phoebe dipietro s living room seen here is ayla s bedroom she shared with her cousin who was untouched that night. her face is blurred. justin told his mother ayla was missing. when you found out that she wasn t there, what did you think? i thought that i didn t want my son to go get any of his friends and go kicking in doors looking for her. reporter: i take it you don t think some stranger walked in off the street and did this? it is a very creepy feeling to think that somebody had been casing your house, that they had been watching the family s activities. reporter: after ayla vanished, her grandmother told detectives some things around the house didn t look the same. some oddities that i had noticed and we told the law enforcement what those were. reporter: she would not reveal them to us. without a search warrant, ayla s
we have exclusive new details today in the case of a toddler missing in maine. it s been three weeks since 21-month-old ayla reynolds vanished from her home. police are calling it a criminal investigation. for the first time on television, her paternal grandmother is speaking out to our cnn national correspondent susan candiotti. reporter: in the first television interview, the missing child s grandmother, phoebe dipietro, says she s living a nightmare. you re waiting for a phone call, hoping to police have your granddaughter. reporter: but so far, that phone call hasn t come. not a single word about what happened to ayla reynolds. the toddler, who now would be 21 months old seen in this home video shot last fall, disappeared in the middle of the night a week before christmas. she s quiet, very sweet, her eyes she s got the bluest
eyes and the longest eyelashes. reporter: dipietro says her father put her to bed around 8:00. the next morning before 9:00 a.m., he called police to report her gone. there s no accident that could have happened that night? no. reporter: among anyone here? no. reporter: you, justin? no. reporter: the other people that were here? no. no. reporter: something covered up? no, no. reporter: what other adults were there, exactly what happened that night or whether anyone checked on ayla, police won t say, nor will dipietro. she says investigators warned her against jeopardizing the case. i can tell you, there was not a party here at the house. reporter: people had dinner, watched television, eventually went to bed? pretty much, yeah. i really have to avoid that question. reporter: you didn t hear any noise? i did not hear anything. reporter: steps away from
american families. george howell digging into this case for us. he joins us. explain how this girl s biological dad was able to do this after two years? dustin brown is the biological father and he used this law child the indian child welfare act. it s basically designed to keep indian families together, to keep them from being broken up. he is enrolled in the cherokee nation, his daughter, partially native american. so through the courts, he was able to get his daughter back from matt and melanie. as you can imagine, they didn t rell realize that this would happen a day sooner than they had predicted for it to happen. she s adorable, too. they raised her since her birth. they say this was an open adoption that. they know her biological mother. but given the court s decision, they had to basically transfer their daughter over to dustin brown. this happened, again, on new year s eve. they thought it would happen new year s day. we actually have an interview with the fami
the full blessing of a judge. at the heart of all of this, a federal law that makes it illegal to break up native american families. george howell digging into this case for us. he joins us. explain how this girl s biological dad was able to do this after two years? dustin brown is the biological father and he used this law child the indian child welfare act. it s basically designed to keep indian families together, to keep them from being broken up. he is enrolled in the cherokee nation, his daughter, partially native american. so through the courts, he was able to get his daughter back from matt and melanie. as you can imagine, they didn t rell realize that this would happen a day sooner than they had predicted for it to happen. she s adorable, too. they raised her since her birth. they say this was an open adoption that. they know her biological mother. but given the court s decision, they had to basically transfer their daughter over to dustin brown. this happened,