AURORA, Colo. -- Aurora police have interviewed more than 450 witnesses in six states and a grand jury has been investigating. But one year after 6-year-old Aarone Thompson was reported missing, she still hasn't been found and no one's been arrested.

An Arapahoe County grand jury hearing the case is expected to finish its work by year's end. It hasn't met since mid-October.

The girl's father, Aaron Thompson, reported her missing Nov. 14, 2005. Three days later, police called off the expansive search, saying the girl had likely been killed up to 18 months earlier. They said no credible person had seen her alive during that time.

If she was alive, Aarone would turn 8 years old on Nov. 30.

Aaron Thompson and his live-in girlfriend, Shely Lowe, were named "persons of interest." Thompson and Lowe, though they were initially cooperating, accused the police of conducting a biased investigation and refused to be interviewed by police once the case had been deemed a homicide instead of a missing persons case.

"I don't really know what to say because everything that we try to do to speak up for ourselves, defend ourselves has been turned around, and it just doesn't benefit us to even open our mouths. I don't know what to say," Lowe had told 7NEWS in an exclusive interview.

Lowe died in May 12 after going into cardiac arrest. She was 33 years old. Her family said she died because of the constant stress from being hounded by police.

Although Aurora police classify it as a murder case, others believe that Aarone may be alive somewhere.

Either way, Denver criminal defense attorney Larry Pozner said the uncertainty complicates an already difficult case.

"One of the problems in this case isn't who done it, but what was done?" he said. "This is layers of mystery."

Few details have emerged from the closed-door grand jury proceedings -- a marked contrast with the frequent headlines and intense emotions generated when she was reported missing.

Many of the investigating officers have placed a time-progression photo of Aarone in their offices, Aurora police Chief Daniel Oates said.

"It shows what a beautiful 7-year-old girl she would have been," he said. "That's who we work for."

For Sam Riddle, a Thompson family friend who has served as their spokesman, the lack of resolution is proof of a misguided investigation.

"It's just a damn shame what hasn't happened yet. I said one year ago police were on a wild goose chase. One in awhile, I'd like to be wrong," he said.

At a news conference May 4, Oates said he had recommended that charges be filed. But at the urging of Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers, the case was handed to the grand jury.

Aaron Thompson is active these days at Mount Gilead Baptist Church, according to Riddle. Thompson himself could not be reached for comment.

The grand jury, at least at one point, seemed to be focusing on Lowe and was "trying to build that foundation," according to one person familiar with the proceedings.

Grand jurors, for example, asked a witness whether Lowe or Thompson was the most dominant. Would Thompson have harmed his daughter on his own or with the aid of someone else?

The grand jury had expected to wrap up its work by the end of this year, the source said. The grand jury's term of service is scheduled to conclude at the end of December but 7NEWS has learned that they could be asked to continue investigating into 2007. The grand jury got the case in June but has not met since Oct. 16, according to Arapahoe County Jury Commissioner Cynthia Daly. Prior to that date, Daly said, it had been meeting one to three times each month.

"We do believe that they are making progress," said district attorney's spokeswoman Kathleen Walsh. "It's not necessarily rare to ask for an extension, and it's not unusual either. We determine that on a case-by-case basis."

Detectives said that they're still getting information in the case and they are passing it along to the grand jury.

"I'm encouraged by the fact that the information that's being presented to the grand jury is information that hasn't publicly been made available," said Aurora police spokesman Marcus Dudley.

Lowe's death could have been a setback for investigators, according to legal experts.

"Assuming (Lowe or Thompson) was guilty and the other had knowledge of that guilt, now they can't play one suspect off against another," Denver attorney and legal analyst Scott Robinson said.

Added former Denver District Attorney Norm Early said, "Now you have a situation where (Thompson) can point at her. She won't point back."

While the case remains a mystery, the investigation appears to be vast. Police have gathered 470 pieces of evidence and interviewed 450 people.

Every case is different, but Pozner said most homicides involve 20 to 50 witnesses. Early said that even for a complex criminal case, "150 to 200 would be an awful lot."

Robinson had one case that topped 450 witness interviews: the 1991 United Bank quadruple murder and robbery in Denver.

Interviews with neighbors, friends and relatives might begin to explain how police came to interview 450 witnesses in Aarone's disappearance.

Some of the interviews may not have taken long, Pozner said.

"You went to 23 children in kindergarten and asked, 'Have you seen Aarone?' And they said, 'No.' "

Pozner added that all the interviews could actually indicate trouble with the case.

"If you've done 450 interviews and you still don't know what happened, solving the case becomes much more difficult, much less likely," he said.

One of the more compelling known witnesses in Aarone's case is Eric Williams, the father of two of Lowe's children.

Williams, while jailed last winter at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center on drug and escape charges, reportedly told investigators that Lowe admitted to him she "had been doing 'something' with Aarone and that Aarone was bleeding."

Williams also told police Lowe and Thompson buried Aarone in a field.

Williams is now on parole and living in the metro area. He could not be reached for comment.

Eight children living with Thompson and Lowe, including Lowe's younger brother, were removed from the couple's home by Arapahoe County Human Services workers after investigators declared Aarone's case a homicide. All eight, including an infant born in December, were placed in foster homes.

Cheryl Ternes, human services director for Arapahoe County, declined this week to discuss the children. Lawyers at the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, which is representing them, did not return calls.

An interview with Lowe's uncle, Arnel Belizaire, was conducted in the National Penitentiary in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, where Belizaire was residing, he says as a political prisoner.

Reached by phone in April, Belizaire said he was visited the month before by two agents from the FBI's Miami office.

Belizaire said he had nothing to offer the FBI agents; he had never met Aarone and did not know Lowe was in Colorado. Belizaire said the agents never mentioned a murder, only "a missing girl."

"I can't say Shely is innocent about this case because I don't know about it," Belizaire said. "But all I can say is, Shely loves kids so much. If that kid was under Shely's care, that would not happen."