AARONE THOMPSON - 6 yo (2003) - Centennial CO

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of Aaron Thompson.

Thompson is charged with 60 felony counts, including child abuse
resulting in death and abuse of a corpse, in connection with the 2005
disappearance of his daughter, Aarone, and the alleged beating of his
other children.

Thompson reported his daughter missing on Nov.
14, 2005, telling Aurora police that he and 6-year-old Aarone had
argued over whether she could have a cookie. He said she stomped
upstairs and he later discovered that she was not in the house.
Police investigated and said she may have died as early as 2003. Her body has never been found.The last known photograph of Aarone was taken at the Grand Canyon in 2002.
Prosecutors said Aarone was undernourished and was beaten and locked in
a closet for hours as punishment for wetting herself. An indictment
alleged Thompson and his girlfriend, Shely Lowe, concealed her death
for two years. Lowe died in May 2006 of heart problems.Thompson
and Lowe told police that eight children lived in their Aurora home but
police could only find seven mattresses, seven pairs of gloves, seven
toothbrushes in the kids' bathroom, and seven bags of Halloween candy.
Among those scheduled to testify at the trial: other children who were
living in the house at the time and Lynette Thompson, Aarone's birth
mother.The trial is expected to last a month.Thompson faces up to 54 years in prison if convicted of all counts.

They were two pretty girls, both named after their fathers, both
residing in Colorado, both 6 years old the last time anyone saw them
alive.
But the cases of JonBenet Ramsey and Aarone Thompson are as
striking in their differences as they are in their similarities. The
two girls existed in very different realms: JonBenet lived a dream
childhood in an exclusive Boulder neighborhood, while Aarone shared a
cramped house in a lower-income part of Aurora with seven other
children.
Thousands of pictures were taken of JonBenet during her brief
life as a child beauty queen. The only photo of Aarone that ever
appears in newspapers shows her in the background of a group shot taken
in 2002, slightly fuzzy, squinting in the sun.
JonBenet's absence was noticed immediately, and the police were
called moments after her mother realized she was missing. Aarone may
have been gone for two years before the authorities were notified.
JonBenet's body was scrutinized for evidence that might lead to her
killer; Aarone's body has yet to be found.
Yet it is Aarone who may receive justice first.
No suspect has ever been named in the JonBenet Ramsey case, one
of the 20th-century's highest-profile unsolved crimes. But the trial of
Aarone Thompson begins this week.
Aaron Thompson, Aarone's father, faces 60 felony counts in
connection with her presumed death, including child abuse resulting in
death and abuse of a corpse. He's also charged with child-abuse counts
in the suspected beatings of Aarone's siblings and other children
living in the home.
Since Aarone's body has not been found, Arapahoe County
prosecutors are expected to rely largely on statements from the other
children in the house. At the time of her disappearance, Aarone was
living with her father; her brother, Aaron Jr.; her father's
girlfriend, Shely Lowe; Ms. Lowe's teenage brother, Rajon Russell; and
her five children by other men.
Mr. Thompson, 41, reported Aarone missing Nov. 14, 2005, saying
she had run away after a fight over whether she could have a cookie.
The call came hours after a social worker had visited the home and
found no evidence to support that Aarone was living in the home, such
as a toothbrush or bed.
At first, the children corroborated Mr. Thompson's account, but
after being placed in foster care they told authorities that they
hadn't seen Aarone in nearly two years. Aarone would have been 6 at the
time of her father's November 2005 call.
According to court documents, in January 2004, Ms. Lowe told an ex-boyfriendthat
Aarone had recently drowned accidentally in the bathtub, but that she
and Mr. Thompson feared they would lose the other children because
Aarone had a scar on her back from a previous beating. Instead of
calling police, the documents say, the couple buried Aarone's body in a
field and told the other children that she had gone to Detroit to live
with her mother, Lynette Thompson.
Mrs. Thompson later said Aarone never came to live with her, and accused Mr. Thompson of foul play.
The picture became even more complicated in May 2006 when Ms. Lowe died suddenly of heart disease at age 33.
Court documents say one of the boys, whom authorities have not
specified, told investigators that he heard Mr. Thompson beating Aarone
in the basement, then silence. A short time later, Mr. Thompson told
the children that Aarone had gone to live with her mother.
Ms. Lowe's statements to her ex-boyfriend could have been
pivotal in the case, but her death makes them inadmissible. What's
more, the defense may decide to argue that she, not Mr. Thompson, was
responsible for Aarone's death.
"Defense can cast blame, if that's how they choose to go. They
can say that Lowe committed the bad acts and Thompson didn't know what
was happening," said Denver lawyer Scott Robinson, who has followed the
case.
Prosecutors may be forced to build their case around testimony
from the other children. "We won't really know until the prosecution
makes its opening statements, which will probably be Thursday," Mr.
Robinson said.
Jury selection began Monday in the trial, which is expected to last about a month.

Opening statements are underway in the highly anticipated trial of Aaron Thompson. Thompson
faces 60 felony counts, including child abuse resulting in death,
stemming in part from the presumed death of his daughter Aarone
Thompson.

Aaron Thompson reported his daughter missing in Nov.
2005. She would have been 6 years old at the time, but further
investigation by the Aurora Police Department led investigators to
believe that the little girl had been dead around two years prior to
Thompson's call to police.

The trial is expected to last
upwards of nine weeks. Prosecutors believe Aaron Thompson also abused a
number of his other children, and those accusations make up a good
portion of the 60 criminal counts. At least six of the children who
used to live in Aaron Thompson's Aurora home are expected to testify.

In
an unusual move shortly before the beginning of opening statements,
Judge Valeria Spencer asked a pair of television station reporters to
leave the courtroom. They are on a list of possible witnesses who could
be called during the course of the trial.

Both were active in
reporting the criminal investigation of Aaron Thompson, and while they
may or may not be called, Judge Spencer felt it inappropriate for the
two to listen to opening statements should they be called upon to
testify.

The long-awaited trial of Aaron Thompson
on fatal child-abuse charges opened Friday with attention focused on a
central figure speaking from beyond the grave. That figure, though, was not Aarone Thompson, Thompson's young
daughter whom he reported missing more than three years ago and who
authorities believe has been dead even longer. Instead, it was Shelley Lowe, Thompson's live-in girlfriend
when he reported Aarone missing. Lowe died about six months into the
police investigation, but her voice echoed inside an Arapahoe County
District courtroom Friday in a secretly recorded, profanity-laced
tirade in which she told a friend that Aarone's death wasn't worth
losing custody of her other kids. "One was sacrificed, but there are seven more, eight more that you can save," Lowe was
heard on the tape saying to a friend, referring to the eight other
children from her and Thompson's house who were placed in foster care
during the investigation. "Don't forget about the rest of them and
their fate. You can't go back in time." Police have never found the body of Aarone, who would have been 6
years old when Thompson called police in November 2005 and said she ran
away after an argument over a cookie. She remained largely missing from the trial Friday, as well.
Prosecutor Bob Chappell began his opening statements by showing one of
the few pictures that exist of the little girl. But attention quickly turned to Lowe, whom prosecutors and defense attorneys cast as the key to understanding the case.
Chappell painted a picture of Lowe and Thompson operating as a
team to cover up Aarone's death and coach the other children into lying
about it. He said witnesses, including other children living in the
house, will testify that Thompson beat Aarone and the other kids,
sometimes with an electrical cord or a baseball bat. Thompson is charged with 60 criminal counts, including child abuse, child abuse resulting in death and a number of conspiracy
charges.



"The evidence in this case will satisfy you that he is guilty of every single one beyond the shadow of a doubt," Chappell said.
Defense attorney Lucienne Boyd drew a distinction between
Thompson and Lowe, calling Lowe "volatile" and "manipulative" and
Thompson "quiet" and "not confrontational." In a surprise move, Boyd said Thompson lied to police about
his daughter's disappearance and added the defense would not challenge
the prosecution's contention that Aarone is dead. But, she said, Thompson did not kill the little girl and
instead suggested that Lowe did. "Shelley Lowe was a tyrant," Boyd
said. ". . . Shelley Lowe had something terrible to hide." During his opening statements, Chappell told jurors that abuse
was common in Thompson and Lowe's home. Chappell said Aarone had
bed-wetting problems and, as punishment, would sometimes be forced to
spend long hours shut in a coat closet. Boyd, though, said many of the statements of abuse came months
and years after the investigation started and were developed in an
"echo chamber" where the children attempted to one-up one another with
fantastical tales of punishment to please their questioners. With no physical evidence of how Aarone died — or proof she is
dead — prosecutors are expected to rely on testimony from the children
to make their case, although both sides said the children's testimony
is often contradictory and has changed over time. "These kids considered the defendant their dad, and they love him," Chappell said.
Chappell told jurors of three other people who have said Lowe
told them Aarone died and that she and Thompson covered it up. Boyd
argued that, during conversations with those people, Lowe implied she
was responsible for Aarone's death. "At the end of the day, we will ask you to find Mr. Thompson
guilty of lying to the police," Boyd said. "But he did not kill his
daughter. He did not tell those children to lie. He did not hit a child
with a bat or an extension cord or tie them to a pole." The trial is expected to last as long as two months.

An Aurora man charged with fatal child abuse in his daughter's
disappearance acknowledged Friday that the girl was already dead when
he reported she was missing in 2005.
Aaron Thompson faces 60 counts involving his daughter Aarone, who has never
been found. Thompson faces 54 years in prison if convicted on all
counts, which include allegations that Aarone was malnourished, beaten
and denied proper medical care.In opening statements Friday,
Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Chappell told jurors that all
evidence suggests Aarone - who would have been 6 when she was reported
missing in November 2005 - had been dead at least two years.Later,
defense attorney Lucienne Boyd said Thompson's story that his daughter
ran away because of an argument over a cookie was a desperate attempt
to cover up Aarone's death at the hands of Thompson's live-in
girlfriend, Shely Lowe, who died in 2006 from heart problems.When
Thompson called 911 in November 2005, Chappell said police initially
took him at his word and launched a massive search for Aarone, checking
fields, searching in trash bins, going door to door in the neighborhood
and checking with registered sexual offenders.But when asked for
a recent picture of Aarone, all the family had was a vacation picture
showing Aarone at the Grand Canyon about two years earlier."This
was the last indication of a live child," Chappell said of the picture,
telling jurors there were no doctor's visits since 2002, and she wasn't
enrolled in school.When police asked for an article of clothing
so they could develop a DNA profile, the family produced a pair of
purple pants that appeared too small for a 6-year-old.Chappell said the family also provided a pair of tennis shoes.There
was an audible gasp in the courtroom when Chappell showed a picture of
the tennis shoes next to an enlarged portion of the Grand Canyon
picture showing Aarone's shoes - apparently the same ones.Chappell
also showed jurors videotaped interviews with the other six children
living in the home. Lowe's brother, a then 15-year-old boy, couldn't
remember Aarone's name."The missing one," the teen said, stumbling on Aarone's name when asked to name all the other children in the home.The teen, the brother of Lowe, later admitted he had not seen Aarone since moving into the house in August 2004.Chappell
said jurors will hear testimony from the children, who describe
Thompson, whom they called Big A, whipping them with a baseball bat,
belts and cords as punishment. They will also describe how Thompson
would beat Aarone and lock her in a closet for hours for wetting the
bed.Other witnesses will describe how Lowe told them Aarone died
during one of the punishments and how Lowe and Thompson conspired to
make up a story to cover up her death.The children were removed from the house and placed in foster care shortly after Aarone's reported disappearance.Boyd
said Lowe's teenage brother and one of her sons are responsible for
testimony pointing to Thompson, which was developed out of loyalty to
Lowe."She was a tyrant, controlling. She was manipulative," Boyd
said. "Nobody here is going to ask you to believe that Aarone is alive
today. Mr. Thompson did not kill his daughter, Shely Lowe did."Boyd said five of the six remaining children in the home are not biologically related to Thompson.The trial, which started Monday, is expected to last nine weeks.Thompson's neighbors said they had no idea how many children lived in the house because they hardly ventured out.The children had been told that Aarone was sent to Michigan to live with her mother.

By the second day of the investigation,
police had a pretty good idea the reported disappearance of Aarone
Thompson was no ordinary runaway case. In the first full day of testimony Monday in the trial of
Aarone's father, police said that even early in the investigation
evidence pointed to foul play, although they still treated it as a
missing-child case. Aaron Thompson faces charges of child abuse resulting in death
and abuse of a corpse. He reported Aarone missing on Nov. 14, 2005,
after a fight about a cookie, but police believe she was killed two
years earlier. The body of the girl, who would have been 6 years old at the time of her reported disappearance, has never been found.
After searching the girl's home on East Kepner Drive, combing
their Aurora neighborhood and talking to family members for more than
14 hours, former Aurora Police Capt. Ricky Bennett testified he had a
face-to-face meeting with Thompson in the early hours of Nov. 15. "I looked him square in the eyes and said, 'If there is
anything else . . .' and Mr. Thompson looked away and said, 'No, just
help find my child.' " Bennett later acknowledged that the encounter was a little tense.
Bennett was among several officers to testify in Arapahoe County
District Court on Monday. Most said Thompson appeared calm and subdued
in the days after filing the missing-child report while his live-in
girlfriend, Shelley Lowe, was angry and used derogatory language
against police. He was cooperative, according to police; she was
combative and refused to let police interview the children in the home.
Neighbors were interviewed, but no one reported seeing the girl
in some time or perhaps ever. She had not been enrolled in school. And when a bloodhound was sent over to the home to help in the
search, the family could not produce a single piece of clothing that
the dog could track, according to testimony. When Jefferson County Deputy Allen Nelson, who brought the
bloodhound in to help in the search, asked Thompson if he had any
soiled clothing belonging to Aarone, Thompson said, "I don't have
anything like that," Nelson said. Not a toothbrush, bedsheets or a shoe, he said.
Police also interviewed Lowe's younger brother, who was living
with the family, about the last time he had seen Aarone. He gave
inconsistent answers, and after two questions Lowe stopped the
interrogation. Both Thompson and Lowe were considered persons of interest in
the death, but Lowe died of heart failure about a year before a grand
jury indicted Thompson on 60 criminal counts in 2007. During opening statements on Friday, the defense suggested
that Lowe was responsible for Aarone's death, and that Thompson was
guilty of trying to cover it up. Thompson also faces child-abuse
charges for alleged beatings of other children living in the home. Also Monday, an alternate juror told the court that she and
perhaps other jurors were intimidated by a man who had been spotted in
the courtroom on Friday and rode a motorcycle and stared at them after
court in a parking lot. But after talking with the man, District Judge Valeria Spencer
learned that he was a student who was trying to get an internship with
another judge. The female alternate juror remained on the panel. The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks.

Aaron Thompson and Shelley Lowe were
pulled over by police on the night they buried his daughter, Lowe's
former boyfriend testified Wednesday. Eric Williams Sr. said the couple dressed up Aarone Thompson's
body, then loaded her into a vehicle and drove "far away" to bury her. Lowe told Williams the story after she picked him up from a
halfway house on Dahlia Street in Denver in January 2004 to take him to
look for a job, Williams said Wednesday during Aaron Thompson's trial
in Arapahoe County District Court. Thompson is on trial in the death of his daughter. He faces 60
criminal counts, including child abuse resulting in death and abuse of
a corpse. Lowe died of heart failure in May 2006, a year before
Thompson was indicted. During his testimony, Williams recalled that Lowe pulled her
car over near Smith Road that winter day and said, "I have to tell you
something." Lowe told Williams that the night they buried Aarone, their
vehicle was stopped by police. Thomp son was driving, Williams said. Thompson and Lowe had shovels in the vehicle, and Lowe worried
the tools would make the officer suspicious, and so "she distracted
them," Williams testified. From there, they went to bury the girl in a field. Thompson
apparently dug the grave and Lowe placed the body in the ground,
Williams said. It was not clear where or why the officer pulled over Thompson
or in which jurisdiction it happened. A background check on Lowe and
Thomp son did not reveal any traffic tickets during the time it would
have happened. Williams has a lengthy criminal history, including two
drug-possession and several escape convictions. He has been in and out
of prison since 2000 but was released in June. He says he was addicted
to crack. Prosecutors on Wednesday used Williams' testimony to establish
a time frame for when Aarone, who would have been 6 years old when she
was reported missing in November 2005, might have died. Lowe called Williams at a jail in Ordway in July 2003. He could hear over the phone Lowe telling Aarone to behave.
"I remember Shelley calling out to her," Williams recalled on
the stand. "If she didn't stop what she was doing, she was going to put
her in the closet. "At the time I believe Aarone Thompson was at the home," he said.
Then in December, Lowe called Williams at a Colorado Springs
drug-rehabilitation facility and said "she had something important to
tell me," Williams said. Williams said Lowe told him that Aarone
stopped breathing in the family's bathtub at their home on East Kepner
Place in Aurora. However, Williams' cellmate at the Sterling Correctional
Facility, Donald Bruce, gave more detail as to how the girl may have
died. After Williams indicated that he was conflicted about what
Lowe had told him, Bruce said he went to prison officials with the
story. In court Wednesday, lawyers asked him to recall the story Williams told him.
Bruce answered "yes" when a prosecutor asked if he had been told
by Williams that Lowe and Thompson had abused the girl because she was
crying a lot that day. He also said he had been told Aarone was
bleeding when Lowe put her into the tub. But Williams on Wednesday said he did not recall telling Bruce that the child had been bleeding.
Williams said Lowe told him she had nothing to do with Aarone's
death and he believed her until she refused to help him financially. On
March 13, 2004, Williams wrote Lowe a terse letter in which he called
Lowe a "baby killer." She later gave him $60, Williams said.

Aurora police believe that Aaron
Thompson may have reported his daughter missing in November 2005
because his live-in girlfriend was eight months pregnant and family
visiting the new baby would have been suspicious. Police say that Thompson's daughter, Aarone, died two years
earlier. She would have been 6 years old when Thompson reported her
missing. During Thompson's trial Friday in Arapahoe County District
Court, prosecutors played a video of a police interview with the
brother of Shelley Lowe, Thompson's live-in girlfriend. During the interview, Detective Terrance Allen said Lowe and
Thomp son had to come up with a good excuse as to why Aarone was not at
the home. Lowe was due to give birth in two weeks, and family would
likely visit the baby. "It's going to be hard for Shelley and Big A to explain it, so
they made up the story," Allen told her brother, Rajon Russell, who
would have been 15 at the time. Some of the seven children in the Thompson home called Aaron Thomp son "Big A."
Thompson went to police on Nov. 14, 2005, and said Aarone ran
away from home because she wanted cookies and he would not give them to
her. Her body has not been found.
Day 6 of the trial continued Friday, but it ended at noon as the judge gave jurors time to attend to personal issues.
Earlier, several police officers took the stand and detailed
what was collected after they executed a search warrant on the Thompson
home on East Kepner Place in Aurora. Among the items that were seized
for evidence were toothbrushes, a hair brush, photographs and one
"little girl's shoe." Detective Hal Selden testified about the day the kids were
removed from the home on Nov. 17, the same day police received a search
warrant for the Thompson home. Selden said Thompson asked, "So does this mean you're not going to be looking for Aarone?"
He told Thompson they would continue, and noted that Thompson
had a "defeated look" on his face after he said that. Then Lowe turned
to Thompson and gave her boyfriend a glaring look, as if she were upset
with the question and his reaction. Thompson faces 60 criminal counts, including child abuse resulting in death. Lowe died in 2006 from heart failure.

Aaron Thompson and Shelley Lowe were so
reclusive that they would run inside their Aurora home when neighbors
spotted them leaving the house, a neighbor testified Tuesday. "When they saw you there, they would go back into the house,"
Carol Rodriguez, a next-door neighbor, said during the trial of Aaron
Thompson. Thompson has been charged with 60 criminal counts in the death
of his daughter Aarone, who would have been 6 years old when he
reported her missing on Nov. 14, 2005. Rodriguez was one of several neighbors who testified in
Arapahoe County District Court that they hardly knew the family, even
though Lowe and Thompson lived there for almost four years. Craig Studley has lived on the cul-de-sac on East Kepner Place
since 1990. In the four years Thompson lived there, Thompson never
spoke to him, Studley said. He knew him "visually, but other than that,
not personally," Studley testified. Prosecutors and police have suggested that Lowe and Thompson
kept the family out of contact with other people to keep them from
talking about why Aarone was not around. Authorities believe Aarone died two years before she was reported missing.
Neighbor Jim Winski said in court that the only time he saw the
children was when they went to and from school. And even then, they
would run past his house, so he never had a chance to talk to them. Three neighbors testified that they thought only five children lived in the home.
Prosecutors continued to provide evidence on when they believe the little girl died.
Joseph Sumner, who was a special agent for the National Park
Service, testified about a photograph of Aarone and a boy, taken in
late spring or early summer of 2002, according to a grand-jury
indictment, at the Grand Canyon. Some of the children in the home have said that shortly after
that trip, Aarone stopped living with them. Aarone would have been
about 3 1/2 years old when the photo was taken. Sumner was asked by Aurora police to measure a rock at a
pullout of a road around the canyon where the picture was taken and to
examine the shadows to determine when it could have been shot. He said
it was likely taken sometime in June. The seven other children in the home have given conflicting
accounts of when they last saw Aarone. Detective Chris Fanning
testified that one of Lowe's daughters told him shortly after the
reported disappearance that the last time she had seen Aarone was
around Christmas 2003. But Thompson's defense team noted that while interviews with
other children in the home were videotaped, that statement by that
child was not.

A friend who became a police informant
testified Friday that Shelley Lowe told her in late summer or early
fall of 2004 that Aarone Thompson had died in her sleep more than a
year before.
Testifying in the trial of Aarone's father, Aaron Thompson, Tabitha Graves said Lowe contacted her because she wanted to talk.
Lowe, who was Thompson's live-in girlfriend, told Graves that Aarone
didn't come down for breakfast one day. When Lowe went to check on her,
she wasn't breathing, Graves said.
Lowe told Graves she shook Aarone to try to revive her then screamed for Thompson.
"Aaron said, 'What did you do? What did you do?' and Shelley said, 'I didn't do anything,' " Graves said.
At that point, according to Graves' testimony, Thompson asked Lowe
to leave the room. He closed and locked the door, Graves said, then
said he stayed with Aarone's body for several hours.
"I was in shock," Graves told the jury.
Graves' testimony in Arapahoe County District Court came at the end
of the second week in the trial of Aaron Thompson, who faces 60
criminal counts in the death of his daughter and the abuse of other
children living in his Aurora home. He reported his daughter had run
away in November 2005 over a fight over a cookie, although prosecutors
say she died two years earlier.
After Aarone's death, Lowe told Graves, Thompson took his daughter's body and was gone from the home for two days.
"I asked her how come she didn't call police," Graves said. "She said, 'You know, they could take my kids from me.' "
That is a different story than what Lowe's ex-boyfriend, Eric
Williams Sr., said Lowe told him. He testified that Lowe said Aarone
stopped breathing in the family's bathtub on East Kepner Place. He also
said Lowe told him the two went to gether to bury Aarone in a field far
away.
Graves was very quiet and almost inaudible at times on the stand
Friday, a sharp contrast to the screaming and cursing woman who helped
police secretly tape conversations she had with Lowe, who died in May
2006.
Graves said she hadn't seen Aarone for quite some time, but she
described her as a quiet and pretty girl. "She was this small, petite,
little girl," Graves said. "Very cute and and shy."

A 14-year-old girl testified in court Monday that the children living
with Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe were beaten so badly -- with a belt,
a cable TV cord, a baseball bat and bare fists -- that they would miss
school."I remember getting like, a little hit in the head. It
wasn't like full force," said the teenage witness, describing the
impact of the full size, wooden baseball bat. "All I know is (I did)
something small."The girl, identified as TL, is the very first
child to testify in person against her stepfather, Aaron Thompson. Her
mother, Lowe, died before she was arrested.Thompson
faces 60 criminal counts, most related to child abuse. He is also
accused of contributing to the death of his daughter, Aarone Thompson.Aaron
Thompson reported Aarone missing in November 2005. Police soon began to
suspect that the girl wasn't missing but had been dead for years.With
testimony from the girl, prosecutors on Monday painted a picture of a
house of horrors, where the kids were beaten on nearly a daily basis
for issues such as eating the wrong food or getting bad grades.In a quiet voice, TL described lots of pain when she was beaten by a bat, belt, cable cord, and fist.She said the beating occurred "almost every day.""Mostly
(one of the boys) would get beaten but ... all of us, really," she
said. The girl is now 14 but turns 15 Tuesday and told the jury she can
remember the "whoopin's" from around age 8."It hurt," she said.How often did these beating occur, the prosecutor asked."However many times my mom would tell Big Aaron to hit us," the girl said.But
there were lasting effects too, especially with the belt. The teen girl
said the belt would be used on their hands, with arms extended and
palms facing up. She would explain, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that
the soft part of the hand, below the thumb is where you'd feel it later."They
would turn colors," she said. "Like our hands would be swollen and we
couldn't move our fingers and stuff. We would have to hide it (at
school) by keeping it close to our body."When asked who gave those beatings, she was clear. "It was Big Aaron," the teen said.While
most of the kids told police about the beating on digital recordings
played earlier during the trial, the girl's descriptions were far more
vivid.She described in detail how the kids would stand hours on
end next to a fireplace and get beatings while naked, get beatings
while tied to a pole. The teen was describing how the basement was used
as a torture chamber."Sometimes we'd get tied to the pole downstairs, we would get a "whoopin' there," the witness said.The
jury was shown a light brown, wooden pole, extending from the ceiling
to the floor in the stark, white basement of Thompson's home on East
Kepner Place in Aurora.The girl told the jury she wasn't sure
exactly how many times she was tied to the pole with one of Lowe's
scarves, but she remembered one beating in particular when she was
naked."Most likely it was my grades. I had bad grades and so I
would go down to the basement. My mom would tell me to take all my
clothes off. I would get tied to the pole and then she would come down.
Big A was upstairs," she said.The teen said sometime, Lowe and
Thompson, would need refreshment in order to keep going -- using the
cable cord or the belt on a defenseless child, while a brother or
sister watched or held the victim's feet steady."Our mom would
call us down to bring her a glass of water. Or if he (Aaron) wanted
water, our mom would tell us to get it for him," TL said.TheDenverChannel
is not directly identifying the seven kids involved in this case
because they have not been charged and may be victims of abuse.One of the many questions asked of the teenager was why they were beaten."If we were to take their (Thompson and Lowe's) food. Theirs was name brand. The kids had generic (food)," the witness said.She told the jury that Aarone Thompson was also beaten."Only time I can remember was on her butt (with belt) by Big Aaron. Most likely (because) she peed on herself," the teen said.She
is expected to be only the first of several kids who will testify
against Thompson this week. She went on to describe how the oldest boy
-- Lowe's teenage brother -- was beaten by Lowe with her fists.The
teen said she did miss school after one painful beating in the
basement, when she was strapped to the pole, because she couldn't sit
down the next day.Aarone Last Seen In Closet

She also said that the last time she saw her step sister, Aarone, she was being punished and forced in the closet."She had got in trouble," the 14-year-old girl said.The teenager told the jury she found both of Aaron Thompson's kids in that closet, but that was not an unusual occurrence.The
girl said Thompson's two kids were the only two of the seven living in
the home at the time that had to go to the closet for punishment. The
other kids in the home -- Lowe's biological kids -- were not punished
in that way, she said.When the girl came home from Tollgate
Elementary School she said Aarone was gone. She and three siblings went
upstairs to the master bedroom to ask where Aarone was.The teen
said the kids were told by Lowe that Aarone had gone to Michigan to
stay with her mom, Lynette Thompson. Answering questions from
prosecutor Bob Chappell, the girl testified that Thompson was there at
the time, sitting on the side of the bed as Lowe talked.The teen
also said that on that day Aarone was reported missing -- Nov. 14 --
she was on the way home from school and dance class when Lowe stopped
at the Aurora Mall and asked the kids to go in and get some cookies.
When they got to the home on East Kepner Place, the police were there.Thompson had reported to police that Aarone ran away because of a fight over the cookies.The girl said the cookies may not have even been in the house until after Thompson made the missing person report.Later
that night, the teenager recalled seeing Thompson sitting next to Lowe
as she was explaining to all the kids exactly how to lie when police
asked about Aarone, including telling officers what Aarone was dressed
in Halloween costume, what her favorite color was, etc.After
Aarone was gone, the teen remembered seeing Lowe watching a movie with
several of the other kids around. Lowe then asked a strange question."If she had ever killed one of us, would we tell," TL said. "I wasn't really wantin' to answer the question.:When asked how Lowe appeared at the time, the teen said, "She was just normal."

Another child on Wednesday calmly named defendant Aaron Thompson as one
of two adults that made their Aurora home a torture chamber for seven
kids.The 12-year-old reiterated what the jury has heard before,
from other kids in the home. The boy said they were beaten with belts,
a triple-layer coaxial television cable and a bat. Sometimes, the kids
were tied up to the pole in the basement while they were beaten, and
forced to stand on the bricks of the fireplace with dumbbells in their
hands for hours on end. Sometimes, they would stand there for one day
or "two days."The boy's stepfather, Aaron Thompson, is currently
on trial, facing 60 charges, many of them relating to child abuse.
Thompson's live-in girlfriend and the mother of five of the children in
the home, died in 2006, before she was arrested.
The boy was asked about the cause of the beatings."I took
something from the kitchen. It was this little ... snack thing. It was
in the cupboard," the 12-year-old said. "Because it was Shely's."By this point the jury already knew the kids had different, "generic" food while Lowe and Thompson ate the name brand items.The
boy is the third of seven surviving kids to testify in person this
week. The first girl, on Monday, was clearly the strongest, refusing to
cry or let any emotions show through. The second girl, who testified on
Tuesday, is clearly improving, speaking clearer but still dealing with
what a social worker called "developmentally delayed" growth.But
there was something different about the way this boy, the first male,
who rarely looked up, spoke in a very soft but audible voice, and
answered every question prosecutor Bob Chappell asked of him.Like
whether "Big A" Thompson would hold the boy up by his feet, dangling
the child over the toilet to tell him, "This is where the poop goes." "Yes," the boy said.On Tuesday, a social worker told the jury this boy suffers from encopresis, an inability to control bowel movements.Police
found several pairs of boy's underwear, soiled and wrapped in plastic
grocery bags when they searched the Aurora home in 2005, searching for
Aarone Thompson, a girl in the home who was reported missing.The
soiled underwear would frequently earn the boy, who was eight at the
time this case came to police, excruciating pain, sometimes on "the
pole in the basement," he said."We would get tied down to it and
get beaten by the belt or the extension cord on the back," the boy
said. "It happened all the time."But they weren't whipped with
an extension cord from the hardware store. This was a collection of
three coaxial cables wrapped tightly together, with metal tips on the
end. In court, the boy identify several scars on his body from the cord.The
jury saw the photos on his back, which showed five scars; his left
hamstring, where there was a 2-inch vertical mark; and his right calf,
left knee, and his left forearm.The boy said the scars came "from the point of the extension cord."TheDenverChannel is not identifying the boy, nor any of his siblings, because they could be victims of abuse.While
quiet, the boy would also make powerful statements through his artwork.
The jury saw a very small drawing the boy had added to one wall of the
unpainted garage at 16551 East Kepner Place. It was no bigger than 4
inches around and appeared, from the back of the room, to be a dragon's
head.He was beaten for it, he said, by Lowe but also said, "He (Thompson) held me down on the couch."The
7th grader, who now lives with several brothers and sisters in a foster
home on a “small farm”, also depicted the way the kids were being
beaten, including “blood dripping from my sister”.He would say that drawing referred to Aarone Thompson, reported missing on November 14, 2005 but never found.The
witness testified he saw Aarone with blood dripping from her body as
she was getting beaten in the basement by both Aaron and Shely with
“the extension cord.”Chappell found that one of the children in the drawing was the boy himself."What's he saying?" Chappell asked."I'm sorry," the boy said."When you were getting hit with the belt by Big A, were you saying you were sorry?" Chappell followed."Yes," the boy said."Did that make it stop?" the prosecutor asked."No," the child answered.He
recalled seeing the metal buckle on the belt, admitted as evidence in
the trial, fly off as Aaron used it on another child in the basement.
Besides eating the wrong food, the reasons form the beatings included
"run(ning) around the house making noise, playing, (a bad) report card
, potty accidents, and one boy who 'left his clothes on the basement
floor ... (he was) supposed to pick them up."

The Aaron Thompson trial switched from the prosecution to the defense
Wednesday morning with what was allegedly said by the defendant in jail.“Sometimes you just snap and deal with the consequences.”“It’s easy to hide a body. You just have to bury it deep enough.”
Both are statements allegedly made by Aaron Thompson in jail earlier this year.His defense team wants to go after those statements as their first day in control of the case begins.After 21 days of prosecution witnesses, an Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department staffer took the stand at 8:45 a.m.Nancy
Sibak is the housing administrator at the jail, just across the parking
lot from the Arapahoe County Justice center where the trial us under
way.Sibak identified when convict Jessie Reynolds and Thompson could have been near each other.Reynolds was one of the big surprise witnesses in the prosecution’s parade of adults, children, neighbors, teachers, and nuns.He told the jury that in January of this year, he was watching TV with a bunch of other inmates at the jail.Reynolds said one of the inmates was Thompson.A story on a cable news show centered on a missing Florida girl, Caylee Anthony.The girl’s body was found in a trash bag near the home and now her mother is suspected of involvement in her death.Reynolds said there was talk about how a parent could allegedly do something like that.At that point, Reynolds testified he heard someone say, “Sometimes you just snap and deal with the consequences.”He said he also heard Thompson say, “It’s easy to hide a body, you just have to bury it deep enough.”But today, defense attorney James Karbach was able to raise new questions about the convict’s testimony.Deputy
Matt Miller Wednesday told the jury he is the jailer Reynolds first
talked to on Jan. 13, 2009 but he did not recall Reynolds saying he
heard Thompson utter the “snap” comment.He also told the jury
that while he typed up some notes for himself, believing he would be
called to testify some day, he did not write a formal report on the
discussion with Reynolds, as he normally would do in a high-profile
case.He was asked by defense attorney Karback why he didn’t print up his own notes and give those to a supervisor.“I didn’t think about it,” Miller said.Miller told the jury that he asked Reynolds to write a witness statement.He said Reynolds did so, writing a one page, handwritten statement that has now been lost.Deputy
Stefan Gallegos is the intelligence officer within the jail, charged
with passing on information that may aid law enforcement or protect
inmates.Gallegos said he did write a report about his
conversation with Deputy Miller, but also did not recall Reynolds’s
statement about Thompson allegedly saying, “Sometimes you just snap.”Under
cross-examination, prosecutor Bob Chappell asked deputy Miller if he
was aware that the sheriff’s department had been “looking high and low”
for the written statement from Reynolds over the past couple of days.Miller said he was..Reynolds also came back to court Wednesday.Since
testifying Aug. 19, he has been involuntarily placed in solitary
confinement by the Department of Corrections, Reynolds said, due to
media coverage.While he told the jury last month he was
testifying in the Thompson trial simply because he was offended by the
statements, he also wrote a letter that same day to prosecutor
Chappell, asking for money. “There’s no way I will survive
mentally, without something to alleviate the boredom,” Reynolds wrote
in a letter while asking if he might be eligible for a Crimestoppers
reward of $800 for his testimony against Thompson. “I had a radio but
that was stolen once they found out I was a snitch.”Reynolds told the jury he wanted to buy a TV and a radio for the cell he now occupies 23 hours a day.“People’s minds start to play with them … You get stupid ideas when you’re in a place like that,” Reynolds said.

The defense has rested it's case in the trial of an Aurora man charged with fatal child abuse.Aaron
Thompson is charged with 60 criminal counts in the disappearance of his
daughter, Aarone. The defense wrapped up Wednesday afternoon. Closing
arguments are scheduled for Friday with the jury beginning its
deliberations on Monday.For a time, it appeared that Thompson
would take the stand in his own defense. Thompson asked the judge for
time to consider testifying, but eventually declined.
The defense spent Wednesday trying to cast doubt about two statements Thompson allegedly made while in jail this year:“Sometimes you just snap and deal with the consequences.”“It’s easy to hide a body. You just have to bury it deep enough.”After
21 days of testimony from prosecution witnesses, an Arapahoe County
Sheriff’s Department staffer took the stand at 8:45 a.m.Nancy
Sibak is the housing administrator at the jail, just across the parking
lot from the Arapahoe County Justice center where the trial is under
way.Sibak identified when convict Jessie Reynolds and Thompson could have been near each other.Reynolds was one of the big surprise witnesses in the prosecution’s parade of adults, children, neighbors, teachers and nuns.He
told the jury that in January of this year, he was watching TV with a
bunch of other inmates at the jail. Reynolds said one of the inmates
was Thompson.A story on a cable news show centered on a missing
Florida girl, Caylee Anthony. The girl’s body was found in a trash bag
near the home and her mother is suspected of involvement in her death.Reynolds said there was talk about how a parent could allegedly do something like that.At that point, Reynolds testified he heard someone say, “Sometimes you just snap and deal with the consequences.”He said he also heard Thompson say, “It’s easy to hide a body, you just have to bury it deep enough.”Today, defense attorney James Karbach was able to raise new questions about the convict’s testimony.Deputy
Matt Miller Wednesday told the jury he is the jailer Reynolds first
talked to on Jan. 13, 2009, but he did not recall Reynolds saying he
heard Thompson utter the “snap” comment. He also told the jury
that while he typed up some notes for himself, believing he would be
called to testify some day, he did not write a formal report on the
discussion with Reynolds, as he normally would do in a high-profile
case.He was asked by defense attorney Karbach why he didn’t print up his own notes and give those to a supervisor.“I didn’t think about it,” Miller said.Miller told the jury that he asked Reynolds to write a witness statement.He said Reynolds did so, writing a one page, handwritten statement that has now been lost.Deputy
Stefan Gallegos is the intelligence officer within the jail, charged
with passing on information that may aid law enforcement or protect
inmates. Gallegos said he did write a report about his
conversation with Deputy Miller, but also did not recall Reynolds’
statement about Thompson allegedly saying, “Sometimes you just snap.”
Under cross-examination, prosecutor Bob Chappell asked deputy Miller if
he was aware that the sheriff’s department had been “looking high and
low” for the written statement from Reynolds over the past couple of
days.Miller said he was.Reynolds also came back to court Wednesday.Since
testifying Aug. 19, he has been involuntarily placed in solitary
confinement by the Department of Corrections, Reynolds said, due to
media coverage.While he told the jury last month he was
testifying in the Thompson trial simply because he was offended by the
statements, he also wrote a letter that same day to prosecutor
Chappell, asking for money. “There’s no way I will survive
mentally, without something to alleviate the boredom,” Reynolds wrote
in a letter while asking if he might be eligible for a Crimestoppers
reward of $800 for his testimony against Thompson. “I had a radio but
that was stolen once they found out I was a snitch.”Reynolds told the jury he wanted to buy a TV and a radio for the cell he now occupies 23 hours a day.“People’s minds start to play with them … You get stupid ideas when you’re in a place like that,” Reynolds said.

Closing arguments in the Aaron Thompson trial have been continued
after the prosecution turned over 100 pages of evidence and discovery
on Thursday.

Arapahoe County prosecutors say they have found a car considered a key piece of
evidence against Thompson who is on trial for the disappearance and
presumed death of his daughter, Aarone Thompson.

Thompson is charged with child abuse resulting in death, rather than murder,
because the prosecution has been unable to present any direct evidence
that Thompson killed his daughter. She was reported missing in 2005,
when she would have been 6. Investigators believe she died two years
earlier.

On Wednesday, Thompson's defense attorneys rested
shortly after 3 p.m. following Thompson's refusal to take the stand.
The defense attorneys had been presenting evidence and testimony since
9 a.m.

Initially the defense and prosecution teams were set to
spend Thursday working with the judge to come up with jury
instructions. That meant closing arguments would start Friday morning.

Plans changed Thursday morning following the prosecutions release of 100
pages of discovery. State court spokesman Robert McCallum said Thursday
the defense has now been granted an opportunity to review the evidence
and discovery.

McCallum believes additional testimony regarding the new findings may be possible. As a result the jury is
still in recess but subject to call.

McCallum added that it's unclear why prosecutors waited until Thursday to reveal they had found the Ford Mustang on Aug. 31.

It is unclear when jury instructions will resume. Because Thompson was
indicted on 60 counts, deliberations could take two to three days.

During Wednesday's testimony, Thompson's lawyers played a 94-minute videotaped
interview of Shely Lowe's oldest son with two Aurora Police detectives.
Lowe was Thompson's live-in girlfriend.

After nearly six weeks of testimony, the jury in the Aaron Thompson trial got the case late Tuesday afternoon.

Prosecutors have charged Thompson with dozens of criminal counts, the most serious
being child abuse resulting in the death of his daughter Aarone.

The jury will return Wednesday morning where deliberations will begin in earnest.

Closing arguments in the case began Tuesday morning at the Arapahoe County Courthouse and took the better part of the day.

"They have the burden of proof and there is reasonable doubt throughout this
case," defense attorney James Karbach told the jury during his closing.

Prosecutor Robert Chappell told jurors Thompson is charged with child abuse, not
homicide, and said Thompson is guilty even if he stood by as his
girlfriend killed Aarone.

Chappell described a horrific home
in which the children were routinely beat with belts, television cords
and a baseball bat. The children became used to abuse, the prosecutor
said.

"They don't know you don't get beaten every day," Chappell said. He later urged the jury, "Do justice for these kids."

Chappell spent the better part of Tuesday morning methodically outlining the
district attorney's case. There were, after all, 60 criminal counts in
all, many dealing with the child abuse allegations made by the other
children living in the Thompson home.

However, it is clearly the death of Aarone Thompson which lies at the very center of the case.

Aaron Thompson reported his daughter missing back in 2005. Police quickly
believed, however, that the girl had likely been dead for as many as
two years.

Despite a massive investigation, detectives have
not been able to locate the body of Aarone. In fact, this lengthy trial
has done little to come up with a definitive answer to the question:
What exactly happened to Aarone?

Karbach, said that Thompson helped cover up the girl's death, but shouldn't be found guilty of causing it.

"There is no body. There is no cause of death," Karbach said.

Prosecutors clearly want the jury to believe this was a conspiracy on the part of
Aaron Thompson from the very moment he notified police of the
disappearance and, as alleged, told the other children to lie about her
whereabouts.

The defense planned to present its closing
arguments Tuesday afternoon, possibly pointing the finger at Thompson's
live-in girlfriend, Shely Lowe. Lowe passed away in 2006.

The jury in the Aaron Thompson case went
home for the weekend today after 2½ days of deliberations and will be
back behind closed doors on Monday to decide his fate.
Thompson is on trial in Arapahoe County District Court, facing 57
counts in the death of his daughter, Aaroné, and the abuse of other
children living in his Aurora home.
Aaroné would have been 6 years old when her father reported her
missing in November 2005. He said she ran away after a argument over a
cookie. Authorities, however, believe she died two years earlier.
Aaroné's body has not been found.

The jury in the Aaron Thompson case finished its seventh day of deliberations without a verdict.
Thompson is on trial in the death of his daughter, Aaroné, who would
have been 6 years old when he reported her missing in November 2005.
Prosecutors, however, said she died two years earlier.
Thompson has been charged with 57 criminal counts, including child abuse resulting in death and abuse of a corpse.
Many of the charges are related to the abuse of other children living in the Thompson home on East Kepner Place in Aurora.
The six-week trial in Arapahoe County District Court was filled with emotional testimony, as six of the children took the stand.
Jurors heard the kids all say that they were beaten by either
Thompson or Shelley Lowe, his live-in girlfriend, with belts, extension
cords and even a bat. But there was no evidence presented by the prosecution that directly
linked Thompson to the death of his daughter. Her body has not been
found. The jury could be struggling with the charges related to Aaroné.
Lowe died of heart failure in 2006.

Jurors in the Aaron Thompson case went home for the weekend Friday,
finishing their eighth day of deliberations without a verdict.Thompson faces 57 counts, including child abuse resulting in death in connection with the death of his daughter, Aarone.

Closing arguments wrapped up more than a week ago following six weeks of testimony.

Aaron Thompson reported his daughter missing in 2005. Police quickly
believed, however, the girl had likely been dead for as many as two
years.

Despite a massive investigation, detectives have not been able to locate the body of Aarone.

Prosecutors want the jury to believe Aarone's death and the hiding of her body was
a conspiracy on the part of Aaron Thompson from the very moment he
notified police of the disappearance and, as alleged, told the other
children who were living in the home to lie about her whereabouts.

The defense said Thompson's live-in girlfriend, Shely Lowe, was responsible
for Aarone's death and there was not enough evidence to convict
Thompson on the most serious charges. Lowe passed away in 2006.

Nine days into its deliberations, it appears the jury in the Aaron Thompson trial is close to reaching a final verdict.
On Monday, shortly before the lunch hour, Judge Valeria Spencer
informed the courtroom that jurors had reached consensus on 51 of the
57 charges. It appears as if the jury is stuck on six counts. It is
unknown which charges remain undecided, but earlier in the day jurors
asked Spencer a question in relation to an abuse of a corpse charge.

Spencer
told the jury to continue deliberating on the unresolved counts. It is
unclear how long the jury would want to deliberate, or if the issue
will eventually lead to a hung jury on those particular charges.

Prosecutors
have charged Thompson with 57 criminal counts. The most serious of the
charges involves child abuse resulting in the death of Aarone Thompson.
Aaron Thompson reported his daughter Aarone missing in 2005, but Aurora
police quickly suspected that the girl had likely been dead for as many
as two years.

Deliberations started in earnest on Sept. 16. Since then the jury has worked behind closed doors.

Jurors have found Aaron Thompson guilty of one count of child abuse
resulting in death in the disappearance and presumed death of his young
daughter.

The charge was one of 55 in a verdict delivered by jurors Monday after nine days of deliberation.

A mistrial was declared on two other charges.

Thompson
was charged with fatal child abuse and other crimes in the death of
Aarone Thompson. Thompson reported his daughter missing in November
2005, when she would have been 6.

Authorities believed she may have died about two years earlier. Her body has not been found.

Aaron Thompson was convicted this
afternoon on 31 of 55 counts, including the most serious charge of
child abuse resulting in the death of his daughter Aaroné.
After nine days of deliberation, an Arapahoe County jury returned
guilty verdicts on charges including child abuse resulting in death and
conspiracy to commit child abuse resulting in death, related to the
presumed death of Aaroné, who would have been 6 years old when her
father reported her missing in November 2005. Her body has not been
found.
The jury however, found Thompson not guilty on 22 counts, most of
them child abuse charges resulting from the testimony of the older
teens among seven children in the Aurora home Thompson
shared with his girlfriend, Shelley Lowe. Lowe died of natural causes in 2006.
As the first verdicts were read — all 21 of them guilty — Thompson
and his defense team appeared stunned. Thompson closed his eyes, then
slumped in his chair.
Earlier in the day, jurors told Judge Valeria Spencer that they
could not reach consensus in two of the most vexing counts in the case,
abuse of a corpse and conspiracy to commit abuse of a corpse. She
declared a mistrial on those charges.
Spencer also set a sentencing hearing for Nov. 10. Some of the jurors asked Spencer if they could be present for sentencing.
Earlier in the day, the jury also was wrestling with two abuse
charges involving related to the "whupping" of one Shelley Lowe's sons,
who gave some of the most emotional and conflicting testimony during
the trial. Ultimately the jury chose to find Thompson not guilty of
those counts.
Thompson originally faced 60 charges, but some were dropped or combined.
The jury began deliberations Sept. 16.
During nearly six weeks of testimony, some of the children of
Thompson and Lowe testified that they were routinely beaten by the two
with belts, extension cords and even a bat.
Thompson reported his daughter missing in November 2005, saying she ran away because he would not give her more cookies.
A massive police search ensued, but authorities quickly focused on
Thompson and Lowe as possible suspects in Aaroné's death. After three
days, human services took custody of the children.
Aaroné's body has not been found, and no one knows the exact cause of her death.
But a former boyfriend of Lowe testified that she told him Aaroné
stopped breathing in the bathtub and that Lowe and Thompson buried her
in a field.
One of the children of Lowe testified that the last time she saw
Aaroné was after Thompson had beaten the little girl in the bathroom.
Defense attorneys acknowledged that Thompson lied to police in the cover-up and tried to pin the girl's death on Lowe.

A father found guilty in September of child abuse resulting in death in
the disappearance and presumed death of Aarone Thompson will be
sentenced Tuesday.Aaaron Thompson was found guilty on 31 counts
ranging from conspiracy to commit child abuse, false reporting to
authorities, concealing death, conspiracy to conceal death, child abuse
resulting in injury and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.The
jury in September could not reach a unanimous decision on two counts --
abuse of a corpse and conspiracy to commit abuse of a corpse -- so a
mistrial was declared on those two charges.
Attorney Phil Cherner said the first three guilty charges alone will probably put Thompson in prison for the rest of his life.Jurors said that they decided early on that Thompson was guilty of child abuse resulting in death."That was taken care of pretty quick," said Juror No. 2166, who did not wish to be identified. "I'd say it took two days."Juror No. 2019 agreed -- Thompson killed his daughter, although prosecutors never said exactly how."The
evidence was left very unclear and left for some interpretation. But
overall, I had no issue with that," Juror No. 2019 said.Prosecutors expressed relief over the mixed verdict, knowing that Thompson was found guilty of the most serious charges."It's
one step closer for justice for Aarone. I think if you were ask that
question to the police, to (Detective) Randy Hansen, I think they would
say justice would be the day that they find her body," said prosecutor
Bob Chappell.Defense attorneys said after the trial they would appeal the verdict.Thompson
showed no emotion when the verdict was read in the packed Arapahoe
County courtroom in September. Throughout the trial, he did not move
nor speak."The members of this jury heard children testify about
unspeakable abuses that they endured for many years in the Thompson
household and about the hellish world that they woke up to every
morning. And they heard about a little girl who spent much of her short
life confined to a coat closet and who disappeared into thin air one
morning and has never been heard from or seen from again, " said Aurora
Police Chief Dan Oates.Even though prosecutors believed Aarone was killed years ago -- perhaps in 2004 or earlier -- her body has never been found.Thompson
reported Aarone missing in November 2005, when she would have been 6,
but prosecutors believe she may have died about two years earlier.A
lot of the testimony over the six-week trial came from the seven
children who lived in the home with Thompson and his girlfriend, Shely
Lowe. All but one of the children testified in person, saying they
suffered horrific abuse at the hands of Thompson and Lowe.The jury also heard more than 24 hours of video-recorded and audio-recorded testimony.Thompson
did not testify during the trial. His attorneys admit that Thompson
lied about what happened to Aarone, but that he did not kill her.
Defense attorneys blame Lowe for killing Aarone.According to the
charges, the jury found that Thompson was guilty of killing Aarone and
covering her body, but found him not guilty of some of the child abuse
charges resulting from the testimony of the older teens.