"It rips my heart out to think what my daughter's last moments ... I know she was thinking of her daughter, her baby, her family and hoping everybody was looking for her or somebody was going to somehow reach out and save her," the father told News Center 7's Sean Cudahy on Tuesday night.
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The interview is the first any member of the Hayton family has given since Hayden, 20, and Burkhart, 28, both of Mansfield, were found in vacant houses on West Stewart Street -- her in one and he in another.
Hours before the Brent Hayton interview, a Montgomery County grand jury handed up a multiple-count indictment accusing Larry Rodgers, 31, on 19 felonies including aggravated murder in the slayings of Kayla Hayton, her unborn child and Burkhart.
Brent Hayton doesn't believe his daughter and Burkhart were dealing drugs or buying guns.
"I believe someone set them up, or set him up, for something that must have been in his past or something... knowing the guy from prison," Hayton said. "And it just happens that he drug my daughter through it and I cannot respect that in any way and say he was the best thing for her, or was looking out for her."
Hayton said he thinks about his daughter every day and talking about her reopens a wound.
She had lost one child through miscarriage and had gotten pregnant again -- a boy -- this time. She was about 5 months pregnant when they were slain.
"We were all looking forward to having that grandchild," Hayton said. "It would have been awesome for me."
He said his daughter always looked up for "the better side of it" when things were going bad and was a good mother to her daughter.
"Everything seemed to be coming together" when she went missing, he said. "She was getting her home together for Christmas at the time, had just put the tree up and she never got to come back home to it."
Hayton said he hopes the man accused in the slayings is convicted and doesn't get away on a technicality.
"I have to believe she's in heaven...that she'll never have to suffer again," Hayton said.