Forensic Technicians searched for evidence this week for evidence that could corroborate Toni Fratto’s confession to the murder of classmate Mickey Costanzo. Photo of original investigation.
[media id=13 width=320 height=240]
TONI FRATTO KODY PATTEN MICKEY COSTANZO
[media id=13 width=320 height=240]
The bombshell confession of West Wendover teen Toni Fratto that she was involved in the murder of Micaela Costanzo has prompted a flurry of activity from both the defense and the prosecution looking for evidence either corroborating her confession or exonerating the girl.
Forensic specialist from the Washoe Crime Lab were in Wendover this week collecting samples from Fratto’s home, car and clothes in an effort to find some trace evidence that would confirm at least her presence during the time of the killing. Investigators also reportedly combed through the murder scene as well as the gravel pit used where some of Mickey Costanzo’s possessions were found partially burnt.
It is unknown as of press time whether these real life CSI’s have found a smoking gun such as Costanzo’s blood on Fratto’s clothes.
But as one side searches of for evidence that would confirm Fratto’s confession, her defense team is looking for any evidence that would generate doubt as to the confession’s accuracy.
In a legal maneuver worthy of silver screen Reno Attorney John Ohlson submitted an audio tape of Toni Fratto admitting to being one of Micaela Costanzo’s killers during a pretrial hearing for his client Kody Patten on May 3rd in Elko district court. Until that moment Patten was the only suspect in the murder that shook Wendover to its very core.
According to the police report of the tape Fratto states that she and Patten drove Costanzo five miles west of Wendover to an NDOT gravel pit. There the couple beat unconscious and then Fratto cut the young girl’s throat with a knife. The two then buried her in a shallow grave and then drove about ten miles past Wendover Utah to burn the knife and Costanzo’s possessions at another gravel pit about 3 miles northeast of Wendover, Utah.
According to the police report, if Fratto was as she claims a participant, the entire crime and the cleanup had to have taken place between the hours of 5 pm and 6 pm March 3rd, at the very most an hour.
While the girl’s whereabouts is not known from 5 pm, she and her mother were recorded as being in attendance at a West Wendover Recreation District meeting at 6 pm and witnesses report they arrived a few minutes before the meeting was gaveled to begin.
“I think they were there a little before the meeting began,” said board chairman Kerry Robinson.
A run through conducted Wednesday by the High Desert Advocate suggested that 55 minutes was enough time but just barely. Following Fratto’s version of events in the police report the Advocate timed the drive involved. The drive from the West Wendover High School to the Nevada gravel pit, the murder scene took approximately 10 minutes. The drive back through Wendover to the Utah gravel pit took approximately 15 minutes and the drive back from the Utah gravel pit to the Fratto house another 15 minutes. With the drive times subtracted the couple if Fratto’s account is true had about 20 minutes to commit the murder, destroy the evidence across town and then return home to cleanup before Toni Fratto was seen again with her parents.
There also could be video evidence that would cut those 20 minutes even further. According to confidential sources Toni Fratto was picking up her mother from work at the Peppermill Casino well before 6 pm and might have been recorded by the company’s security camera’s. She may also have been recorded on the city of West Wendover security camera when she reportedly left off her father for a union meeting also before 6 pm at City Hall.
Depending on the whether those videos were saved and the time stamps on them, they could render at least Toni Fratto’s time line at the very least improbable. If there is credible evidence that the girl was seen either alone or with her parents in much earlier it would make her time line impossible.
Not discounting the possibility the girl lied about the chain of events in the murder while she was confessing to the killing there may be other chinks in her story.
According to confidential sources on the Friday after the murder Fratto received several calls from Patten directing her to tell police that he was with her during the time of the killing.
According to sources at no time during any of Patten’s interrogation sessions with police did he implicate his lover Fratto. And there was no physical evidence, at least none released to the public, linking her to the crime.
Starting with her cool demeanor supposedly less than an hour after brutally cutting Mickey Costanzo’s throat, she gave away nothing more than being the distraught girlfriend of a confessed murderer. And she walked out of her one and only police interview while Mickey Costanzo was only missing with an apology from the police for troubling her. For six weeks the girl went about her daily routine and never raise any suspicions with police or sheriff’s detectives.
In fact her entry into the law offices of Patten’s attorney Jeffrey Kump, April 22nd in Elko came as complete surprise both to the defense and later to the prosecution. Indeed as one officer put it, if she had just kept her mouth shut she never would have seen the inside of the Elko County Jail let alone face the prospect of spending the rest of her life in prison.
From the minute the news broke the overwhelming feeling from those who knew her was that far from a criminal mastermind with ice water for blood. Rather many in town believe Toni Fratto was confessing to a crime she didn’t and some say could not have committed at the behest of her jailed lover.
Patten certainly had the opportunity to make such a request. Fratto visited him as often as twice a week making the four hour round trip to Elko on Wednesdays and Sunday ever since Patten was arrested n May 7th.
She also talked to him at least once a day thanks to a collect calling plan purchased by her father. The frequent and continued contact the girl had with Patten also suggest and alternative reason why Fratto knew details of the murder not released to the public. Patten may have simply told her.
Far from the black widow who directed Patten to kill a romantic or social rival, friends and acquaintances of both Fratto and Patten describe her as a mouse of a girl who was “barely there”.
Indeed some friends relate the Patten held the whole Fratto family in thrall and what official records exist tend to support the allegation.
He moved into the home after his own parents threw him out and bragged to classmates how he verbally and emotionally abused his benefactors.
So complete was his domination of the family, friends relate, that even when Patten was caught on school grounds strangling Toni Fratto just months before the murder, Claude and Cassie Fratto refused to press criminal charges and allowed the very disturbed young man back into their home.
Regardless of whether Fratto’s confession is true it may have already achieved the effect of taking the death penalty off the table at least in regards to Kody Patten on the other hand it may very well put Fratto on death row herself.
Is Wendover big enough for two psychopaths from the same town? Although female psychos are more rare by a ratio of 1:5, statistically, Wendover should have several psychopaths running amuck… male and female.
Stop showing that beautiful girls picture next to those two idiots! She does not deserve that! Mickey was so much more than those two put together ever will be! While Mickey deserves to be honored on the front page of every paper, she sure as hell should not be placed anywhere near those two sociopaths!