WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |Search Continues for Missing 13-Year-Old Girl

Search Continues for Missing 13-Year-Old Girl

Police, family and friends are searching deep in the woods of French Settlement Friday evening for a teenage girl who has been missing since Thursday afternoon. Foul play has been suspected since then.

13-year-old Kaitlin Aydell was last seen getting off her school bus in front of her home, which is off of Aydell Lane in French Settlement. That's the street that runs into the Coyell Bayou.

Friday morning, Livingston Parish sheriff's deputies arrested one of her relatives in connection with the case.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Kaitlin's cousin. She is related to him by marriage and lives in a manufactured home just behind her home.

This is 39-year-old Mark Sterling Lewis. He was arrested for obstruction of justice after sheriff's detectives discovered he lied about his whereabouts, asked a friend to provide an alibi and could not explain fresh scratches on his face.

Meanwhile, family and friends and those who don't even know little Kaitlin spent the entire day posting missing person flyers on doors of every business in town. Some even hopped on their own four-wheelers to help police search heavily-wooded areas. Her mother, Danette, says Kaitlin called her to let her know she was home from school. When Danette got home from work just after 5:00, she noticed Kaitlin's schoolbag on her bed, but her house key and cell phone were all missing. Now, she's pleading, begging for Kaitlin's safe return.

Danette Aydell says, "That's all I ask is to find her safe and bring her back to me... She's all I got."

Kaitlin Aydell weighs about 100 pounds and stands at 5'5." She was last seen wearing her school uniform with a red Hollister and a brown Aeropostale jacket. If you have any information on her whereabouts, call the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office at 656-2241.