WATERVILLE — Trista Reynolds, the mother of missing toddler Ayla Reynolds, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” today that she and the girl’s father have been unable to get along in the last few weeks.
“I’ve had no contact with him; he’s had no contact with me. All I know is he’s the last man to see my daughter, and all I want to know is where she is,” she said.
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The 20-month-old Ayla was reported missing Saturday morning by her father, Justin DiPietro, who called police to say she was not in her bed in Waterville.
Investigators interviewed the father and the mother, who lives in Portland, as well as other family members, police said.
The girl was last seen Friday night wearing green one-piece pajamas with polka dots and the words “Daddy’s Princess” on them; she had a soft cast on her left arm.
Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey has said Ayla’s broken arm was from an accidental fall.
A phone number for the father couldn’t immediately be located. Police outside his house today in Waterville said he was not there, and the girl’s disappearance remains a missing-persons case.
As the search entered its third day, a Maine Warden Service plane circled overhead, wardens searched a stream near the father’s house and residents joined in canvassing the neighborhood for any signs of Ayla.
Wardens focused most efforts today on Messalonskee Stream, and the FBI and Maine State Police were helping Waterville police investigate, said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Many residents joined in the search. Carrie Harvey, who lives nearby, found a sippy cup lid in the neighborhood and turned it over to a warden.
“It’s sad. Christmas is right around the corner. My heart cries out for that lady,” Harvey, a mother of five, said of Ayla’s mother.
The father moved four to six weeks ago to his childhood home on Violette Street in a tidy neighborhood of ranch houses built after World War II, a neighbor said. A few blocks away is a park, alongside the stream.
A state police evidence van was parked outside DiPietro’s gray, vinyl-sided bungalow on Monday, and two state troopers were stationed outside.
“It’s just so sad, so sad. I hope we end up with a live child,” said Ellen Paul, a retired Colby College employee who lives across the street from DiPietro’s home. “I’m heartbroken for anybody to go through that kind of pain.”
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