| Murder of Tristyn Bailey | |||||||
| Location: | St. Johns County, Florida, U.S. | ||||||
| Type: | Child murder by stabbing | ||||||
| Weapons: | Knife | ||||||
| Victim: | Tristyn Bailey | ||||||
| Perpetrator: | Aiden Fucci | ||||||
| Motive: | Thrill[1] | ||||||
| Verdict: | Guilty | ||||||
| Convictions: | First-degree murder
| ||||||
| Judge: | R. Lee Smith | ||||||
The murder of Tristyn Bailey took place on May 9, 2021, on Mother's Day, in St. Johns County, Florida. Bailey, a 13-year-old middle schooler and cheerleader, was murdered by Aiden Fucci, a 14-year-old schoolmate. Bailey was reported missing by her family that morning; Bailey's body was found later that day by a resident in a wooded area near St. Johns. Her body had 114 stab wounds.
A residential surveillance camera recorded Bailey walking around at 1:45 am with Fucci. A later recording showed Fucci running alone with his shoes in hand. This led investigators to visit Fucci's house to search for evidence.[2] On May 10, investigators searched Fucci's house, where bloody clothes were found in his room and in the bathroom sink. A knife with a fragment of the tip missing was found near Bailey's body, matching DNA to Bailey and Fucci. He was arrested on charges of Tristyn Bailey's murder. He maintained his innocence at the time.[3]
In February 2023, shortly before his trial, Fucci changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. On March 24, Aiden Fucci was charged as an adult and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is currently serving his sentence at Suwannee Correctional Institution.[4]
Tristyn Tyne Bailey was born in Singapore[5] on January 18, 2008, to Forrest and Stacy Bailey. She was the youngest of five children. Tristyn spent her first four years in Singapore.
Family and friends describe her as "an energetic young girl who always stood up for her friends". Her mother said: "She was just a powerful child that was able to give a lot to so many".[6] [7] [8] Tristyn grew up and lived in St. Johns County, Florida. She was in seventh grade at Patriot Oaks Academy, where she stood out as a popular student and cheerleader.[9]
At 9:00am May 9, 2021, the Bailey family was preparing to celebrate Mother's Day. One of Bailey's siblings went to her room to wake her up, and discovered that Bailey was missing. After a short search of the immediate surrounding area her mother, Stacy, called 911 to report her daughter missing.
Early that morning, according to police reports, Doffis "Tre" Absher, a friend of Fucci, said that Fucci had asked him for Bailey's phone number. Fucci called Bailey and convinced her to leave home to go see a friend. At 1:45am, a residential surveillance camera recorded two people walking east on Saddlestone Drive, strongly believed to be Fucci and Bailey. At 3:27am, the camera recorded a subject running towards the west, carrying a pair of white shoes.[10]
Deputies Robert Maloney and Liam Stack interviewed Absher later that afternoon. Absher said that Fucci and Bailey had been at his house and left together. Fucci confirmed being with Bailey at Absher's home and stated that they left around 1:10am. Fucci initially claimed to have walked with Tristyn along North Durbin Parkway until she turned onto Cloisterbane Drive to go home. He stated that he walked around for some time and then arrived home at approximately 3:30am. Noting that the distance between Absher and Fucci's home is a roughly thirty minute walk, investigators pressed for details. At this point, Fucci changed his story, stating that he and Bailey got into an altercation after she attempted to touch his private parts. He claimed to have pushed her away, which caused her to fall and hit her head.[11]
After the interrogation, while in the back seat of a patrol car, Fucci took images and videos, publishing the imagery on the social media app Snapchat. In one picture, Fucci captioned an image "Hey guys has inybody seen Tristyn lately". In a video, he said: "We're having fun, in a fucking cop car, Tristyn if you walk out the damn-” video cuts out.[12]
Around 6:00p.m. on May 9, a resident was walking through a wooded area at the end of Saddlestone Drive, south of Jacksonville. Upon reaching a retention pond, he found the dead body of a girl. Around 8:00p.m., it was confirmed that the body was Tristyn Bailey. She had received 114 stab wounds, 49 of which were defensive. Her body was found with the word "karma" written on the inside of her left ankle, and a smiley face drawn on her right ankle, but it is not known who wrote it.
A Buck knife with a missing tip found in the pond near her body matched a fragment lodged in Bailey's scalp. Fucci's DNA was also found on the knife.[13]
Around midnight May 10, police went to Fucci's house to look for evidence. In his room they found a sheath that matched the knife found near Bailey's body and clothing with blood on it. Around 3:00am Fucci was arrested for second-degree murder, but this was changed to first-degree murder after further examination of evidence and witness accounts. During a press conference on May 27, State Attorney RJ Larizza said Fucci told his friends he was going to kill someone by "taking them to the woods and stabbing them". Larizza also stated Fucci told his friends to expect [the murder] to happen within a month, and that Bailey was stabbed 114 times. Fucci was subsequently transferred to Duval County Jail, where he was held without bond. His mother Crystal Smith was arrested for tampering with evidence after allegedly washing blood off Fucci's jeans, but was later released.
A police report released by the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office in July 2021 revealed that Fucci often spoke of his "fantasy" of killing people, that he often carried a knife with him, and that he planned to "drag a random person into the woods and stab them". Fucci’s ex girlfriend Zofie Bauman said that on occasion Fucci "would take his knife out and pretend to stab 'her' with it." Bauman also said that Fucci claimed to hear voices in his head when he was angry.[14] [15] [16]
Shortly before jury selection was set to begin, on February 6, 2023, Fucci changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. He wrote a letter apologizing for the pain he caused Bailey's family and friends. Judge R. Lee Smith called this the most "difficult and shocking case" that he had presided over, adding "this was not done out of greed; it was not done in retaliation, retribution, or revenge; it was not a crime of passion; it was not a crime that was committed because he felt rejected by her, it was not done in a fit of uncontrollable anger. There was no reason. There was no purpose. It was done for no other reason than to satisfy this defendant's internal desire to feel what it was like to kill someone."[17]
Fucci was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Bailey. He was given a maximum sentence of life in prison on March 24, 2023, at age 16. After 25 years incarceration, his case will be reviewed.
During the impact statements at the trial, one of Tristyn's siblings, Alexis, dropped 114 aqua stone hearts into a glass jar one by one to represent the stab wounds her sister endured. The jar stayed there for each family member while they read their statements. Each concluded by adding a white stone to represent something related to Bailey's death.[18]
Bailey's family formed the Tristyn Bailey Memorial Foundation, which helped enact a law in the state of Florida that restricts the disclosure of crime scene photographs of any minor who has been murdered in the state.[19]