Witnesses: Custodial dad often kept 6-year-old girl in closet; girl has been "missing" since at least 2005 (Centennial, Colorado)

The murder trial of custodial dad AARON THOMPSON continues in Colorado. The details from the poor daughter's life with this monster just get more outrageous every day. Now the other kids are testifying that the daughter was often kept in a closet near the front door of the house. DNA evidence has backed up their claims. Dad originally abducted the kids from their mother in Michigan, who was then unable to determine what happened to them till this case blew open.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20715047/detail.html

Aarone's DNA Profile Found In 'Punishment Place'
DNA Expert Says Clothes ‘Never Worn’
By Tyler Lopez, 7NEWS Reporter

POSTED: 6:41 pm MDT September 3, 2009
UPDATED: 7:45 pm MDT September 3, 2009

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- When Aarone Thompson lived in the Aurora home she shared with her dad, his girlfriend and seven other children, she was often in the closet, according to the final witness in the Aaron Thompson criminal trial.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Yvonne Woods testified late Thursday afternoon that extensive DNA testing for Aarone's presence found more profiles in a closet than in what her dad had claimed was the child's bedroom.

Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, Woods told the jury, is the "genetic blueprint" and will only be replicated in identical twins and triplets.

Woods started analyzing evidence taken from the home at 16551 E. Kepner Place just four days after Aarone was reported missing by her father, the defendant, on Nov. 14, 2005.

Aurora police never believed that the 6-year-old girl ran away after a fight over cookies, as Thompson maintained in a video recorded police interview shown to the jury earlier in the trial.

After three days of searching with 80 to 100 officers per day, police removed all seven children from the home to get them away from Thompson and live-in girlfriend Shely Lowe, in part because they suspected abuse in the home.

Thompson now faces 60 criminal charges, most related to child abuse.

Most of the first 20 days of the trial have centered on what those seven kids -- ranging in age from 8 to 15 -- told police at various stages of the nearly four-year, ongoing investigation.

At first, they all lied, saying they'd seen Aarone in bed with a sister on the day she was reported missing.

Later, nearly all of them would admit they never saw Aarone that day and some would say they had been told to lie to police during a meeting in a bedroom with Lowe and Thompson. Lowe did the talking, and Thompson mostly sat on the bed, listening, the children said.

On Thursday, Woods both backed up and refuted some of the stories police had been told about Aarone.

Six of the seven kids said that Aarone was put into a closet near the front door of the home a lot, most often for wetting the bed.

The jury heard another recorded conversation Thursday between the lead detective in the case, Randy Hansen, and the oldest girl in the house, who said Aarone and an older boy spent a lot of time there, behind a closed door.

"'Cause that's their punishment place," the 14-year-old girl told police. "It was only them two."

Woods told the jury that testing swabs collected on Feb. 28, 2007, from the inside of that closet, matched Aarone's DNA, as did the DNA found on the inside of the door, the bottom edge of the door, a wall on the inside and the doorframe.

Woods got the "known" or "reference" sample from a pair of purple pants.

Those pants are seen in a photo of Aarone, taken at the Grand Canyon in the summer of 2003. The prosecution has argued that the picture taken of Aarone and an older boy from the home is the last known picture of her. She was wearing a purple outfit in that picture.

Woods told the jury she compared all other samples collected to that one, to look for a match that meant Aarone was -- with a "reasonable degree of scientific certainty" -- the main contributor of a particular DNA sample.

The closet is the "biggest" part of the prosecution's case so far, taking up far more room than any other exhibit in the courtroom.

Aurora police built a wooden replica of that closet, measuring roughly 3 feet across, 6 feet long and 4.5 feet tall, and wheeled it into court on Friday.

Woods also testified that several pieces of clothing Lowe and Thompson claimed were Aarone's, including a white jacket, were "extraordinarily clean and apparently hasn't been worn."

Woods also testified she did not find Aarone's DNA on several items taken from a bedroom where police had been told four girls slept on bunk beds.

A comforter, two bedsheets, and two pillowcases did not contain DNA from Aarone, but did have profiles of other children in the home, Woods said.

One child told police he saw Thompson holding a bloody hairbrush while apparently beating Aarone in a bathtub, just before the child disappeared.

But Woods told the jury Thursday she did not find any of Aarone's DNA on that hairbrush.

Woods is the last witness for the prosecution but will return Tuesday for more direct testimony and cross-examination.

The jury is off Friday, due to a scheduling issue surrounding Judge Valeria Spencer, and off Monday due to the Labor Day holiday.

The defense will argue after Woods is finished that Thompson should be acquitted on all or some of the counts against him. Defense attorneys have admitted that Thompson lied and covered up the girl's death, but that he did not kill Aarone.

The defense will likely not start putting on its own witnesses until after the lunch break on Tuesday.