Mother’s Day is that one day of the year where everyone gathers to show their appreciation for the moms in their life. A day where mothers are in the spotlight, for being moms. Mother’s Day 2021 was no exception in the Bailey home. Everyone was awake, the kids were making breakfast, there was just one thing missing. Where was Tristyn Bailey?
At around 9:40am, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Tristyn’s siblings went to wake her up to help with breakfast, but she wasn’t in her room. The family searched the house and the immediate area but could not find the 13 year old girl.
Her father, Forrest Bailey, searched the area of the north amenities center, but she wasn’t there either.
At about 10am her mother, Stacy Bailey, called 911. She described Tristyn as a 13-year-old girl, approximately 5 feet 4 inches, 130 pounds, a 7th grade student who attended Patriot Oaks Academy. Stacy said Tristyn was last seen at approximately midnight by one of her siblings and was supposed to be sleeping in her bedroom. She said, to her knowledge, Tristyn had never snuck out of the house before.
She reported that Tristyn’s cell phone was not in her bedroom and when she called it, it went straight to voicemail. Locations including Snapchat locations were turned off, and despite Tristyn once having her location visible in the Life 360 app, she had stopped sharing it.
Stacy told her that Tristyn was in three different cheerleading squads and had recently been spending time with friends in the neighborhood. She had been a bit “stand-offish” lately, and spent a lot of time in her room, but that night she didn’t seem upset. Tristyn had never said anything about running away, or harming herself. She wasn’t on any medications, but admittedly felt she “didn’t do anything right.”
She didn’t have a boyfriend.
Authorities immediately got to work. A missing child alert was issued and sheriff’s deputies, friends, and neighbors began to search the area, the school, the recreation center and even a nearby veterans park.
St. Johns County Sheriff’s Deputy, Kurt Hannon, ordered a “ping” order for Tristyn’s ell phone, in an effort to narrow their search area. Deputy Robert Maloney and Deputy Liam Stack moved forward with interviewing people she had been in recent communication with. They started with Doffis “Tre” Absher III.
Tre reported that Tristyn had gone to his house at approximately 12:30am, sneaking around the north side to avoid the homes’ security cameras. Another friend, Aiden Fucci, also a 7th grade student at Patriot Oaks Academy, was there, and he and Tristyn left together. He was also able to report that she was wearing a black and gray t-shirt with the word “PINK” across the front, and black sweatpants.
Detective Maloney moved on to interview Aiden. With his mother’s permission, he showed the detective where he and Tristyn went after leaving Tre’s house. He said they walked to North Durbin Parkway. Multiple witnesses confirmed seeing Trisyn at the Durbin Amenity center at approximately 1:15am. Surveillance cameras also spotted the pair walking past the main entrance at 1:24am.
The pair were again spotted on surveillance video, this time near Saddlestone drive, walking in the direction of a pond. The time: 1:45am. Aiden said Tristyn turned onto Cloisterbane Drive to go home then he walked back along North Durbin Parkway until he returned home, at approximately 3 or 3:30am., however,
The walking distance from Tre’s house to Aiden’s was approximately 1.4 miles – according to Google Maps. The walk shouldn’t have taken more than 30 minutes, yet, according to Aiden’s timeline, it took him nearly 2 hours to make the trek. Questioned, Aiden changed his story.
Aiden reported that he and Tristyn had continued to walk along North Durbin Parkway, and got into a fight near the 600 block of North Durbin, just north of Leith Hall Drive. Tristyn had allegedly grabbed his penis, after which he pushed her to the ground, causing her to hit her head.
He said he didn’t remember if he saw Tristyn get up or not, claiming he was dizzy from smoking marijuana earlier that evening at Tre’s house. Regardless, he claimed that after the fight he “walked around alone for a while.” He did have a tip for police though – check out the drug dealer that she talks to via Snapchat. Aiden also suggested they look for her near the path by the North Amenities Center – an area known for teenage drug use.
At this point, Detective Maloney believed a crime had been committed, and he advised Aiden of his Constitutional rights. He invoked his rights and declined to provide any further statement. They returned him to the North Amenities Center, which is when he and his parents requested an attorney.
At this point, it was 3pm, and Tristyn had been missing for more than 12 hours. Corporal Justin Ackerman of the Special Victims Unit, went to the home of two of Tristyn’s friends, Samantha and Lina Creel. No one was home, but he was able to reach their father, Jerry, over the phone.
Jerry reported that his daughter, Lina, had contacted Tre earlier, and was informed that Tristyn and another boy had snuck out in the middle of the night and were hanging around the North Amenities Center. Tre told her that the boy went home, but Tristyn was going to hang out with a 22-year-old drug dealer named “Karlo.”
Finally, around 3:30pm, the ping results were back. They showed her phone to be somewhere in a 2,500-meter radius from that central location. That placed the center of the radius within a wooded area, south of the Loop Nursery, located at 4842 Racetrack Road. Unfortunately the pings were all old; the phone was no longer sending signals.
At this point, Deputy Hannon submitted a request for 30 days of Tristyn’s call and text detail records, looking for a pattern in her communication, hoping any deviation would provide them with a new lead.
At approximately 4:30, Deputy Hannon received an email from SJSO Communications. The email contained a photo attachment of a snapchat message. The message depicted Aiden in the back seat of a patrol car, taking a selfie while holding up the peace sign. On the message was a text banner reading, “Hey guys has anybody seen Tristyn lately.”
The Snapchat message was forwarded at least twice, and included additional text banners reading, “Wtf Aiden,” and “You were with her Aiden u know what happened to her.”
Deputy Hannon reported the Snapchat message to the chain of command and the investigative team. He requested through the patrol supervisor that Aiden’s phone be seized, believing it contained evidence related to their investigation.
At about 5pm, they were finally able to open Tristyn’s call and text detail records. These records showed that her last outgoing call was on May 7, at approximately 9pm. The records did not show any calls or texts for May 8. As for the rest of the calls and text records, they were all incoming, all starting around the time Tristyn was discovered missing.
It was ultimately a neighbor who found her. After returning from a run, Daniel Hart conducted his own search. There, in a wooded area, approximately 80 feet from the southernmost retention pond south of the Durbin Creek Nursery, located at 4286 Racetrack Road, was the body of Tristyn Bailey. She was lying on her right side, her head pointing to the east, looking north, and her feet pointed west.
Tristyn’s right leg was bent slightly at the knee and her left leg was bent at a 90-degree angle at the knee. Her right arm was extended with a slight bend at the elbow and her left arm was bent at the elbow with her hand touching her chin. She was wearing a black Victoria Secret shirt with the word PINK on the front, black Nike brand sweatpants and black and white slip-on Vans brand shoes.
Her hair, normally blonde, was matted and red. You could see multiple sharp force injury wounds on her hands, arms, neck and she appeared to have additional sharp force trauma injuries to her back, evident by the holes in her shirt.
Her cell phone was found nearby, with a gold-toned ring, a $20 bill, and a pink vape. Crime Scene Technician, Marilyn Butts also reported finding a possible shoe impression in the area, as well as a Powerade bottle near the pond.
Butts collected Tristyn’s cell phone after she had finished processing the scene, and later transferred it to Detective David Causey with Digital Forensics to be processed.
At 6:40pm, Detective Thompson returned to Aiden Fucci’s home. There he found Deputies Ralph Papovitch and Alan Daniels. The family wasn’t home. In the meantime, the house was secured with crime scene tape as they waited for their search warrant.
Noting that Aiden had a different address on record with the school, Patriot Oaks Academy, Detective Toubaili went to investigate. There he found Andy Akel, the cousin of Aiden’s step-father. He told police that Aiden didn’t actually live there, that he allowed Aiden’s family to use his address in order to register Aiden at Patriot Oaks Academy.
Around 8pm, Detective Holland returned to the home of Tre Absher. There he interviewed his father, Doffis Absher Jr.
Doffis stated that his son was friends with Aiden, and he knew Aiden’s family. He told the detective that he had woken his son up at 7am that morning, and that’s when he learned that Aiden had been at their home overnight and hung out for a while. While he did not know Tristyn, he did learn after the police’s first visit to his house that morning, that she had also been over that previous evening.
He told Detective Holland that he had security cameras on his house, however his son knew their locations, and had become good at evading them.
Aiden was detained at the North Amenities Center. While doing his pat-down for weapons, Deputy Malone found a blue-handled folding knife. Not noticing anything suspicious about the knife, he turned it over to Aiden’s father, Jason.
The knife later came up missing. Jason claimed he had placed the knife on the bumper of his truck at the North Amenities Center. When he left, he forgot about it and it must have fallen off of his truck somewhere. A search for the knife turned up nothing.
At 8:49pm, Aiden, along with his mother and father, were placed in Interview Room 2 at CID. The room was set up for both audio and video recording. His parents advised him not to speak about any possible involvement he may have had. They told him to not speak until his attorney arrived, and then notified him that the room was being recorded.
Before the detective came in to interview him, Crystal and Jason asked their son about the incident.
Crystal told Aiden that Tristyn was found in their neighborhood. Aiden asked, “Is she good?”
“No, she’s dead. That’s why this is very important. It’s all on you right now.”
“How is it my problem?”
His parents told him that he was the last person known to have seen her. They told him that the Snapchat he posted in the back of the police car wasn’t a smart idea, and they have been receiving threats because of it.
Jason asked Aiden if he had any scrapes or anything on him.
“No sir.”
He asked his son if he told police anything different, which neither he nor his mother knew. Aiden said he did not, but went on to explain that he told the police Tristyn probably got picked up by her drug dealer. He told them Tristyn was not going to go home and was going to find someone to stay with.
Crystal questioned him about where Tristyn had gone after he left her. He claimed he didn’t know, that she probably just kept walking. That’s when his father jumped in and reminded his son that he had pushed her down, then kept walking. Then he cut himself off, “We probably shouldn’t be talking in here.”
But he didn’t stop talking. He stated, “You walked away. You came straight home. You didn’t turn back around to see where she went?”
Aiden shook his head no.
“What were you doing outside that late at night?”
Aiden stated he was at Tre’s house hanging out.
His father asked, “Did you kiss or do anything with them?”
Aiden stated he kissed Tristyn and denied doing anything else.
“So your DNA is going to be on her?” he asked.
Aiden did not respond.
Jason continued, “We saw your shoes were off on the camera. Why were your shoes off?”
“Because my feet were hurting. And those shoes give me blisters.”
Crystal asked her son if he came home then snuck back out again, or if he was at Tre’s house the whole day, to which Aiden responded that he had been at Tre’s all day.
His father informed him that because of the Snapchat he and Tre took in the back of the police car, people on social media believed the boys raped and murdered Tristyn.
Aiden remained silent.
Worried, Crystal asked Jason if he thought Aiden was going to be kept with the police. Jason stated he did not know, there was no evidence he knew of. He asked Aiden if he knew anything else that they didn’t.
Crystal asked him if Tristyn really grabbed him and he pushed her. Aiden said she did grab him.
His father asked if he knew what happened after he pushed her
“No.”
His mother asked if Trystn said “Ow” or got mad.
He told her that she yelled out his name, he pushed her and told her to “F off” before walking away. He said she probably walked off because she was no longer next to him and he did not look back.
Jason asked if there was anything to worry about, to which Aiden indicated “No.”
Crystal told him their house was being searched.
Jason then asked Aiden why he was damp or wet when he got home. Aiden told him he was wet from a cup that he spilled on himself. Pressed further, Aiden told him that he fell.
At some point in their conversation, his mother asked him what he had been wearing, before clarifying in a whisper, “Blood.” She went on to suggest to him that he had been wearing khaki’s, and not jeans, “Right?” He agreed with her.
At about 9pm, Detective Thompson entered the interview room. He asked for Jason and Crystal’s consent to collect a DNA buccal swab, photographs, and fingernail scrapings from Aiden.
Crystal told him they would be waiting for their attorney.
After detectives took Aiden away, Crystal and Jason returned home. There Crystal was seen on surveillance video entering Aiden’s room, taking his jeans, then washing them in the sink before returning them to his room a couple of hours later.
The search of the Fucci home turned up several key pieces of evidence. First, Aiden’s clothes and shoes. Although his mother had tried to wash the blood from the jeans, trace amounts remained and was identified as belonging to Tristyn. They also found traces of her blood in the sink.
Then there was a notebook full of “drawings of a violent nature.” Among the images was an illustration that “depicted a Satanic element to them, to include a pentagram.” Another drawing showed a nude female with red X’s over her breasts and genitals, and what appeared to be blood coming from several wounds.
Tristyn’s autopsy found no indication of sexual assault, though they did find handprints on her thighs that were not hers. She had the word “Karma” written in blue ink on the inside of her right ankle. Tristyn had suffered multiple stab wounds – 114 to be exact – across her head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and back. At least 35 of the wounds were over the head and neck, and many of her wounds were “defensive in nature.” Additionally, Aiden’s DNA was found on her body.
The medical examiner found the tip of a knife broken off in her body. The knife itself was later located in a pond near the location where her body had been found.
In an interview, Aiden’s girlfriend told police that he talked “frequently” about killing people. He always carried a knife when he wasn’t in school, and had pretended to stab her or come up behind her and put the knife to her throat, on multiple occasions.
He had two knives, which he named, “Picker,” and “Poker.” “Picker” had been left at her house, while “Poker,” a folding Buck knife, just so happened to be the knife that was found in the pond.
She reported that in the month before Tristyn’s death, Aiden had talked at length about murdering someone. “He would find a random person walking at night, drag them into the woods, and stab them,’” the sheriff’s report describes her account.
The search of AIden’s home turned up 8 pocket knives, a hand made “shank” and a sheath for a folding Buck knife.
A friend of Tristyn told investigators that she didn’t like Aiden. She described him as a “textbook definition of what you would call a numb kid. He has no feelings towards anyone, no feelings towards himself.” She added that he “is the type of person you would see as a murderer. He just doesn’t care.”
14-year-old Aiden Fucci was arrested and charged with second degree murder. On May 25, 2021, his murder charge was upgraded to first degre murder, and he will be tried as an adult.
Aiden attended a pre-trial hearing on September 1, 2021 on a video feed from the Duval County jail. He appeared frightened and looked around the room with what could be described as a confused, dazed expression. A guard came into the room and handed him the phone receiver, and Aiden flipped his hair back, while continuing to look disoriented.
He could be seen rocking back and forth in his seat, looking around the room and muttering. At one point he could be heard talking about demons, saying “Please don’t let the demons take my soul. The demons are going to take my soul away.”
Then he asked, “What’s going on?” then in a plaintive tone, “Why am I here? I just want to talk to my mom and dad. What’s going on? What’s going on?”
Aiden’s lawyer filed a speedy trial waiver, and the case was passed to Oct. 28.
After viewing the video of his behavior during the court feed, a forensic psychologist not affiliated with the case said, he wouldn’t be surprised if the teen receives a mental competency evaluation.
“He definitely looked disoriented and confused. It’s hard to tell if he’s feigning mental illness or if something is really happening with him,” said Dr. Justin D’Arienzo. “From my perspective, it seemed genuine, given the pattern of behavior today and from what else we know.”
Attorney Gene Nichols, who is also not affiliated with this case, said it would not be unusual to see a competency evaluation in a case like Fucci’s, but added that it could drag out the case.
“What you would see in most of these cases, you’re going to have your client evaluated for competency, especially for a young person like this, to allegedly commit such an awful crime,” Nichols said. “It can cost several months of waiting in order to debate competency.”
At this time, the judge has not ordered Aiden Fucci to have a mental competency evaluation.
On June 5, 2021, Crystal Fucci was arrested and charged for “tampering with evidence.” She pleaded not guilty on July 23, 2021.
On February 6, 2023, Aiden Fucci pleaded guilty to first degree murder on what would have been the first day of jury selection for his trial. On March 24, 2023, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Since the death of Tristyn Bailey, and subsequent arrest of Aiden Fucci, frustrations have abounded. Prosecutors questioned why his alleged plans to commit homicide were “not taken seriously.”
Florida State Attorney RJ Larizza asked, “Could this have been prevented? We can’t be sure.” He added that this case should serve as a cautionary tale to parents that they “need to know what your kids are doing and saying.”
It “would be an understatement to describe Tristyn’s murder as horrific. She was fighting for her life. It’s just sad that we have to talk about that.”