Blood found in the home where a toddler went missing in Maine belongs to the 20-month-old, her family confirmed Sunday.
Police will not say, however, where in the house Ayla Reynolds‘ blood was found, how long it may have been there or exactly how much was discovered.
Authorities told family members only that it was “more blood than a small cut would produce,” they said on their website, aylareynolds.com, a site maintained by Ayla’s mother.
“Even in light of this evidence we are more determined than ever to find out what has happened to Ayla,” Trista Reynolds said in a statement posted to the site. “We still cling to the hope that she is alive and will be returned to us.”
Ayla disappeared Dec. 17. She was staying with her father, Justin DePietro, in Waterville, about 73 miles north of Portland.
Her parents do not live together. Trista Reynolds resides with her parents in Portland.
The toddler was wearing polka-dot pajamas with the words “Daddy’s Princess” printed on them when she was last seen in her bed, her father told police.
He put her to sleep that night, he told authorities, and when he woke the following morning she was gone.
“I have no idea what happened to Ayla, or who is responsible,” DiPietro said in a statement in December.
Three adults, including the father, were in the house at the time. Police have not named any of them as suspects, but fear “they know more than they are telling us.”
“We don’t think we got the full story,” Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, told CNN.
msheridan@nydailynews.com; or follow him at Twitter.com/NYDNSheridan