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Another day, another chilling revelation in the case of missing child Ayla Reynolds. Two months after the then 20-month-old toddler disappeared from her crib in her Waterville, Maine home, her mother, Trista Reynolds, is telling the media that the girl's father, Justin DiPietro, took out a life insurance policy on the child. It's looking like any benefit of the doubt people were willing to give the man who was the last person to see his daughter alive is about to go out the window.
I hate to jump to conclusions here, but I just don't see how DiPietro is going to explain this one away. Especially when you look at the timing.
According to Reynolds, the policy was taken out just a week after DiPietro took custody of the little girl while her mom entered rehab. That was in October, when the Maine Department of Health and Human Services placed the child in her father's care. Two months later -- just as Trista was applying for full custody -- the girl was gone. As Reynolds says on the site she maintains for information about her daughter:
Now, why did he take out that life insurance policy? I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. Because who takes a life insurance policy out on their own child.
Life insurance on kids in and of itself isn't completely crazy. There are people who buy these policies. It's significantly less costly to apply when a person is young and in the prime of health. Not to mention some people use these policies as a means to save for a kid's future. So maybe DiPietro has a reasonable explanation.
But then again ... is reason really possible here?
When you consider this type of insurance is supposed to offset a loss of income, and kids don't actually have an income, it's a little silly. Ask a financial advisor about life insurance policies on little kids, and they're likely to tell you to invest in a college savings plan instead. No wonder less than 15 percent of Americans under age 18 have a life insurance policy.
No one can determine guilt here other than the police. But knowing that Justin DiPietro was the last person to see Ayla Reynolds before she went missing, and knowing he took out a life insurance policy on the toddler, it's hard not to jump to conclusions.
Do you have life insurance on your kids?
Image via National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
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