Police complained Tuesday that the father of a 6-year-old girl who is missing and feared dead has refused to take a polygraph test, and said he and his live-in girlfriend have both rebuffed requests for interviews.
Police spokesman Marcus Dudley Jr. said Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe are still considered "persons of interest" in the disappearance of Thompson's daughter Aarone. Thompson reported the girl missing on Nov. 14, but investigators say they believe she was killed as long as 18 months ago and accused Thompson of lying.
Dudley said police had also done interviews in Florida but declined to say why, or with whom.
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Aurora police and the family of Aarone Thompson were both talking Tuesday about the case of the missing and presumably murdered girl, but apparently they aren't talking to each other.
"There's already been several new facts that have come to light to us that we need to ask them about. There's some inconsistencies in what they have been telling us."
The family has questioned why police aren't searching for the girl and instead are going on a "fishing expedition" in the family's back yard.
Dudley said the department is very disapointed that the family is calling for a search to resume even though they are not talking to investigators, who are trying to conclude their investigation. Dudley said that their last communication with Thompson was last Thursday when they executed the search warrant at his rental home at East Kepner Place.
He said officers suspended the neighborhood search because officers had looked anywhere and everywhere that a 6-year-old girl could have walked to and a tip led them to the family's back yard.
He said officers plan to be searching the Aurora home for another week.
Dudley said that the homicide investigation has expanded beyond Aurora, to Detroit and Florida. Aurora officers were in Florida Tuesday because the family was vacationing in Disney World over the summer and investigators were there to check out if Aarone was with them, 7NEWS reported. Detroit is where the family used to live.
During a countering press conference at Mount Gilead Baptist Church, the Rev. Acen Phillips, a family friend, and Aarone's grandfathers asked the community to help them search for Aarone and defended her father.
"The family is basically saying they are not concerned about the homicide investigation, but they are concerned that there's no one looking for their lost child. They want to make certain that if you keep on with the investigation, that's fine, but will somebody please help us find our child," Phillips said. "I say we ought to keep searching for a live child until you find a dead one."
The grandfathers would not say when was the last time they saw or spoke to Aarone, and would not speculate as to why Thompson and Lowe have not talked to police since being named "persons of interest."
During the news conference, a lead detective confronted Phillips and the two grandfathers, requesting to speak directly to Thompson and his girlfriend.
"We havent had a formal interview with Aaron Thompson since Nov. 14, the day she was reported missing. We have never had a formal interview with Shely Lowe. We are requesting that Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe come to the Aurora Police Department for formal interviews today," Hansen said.
Phillips countered, "You've had an opportunity. You were there in the home when they called you. They talked to you then. You were there several days. There's been a lot of opportunities."
Nevertheless, Phillips said he will meet with attorneys to try to set up some sort of communication between the family and law enforcement.
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