Episode 3: Ayla Reynolds, still missing after five years

On the morning of December 17, 2011, Justin DiPietro called the Waterville, Maine, police to report his 20-month-old daughter, Ayla Reynolds, missing. That was the spark to what eventually became the biggest criminal investigation in Maine’s history. Five years later, Ayla is still gone and no one has been charged in her disappearance, which police quickly termed a criminal investigation and made clear that they believed she’d been killed. Ben McCanna, a former reporter with the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, whose beat was all Ayla all the time in the months after she vanished, talks about his experience, which includes access to the toddler’s parents that no other reporter at the time had.

Matt Nichols, of Nichols & Churchill, explains, in our Ask the Lawyer segment, why charges are sometimes not brought even when “everyone knows” someone is guilty of a crime.

Want more? We also eviscerate the new Gilmore Girls.