Jail time for mother who washed blood-soaked jeans of teen who stabbed 13-year-old cheerleader Tristyn Bailey 114 times to death

The mother of Aiden Fucci was sentenced to jail on Friday for washing the blood-soaked jeans of her son after he stabbed 13-year-old cheerleader Tristyn Bailey 114 times to death.

Crystal Lane Smith, the 37-year-old mother of Fucci, pleaded no contest to tampering with evidence nearly two years to the day that her son murdered Bailey. The mother was sentenced to 30 days in jail as well as five years probation for her role in covering up her son's heinous crime.

Smith picked up her son's blood-soaked jeans and attempted to scrub them clean. The tampering was caught on the family's own video security system. The cleaning of the jeans happened after deputies visited the family's home to question Fucci about the murder of Bailey.

WTLV reported that while in the interrogation room at the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, "Smith could be seen urging her son to say he was wearing khakis the night of the murder, instead of the bloody blue jeans. At one point, Smith whispered the word 'blood' to Fucci to notify him his jeans were not clean."

Also in the interrogation room, Smith and Fucci's father were seen advising their son to "find his story and stick with it."

A forensic examination later determined that Fucci's jeans contained blood.

Bailey's mutilated body was found near a retention pond less than a mile from Fucci's home on Mother's Day, May 9, 2021. The 13-year-old cheerleader had been stabbed 114 times. Circuit Judge R. Lee Smith said the the teen suffered 49 defensive wounds, 35 wounds to her head and neck, and 29 to her back and shoulder.

Bailey and Fucci were schoolmates at Patriot Oaks Academy in Saint Johns, Florida.

In March, Fucci was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Tristyn Bailey. The teenage killer was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile when he committed the gruesome crime.

During this week's trial, the mother of the teenage victim confronted the mother of her daughter's killer – a moment that she had gone over in her head "for more than two years now."

A tearful Stacy Bailey told the courtroom, "What would I say to the woman who broke the law and caused so much pain to my family? Would my words be ignored or would they carry weight? Would you truly hear me and understand how your actions have devastated not only my family, [but] our kids, classmates, our family, friends, our community, and the people across the world."

"I've tried to put myself in your shoes on that fateful day a thousand times, but I can't. I can never get there. Because, you see, I could never put someone else's child in harm's way for my own, no matter the consequences," Bailey told Smith. "The choices that you made on Mother's Day May 9, 2021 will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Bailey continued, "What I cannot understand is how you knew our child was missing. Your son was the last known person to see her. And yet you see something suspicious on his jeans and tried to wash it out."

The grieving mother asked, "At what time did you ever stop and think about Tristyn's well-being?"

"You never apologized ... You have no idea what our family has endured," she said.

Smith did not address Tristyn's distraught family.

Smith's attorney, Matt Kachergus, alleged that his client had no idea "what had happened to Tristyn."

"She was a frantic mother trying to determine what was going on with her son," Kachergus stated. "Only later when she made aware of the horrible crime that had been committed."

Kachergus concluded, "She apologizes for any additional suffering her conduct caused the Bailey family. I hope the end of these legal proceedings around Tristyn's death will allow everyone impacted by it to begin to find a modicum of peace and begin to try to heal from this tragedy."

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