Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe abused his daughter to death and harmed other children in their care, according to a 60-count indictment providing only a preview of what authorities say went on in a tormented household.

A heavily redacted grand jury indictment released Thursday left the public to fill in the blanks, but officials hinted that the most shocking information is yet to come in the case of young Aarone Thompson's disappearance.

"The stuff that I could tell you is so compelling that I can't tell you," Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates, who like others involved in the case is under a court order to not provide details, said after one of many press gatherings Thursday.

Aarone's mother cut through the allegations and legal developments Thursday with a desperate plea to recover her daughter's body, which has yet to be found.

"They need to find her body so they can do an autopsy on her," said Lynette Thompson, who lives in Detroit. "I want her no matter what - whether she's in bones, an eyeball . . . a hair."

Aarone would have been 6 when her father reported her missing Nov. 14, 2005. Three days later, Aurora police called off a search and said Aarone had been killed up to 18 months earlier.

On Thursday, Oates said officers had Thompson under surveillance in anticipation of a search warrant. After the call came telling them the warrant had been issued, they immediately arrested Thompson on Wednesday.

"His demeanor was calm and he was void of emotion at the time of his arrest," Oates said.

Shackled and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, Thompson projected the same calm during his appearance Thursday morning in Arapahoe County District Court to hear the charges he faces.

Thompson, 39, answered "yes" when asked if he wanted a public defender, and "no" as to whether he had any other questions.

Thompson and Lowe, who died last year around the time the grand jury was convened, had maintained their innocence.

Judge William Sylvester ordered the names of the alleged victims and circumstances that led to the charges redacted from the indictment before it was made public, but a bare timeline of events began to emerge.

The abuse resulting in Aarone's death occurred between May 2002 and August 2004, according to the indictment.

Over the next three years, from May 2004 to May 2007, Thompson allegedly worked with Lowe to cover up the deadly child abuse and provide false information to authorities.

The pair are also charged in the indictment with abuse of a corpse, an allegation that could result from knowing where a body is buried but refusing to tell authorities.

Child abuse resulting in death is the most serious of the charges Thompson faces, according to Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers. That charge, by itself, could result in a sentence of up to 48 years in prison.

Not all of the charges are limited to Aarone, Chambers said, but she did not give a breakdown.

A number of charges in the indictment indicate that Lowe and Thompson pressured various children in their household to provide false information to authorities, according to Denver legal analyst Craig Silverman.

"Given the same charging dates . . . you have to believe they were pressuring all the kids to give false reporting," he said.

More than half the charges involve abuse or assault - many times on a child.

In some instances, Thompson and Lowe allegedly used a "deadly weapon." The weapons are not named, but attorneys said the term could apply to a hand or even a pillow.

Attorneys said the number of charges may seem high, though they also emphasized the full scope of the case remains unknown.

"It's not uncommon in this day and age for prosecutors to charge everything humanly possible they can charge," said Denver criminal defense attorney Darren Cantor. "They figure the more you charge, the better chance something's going to stick."

Officials mum on details

So what really happened to Aarone Thompson before her father reported her missing? What went on inside the home of Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe to cause a grand jury to hand up an indictment alleging 60 crimes?

• After a court hearing, a news conference and the release of a severely redacted indictment Thursday, much of the story of Aarone's disappearance remained sealed by court order.

• Saying it was necessary to ensure a fair trial, the welfare of the Thompson family's surviving children and to avoid a change of venue that would move the trial to another county, the court ordered the following withheld:

• Any of the factual bases for the 60 charges.

• The identities of the seven children who lived in the home with Aarone Thompson.

• The identities of the grand jurors.

"I can't talk about the facts, and that's a good thing because we should keep those secret still, but that's something you'll have to watch over time, to see how the evidence comes out, to see why the charges were what they were," Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers told reporters after Thompson's advisement hearing.

Charges against Aaron Thompson

• Child abuse    20 counts

• Assault    19 counts

• Contributing to the delinquency of a minor    8 counts

• Child abuse resulting in death   7 counts

• False reporting   2 counts

• Concealing death   2 counts

• Abuse of a corpse   2 counts

kassj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2406

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