In the spring of 2021, a chilling murder of 13-year-old Tristyn Bailey took place that rocked the entire community to its core. At first, the authorities launched an extensive search after her loved ones reported her missing, not knowing that something worse had happened to the middle school cheer captain. Once her body surfaced, the police did their best to capture the monster behind the crime. The entire case is covered in detail in the episode titled ‘Monster Among Trolls’ of Investigation Discovery’s ‘Murder Under the Friday Night Lights,’ which also features exclusive and in-depth interviews from the victim’s loved ones and officials linked to the case.
Tristyn Bailey Was Found Dead in a Wooded Area a Few Hours After Her Disappearance
On January 18, 2008, Forrest and Stacy Sheffield Bailey welcomed their baby girl, Tristyn Tyne Bailey, in Singapore. When she was around 4, the family left the country and moved to Florida. Under the care and support of her parents and four loving siblings – three sisters and a brother, the youngest member of the Bailey family flourished into a bright and free-spirited individual. Raised in an uplifting environment in St. Johns County, the 13-year-old was a seventh grader at Patriot Oaks Academy. She had always been an athletic child and thus became a natural fit in not one but two cheerleading squads. Aside from being a model student, she was a true friend in every sense. Though she was just a teenager, Tristyn harbored a deep set of values that made her stand out from the crowd.
Not only would Tristyn have the back of her friends at all times, but she was also the first person to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. Her cheer coach described her as a “natural leader” who would always think of her squad mates and do everything in her power to maintain team unity. According to her family and friends, she was a cheerful kid who always greeted everyone with a smile and could lift the spirits of the dullest of rooms. Little did Forrest and Stacy know that they would lose their daughter forever on Mother’s Day in 2021. Around 9 am on the morning of May 9, 2021, as the couple was busy gearing up for the celebration, they were shocked to learn from one of their kids that Tristyn wasn’t in her room.
They began to frantically look for the teenager in the vicinity and even asked the neighbors if they had seen their daughter, but to no avail. Without wasting any time, Stacy dialed 911 and informed the authorities of Tristyn’s disappearance. Around 6 pm that same evening, her body was found in a wooded area at the end of Saddlestone Drive near St. Johns. Immediately, the police rushed to the scene and noticed that she had been stabbed 114 times, out of which at least 49 were defensive. Upon further inspection of the body, they also found the word “karma” written on her left ankle and a smiley face on her other ankle. As the detectives combed the area, they discovered a buck knife with a missing tip, which turned out to be the murder weapon, as the broken fragment was later found inside Tristyn’s scalp.
Tristyn Bailey Lost Her Life at the Hands of Someone She Knew Personally
After gathering the evidence from the crime scene, the detectives began interviewing the family, friends, and other acquaintances of Tristyn Bailey. Upon questioning Doffis Absher, they learned that one of his friends, Aiden Fucci — who was a schoolmate of Tristyn — had asked for the victim’s phone number around the day of the murder. Next, the investigators brought Aiden into questioning and asked him about his whereabouts in the early hours of May 9, 2021. He told them that after getting Tristyn’s number, he called her, and they went to Doffis’ house. Aiden claimed that after 1 am, he and Tristyn began walking back to their respective homes. The detectives had calculated that Doffis’ place was merely a 30-minute walk away from his Castledale Court home.
Therefore, when Aiden told them he reached home around 3:30 am, the investigators started suspecting that he might have something to do with the brutal killing of the teenage girl. At first, he claimed he walked around for a while, which is why it took him more time than usual to arrive at the house. However, as the investigators pushed to get to the truth, he changed his story and admitted to getting into a physical altercation with Tristyn. As per his claims, she allegedly tried to get intimate with him, after which he pushed her away, causing her to fall to the ground and hit her head. Once the interrogation was over, the authorities referred to a recorded surveillance camera footage that captured Aiden and Tristyn walking together east on Saddlestone Drive around 1:45 am.
The same camera footage revealed Aiden running towards the west with his white shoes in his hand around 3:30 am. At this point, Aiden was declared the prime suspect in the case. Thus, the police quickly obtained a search warrant for his house and executed the warrant around midnight on May 10. During their search of his room, they came across clothes with blood on them and a knife sheath that matched the murder weapon found at the crime scene. In light of all these pieces of incriminating evidence, Aiden was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his schoolmate, Tristyn Bailey. Moreover, the police also took his mother, Crystal Smith, into custody for trying to wash the blood away from her son’s jeans and tampering with evidence. However, she was later released.
Aiden Fucci is Held up Behind Bars at a Florida Prison Facility
Initially, Aiden Fucci maintained his innocence, but as the day of the jury selection approached, he ended up pleading guilty to first-degree murder on February 6, 2023. As a token of his guilt, he wrote an apology letter directed towards Tristyn Bailey’s family and friends. During the trial, Alexis, one of the victim’s siblings, filled a glass jar with 114 aqua stone hearts, which represented the stab wounds the killer inflicted upon her. As other family members made impact statements, they added a white stone to the jar in her memory. More than a month later, on March 24, the 16-year-old killer was finally sentenced to life in prison for his crimes, but with the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.
After the sentencing, Tristyn’s father, Forrest Bailey, took the stand and addressed his deceased daughter. He stated, “Tristyn, I wanted to let you know we are so extremely proud of the person that you were in your time here. When you went out into the world, you gave it your very best. You should be proud of the friend that you were, the teammate you were, and what you left behind. We love you. We will continue to hold you in our hearts – and we will always be the ‘Bailey seven.'” As of today, Aiden is serving his sentence at the Cross City Corrections Department in Cross City, Florida.
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