By Chuck Hustmyre
February 5, 2007
FRENCH SETTLEMENT, La. (Crime Library) — Saturday evening, Danette Aydell got the news she had been dreading for two days. Searchers had found the body of her only child, 13-year-old Kaitlin Aydell, partially sunk into a bayou outside the nearby town of St. Amant.
Kaitlin disappeared Thursday afternoon shortly after getting home from school. The French Settlement High School seventh grader got off her school bus around 3:00 and called her mom at work. A little while later, when her mom tried to call her back, Kaitlin didn't answer.
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| Kaitlin Aydell |
When Danette Aydell got home, she couldn't find her daughter. Nervous, Danette called the Sheriff's Office.
Before long, a search was underway. Sheriff's deputies and a small army of volunteers passed out fliers and scoured the countryside around this rural south Louisiana bayou community on foot, in trucks, and on four-wheelers, looking for any sign of Kaitlin.
Within hours, investigators began to focus their attention on Mark Sterling Lewis, a 39-year-old ex-con, who lives with his wife in a trailer behind the Aydells' home. Lewis, who is related to Kaitlin by marriage, spent two years of a seven-year sentence in prison for theft and aggravated kidnapping.
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| Mark Sterling Lewis |
According to court records, in 1995, Lewis jumped into a woman's car and held a screwdriver to her throat. He forced her to drive toward an out-of-the-way spot, but along the way the woman managed to escape. Lewis then stole her car and purse.
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