Jayda Kyle's mother responds: God and my babies know what happened

Three days ago, I published an excerpt from my new book, Running Circles Around the Globe: 20 Years of the Turner Report, which featured a letter I received from Jalen Vaden, who pleaded guilty to felony child abuse in connection with the 2017 death of 3-year-old Jayda Kyle of Carl Junction and is serving a 22-year sentence, plus information he received from a doctor who questioned the results of the autopsy.

A link to the post was placed on the Inside Joplin Facebook page where it received more than 200 comments and counting.

One of those comments came from Jayda Kyle' s mother, Devyn, who issued the following statement. Since it was in reference to a post on the Turner Report, I wanted to make sure it was posted here.

This will be my one and only statement on this, as I still refuse to let what Vaden did and the nonsense that has followed control my life or harden my heart. 

This entire article is a complete joke, hence the laugh react. (Editor's Note: She had placed a laugh emoji on the post.) 

It is a flat out lie to say there is new evidence. This medical report was simply part of an attempt to build a defense by providing limited information to an individual to get an alternative theory. It was done very early on in the case and as the article says, everyone had this report well before the guilty plea. It would not have held up in court with the overwhelming amount of evidence that perfectly matched Vaden's very voluntary confession. Which is why both him and his attorney have had this the entire time and why it was never actually used. You know what else wouldn’t have held up? His family's fake Facebook evidence to twist this on me. Again, hence the guilty plea.

It’s unfortunate Mr. Vaden is too big of a coward to make these statements publicly. 

Instead, any time all this starts up I get letters like this from him because as much as he knows he is the guilty party and I had absolutely nothing to do with this, he cares more about himself and maintaining his supporters than he does about doing the right thing. He has done and said everything he can to gain support but he has NEVER once blamed me.

Here we are almost 7 years later and not a single resource has been willing to pick this case up for him to try to get him released. Not one. 

Vaden and his attorney know the actual facts of this case speak for themselves and he is right where he needs to be. The only thing we can be thankful for is that man will spend his entire sentence behind bars due to all this nonsense he caused and the longer this goes on, the better chance of that there is.

God and my babies know what happened and at the end of the day, that’s truly all that matters.

***

I appreciate the statement and am happy to publish it. I should note that my book clearly states that the medical report Vaden sent me was not new evidence and that he and his lawyer had it well before he pleaded guilty.

That report, however, is not the new evidence I was referring to. That, as I alluded to at the end of that excerpt, and those of who have already read the book are aware, is the information I discovered on the man who originally performed the autopsy, Dr. Erik Mitchell.

Combining that information with information that has already in the public domain makes this case worth a second, more thorough look. 

The Turner Report: From Running Circles Around the Globe: New evidence in the death of Jayda Kyle? (rturner229.blogspot.com)

Note: After this was posted originally, I was told that Devyn's words were only part of her statement and I should have included the following letter, which she posted on the Inside Joplin Facebook page along with her statement. It doesn't seem to address what was written in the book excerpt, but here it is.)