A troubling detail buried in the investigation records is now drawing renewed attention in the Saylor Hayes case — and it centers on a tracking device that searchers reportedly believed could help locate the missing girl.

According to the information you provided, Saylor’s parents initially told searchers that she was wearing a Project Lifesaver tracking device. That information reportedly led hundreds of people involved in the search to focus on trying to detect the device’s signal, hoping it could provide a crucial clue to Saylor’s whereabouts.

But investigators later allegedly discovered that the device was actually inside a vehicle in Virginia.

That detail has raised questions because the device had reportedly been left behind before the family’s trip. If that account is accurate, searchers who were relying on the information about the tracker would have been looking for a signal that could not have come from Saylor.

According to allegations contained in arrest records, Saylor’s father directed searchers away from a body of water located only about 15 meters from the area where she was last reportedly seen.

That alleged decision has become another point of interest as investigators reconstruct what happened during the search and examine the statements given by those closest to Saylor.

Taken separately, each detail might appear explainable.

But together, they create a series of questions that investigators must carefully examine: Why were searchers told Saylor had a tracking device with her? Why was the device later found somewhere else? And why, according to the arrest records, were searchers allegedly directed away from an area of water so close to where Saylor was last seen?

None of these allegations, by themselves, establish what happened to Saylor. They are part of an ongoing investigation and must be considered alongside all other evidence.

Still, the discrepancy involving the tracker could prove significant because it potentially affected how hundreds of people approached the search during a critical period.

Now, attention is turning back to the earliest statements surrounding Saylor’s disappearance — and whether those initial accounts accurately reflected what investigators were dealing with from the beginning.

One statement. One tracking device. One nearby location. And a growing list of questions investigators are being asked to answer.

Scoure: ABC News — Parents charged in connection with disappearance and death of 5-year-old Saylor Hayes