Newly released: Here's what Aiden Fucci said during missing-person search
EDITOR'S NOTE: After further review, First Coast News decided to remove portions of this story. Here is the revised version.
The moments leading up to Tristyn Bailey's body being found and her classmate Aiden Fucci's arrest are documented in a stack of audio interviews and evidence released by officials this month.
The details include interviews with Fucci the morning after she was reported missing. Also included is the interview with the man who discovered the 13-year-old's body in the woods on May 9, 2021.
Aiden Fucci trial: Questions and answers in the St. Johns County teen's murder case
Fucci, 16, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Feb. 6 in St. Johns County court. The medical examiner said Bailey suffered 114 stab wounds, nearly 50 that were deemed defensive. The two were friends and classmates at Patriot Oaks Academy and lived in the same Durbin Crossing neighborhood.
A judge has set the week of March 20 for his sentencing phase.
Interviews with Aiden Fucci after Tristyn Bailey is reported missing
Officer: "We're trying to figure out where Tristyn's at and I'm not trying to get you in trouble or anything like that. Obviously, I'm more concerned right now about her safety and what she's doing and where she could be hanging out. You're telling him that there may be another path [in the woods] ... What's the path?"
Fucci: "There's like a trail that goes super deep down there."
Officer: "Down into the woods?"
Fucci: "Yes, ma'am."
Officer: "OK, have you heard from her at all?"
Officer: "Now down this path that you're telling me about is this like a place where kids go to like, do drugs or drink, what?"
Fucci: "This is a place to like chill out and do acid or just smoke weed."
Officer: "... All right, so are you willing to kind of give me a statement about what's going on with her?"
Fucci: "Yeah, so we were at [friend's] house and I stayed there until probably like 1:50 a.m., and then I was really late to be home so I just had to leave or else my mom would like, seriously just kill me. So we started walking home and then next light where that brick wall starts up there ... I just kind of like walked, I kind of like walk away in anger."
Interview with the jogger who found Tristyn Bailey's body
Daniel Hart was running at about 5:30 p.m. He walked around the pond looking into the woods the whole time. He described the moments leading up to finding Tristyn's body, explaining the exact location to the officer.
Officer: "OK, Mr. Hart, can you tell me what's going on today?"
Hart: "So I heard there was a missing girl. I see the whole neighborhood's been abuzz, everyone's been looking for her. The sheriff's [deputies] have been around, helicopters flying and I just went for a run. And my wife had mentioned maybe checking in the woods along the end of the cul-de-sac and the pond in the property next to us. And so I finished my run and I went back there and walked around, and I was about to go out of the pond and through the woods back to another retention pond behind our house just to walk to the woods back to our house, just a last sweep, and when I came out of the fence at the southern end of the pond, probably 3 to 4 feet in and I saw a dead girl there about 25-30 feet in."
Officer: "What did you do at that point?"
Hart: "I called 911."
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Officer: "OK, she's not in the pond?"
Hart: "No, sir she's in the woods about 30 yards south of this barbed-wire fence here."
Officer: "When you saw her, what was she wearing, what did she look like, did you touch her?"
Hart: "I did not. Like I said, she's probably 25 or 30 feet beyond the fence and I only went a couple feet past the fence and as soon as I saw her I stopped and called 911. She's wearing black Nike shorts, so I could see that and a black shirt, and her hair was kind of muddy and messed up."
Part of the evidence released Friday also included photos of the clothes Bailey and Fucci were wearing.
This story first appeared on First Coast News.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Here's what Aiden Fucci said during search for Tristyn Bailey
