father, Justin DiPietro, at his mother’s house. He called police to report her missing on the morning of Dec. 17, 2011, launching the
largest and costliest police investigation in Maine history.
Ayla has never been found and no one has been charged in the case.
A judge in 2017 declared her dead, paving the way for Trista Reynolds to file a wrongful death lawsuit against DiPietro in December 2018 that contends he should be held accountable for Ayla’s death.
After delays in the case last year because of the coronavirus pandemic and other issues, Trista Reynolds’ lawyer, William H. Childs, this year received documents
he was seeking from the state Attorney General’s Office, including evidence and documents from the Maine State Police investigation.
“We now have that; it has been provided to my forensic expert and my expert has rendered a report,” Childs, of Portland, said this week. “But the report and source documents are still subject to a confidentiality order with the court, so they can’t be disclosed to anyone as of yet.”
Childs said he anticipates a judge will allow for release of the report but first must hear from the AG’s office about whether it objects to that disclosure. There is no date set for a civil trial in the case, he said.
“Predicting when any civil trial will be heard by a jury during this pandemic is pure guesswork,” he said separately in an email.
Childs is reticent to reveal details about the case while it’s in court, but paperwork he filed in Cumberland County Superior Court reveals he was granted extensions in the case throughout the year. Those extensions were needed because of the large volume of information from the state police investigation and AG’s office. That office had to pore over the material and make redactions where appropriate.
The investigative materials include “thousands of pages and many photos and other recordings,” court documents say.
Childs also has deposed, or interviewed, several witnesses in the case, including DiPietro’s mother, Phoebe DiPietro, according to the court documents. She owns the home in which Ayla was staying when Justin DiPietro reported her missing, though she reportedly was not there the night before he called police. As part of the discovery process, Childs inspected the Violette Avenue house and is scheduled to depose Justin DiPietro on Friday, which will be 10 years to the day that DiPietro reported Ayla missing.
DiPietro, whose last known address was Winnetka, California, continues to deny he had anything to do with Ayla’s disappearance and
has long maintained that someone must have abducted her from the house.
His lawyer, Michael J. Waxman of Portland, said Thursday that he had not yet received the forensic expert’s report that Childs was given but looks forward to reviewing it.
“I think it will provide comic enjoyment,” Waxman said. “There is no evidence which I’ve seen that supports any claim that my client had anything to do with her disappearance.”
Waxman said he will be present when Childs deposes DiPietro, virtually. He said he has been present at other depositions including that of DiPietro’s sister, Elisha DiPietro, who was at the Violette Avenue home when Ayla disappeared. Justin DiPietro’s then-girlfriend, Courtney Roberts, also was there.
Waxman said he has heard nothing at the depositions that makes a case for the wrongful death suit. After he has a chance to review the forensic expert’s report, he said, he’ll be able to ask the expert about his background, qualifications and education in the field, how he came to write the report, what his motivation was in being involved in the case, how he is being paid and what he did to prepare for writing the report.