Police documents in the suffocation of a 13-year-old Vail girl show that her stepfather — who has been arrested in connection with her death — made false statements to police and was the only adult home when online searches were made on the girl’s computer about suicide, drug overdoses and blood loss.
The police records also state blood from Jayden Glomb was found in a family vehicle and that detectives determined tire tracks near her body were from the SUV.
Jayden was last seen at her home the night of May 10, about 12 hours before her body was found in a nearby desert area.
Her stepfather, Joshua Lelevier, 37, was arrested Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder and abandoning or concealing a dead body. He’s being held at the Pima County jail on a $500,000 bond, according to jail records.
When police first spoke to Lelevier, he told them that by 8 p.m. May 10, he and Jayden were the only ones awake in the home and that he went to sleep on the futon in his den sometime after 11:30 p.m., according to an interim complaint filed in Pima County Justice Court.
Lelevier said he noticed Jayden was missing at about 1:30 a.m., after he was woken up by his 6-year-old son. He told police he searched the yard and drove around the neighborhood, but wasn’t able to find Jayden, so he returned home and woke up his wife to tell her Jayden was missing, the complaint said.
A passerby discovered Jayden’s body shortly after 11 a.m. There was a ligature mark on her throat and blood around her nose and mouth. Autopsy results indicated the middle-school student died of asphyxiation.
A police search of the area turned up shoe impressions in the dirt near where her body was dumped, along with tire tracks that matched Jessica Lelevier’s Chevrolet Traverse, the complaint said.
During the investigation, Joshua Lelevier called police to say he found a key in his front yard while cleaning up cigarette butts. When police arrived, he pointed to a bush, under which detectives found a key.
“The key was so well hidden, detectives couldn’t see it until they got down onto the ground to look,” the complaint said.
Police determined the key belonged to the Chevrolet Traverse, which Joshua Lelevier said was likely the spare key kept in the kitchen drawer.
When detectives processed the vehicle, they found blood smeared on the rear cargo opening and chemical testing revealed a large blood smear that had been cleaned up. DNA testing matched the blood to Jayden, the complaint said.
During his interviews with detectives, Lelevier denied going anywhere near where Jayden’s body was found when he was searching for her but video security footage in the neighborhood showed a vehicle that appeared to be his Dodge Charger driving toward the scene shortly before 3 a.m. on the day her body was found.
Forensic examination of Jayden’s computer found online searches for suicide, blood loss and drug overdoses, all at times that Jayden was at school and Joshua Lelevier was home, the complaint said.
Investigators also found what appeared to be a suicide note with Jayden’s name signed at the end that had been deleted from the computer about 45 minutes after Lelevier said he found Jayden missing.
During the investigation, Lelevier made a report to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department that he was attacked in his back yard by a “figure he couldn’t describe,” according to the complaint. Police found no evidence that such an attack took place.
Jessica Lelevier told detectives that Joshua was wearing a particular sweatshirt when she woke him to tell him Jayden was missing, which she thought was odd because it wasn’t cold outside. She also found it unusual the sweatshirt had “dirt and plant matter on it, as if he had been out in the desert,” the complaint says.
When detectives located the sweatshirt inside the home, it still had dirt and plant matter on it.
Police also learned two pairs of Joshua Lelevier’s shoes were missing after Jayden’s death, and Jessica told them he had bought new shoes to replace the old ones.
While Lelevier agreed to come down to the police station, he refused to give a statement to police.
