Did Mickey Costanzo Have To Die?

Toni Fratto’s confession: Two hours between abduction and murder 

Could Micaela Costanzo have been saved if police launched a full blown search effort the moment she was reported missing?

According to the confession of Toni Fratto the answer is yes.

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While it was generally assumed that the 16 year old girl was murdered within a half an hour to an hour after she was first reported missing Fratto’s audio confession suggest that Micaela Costanzo may have been alive for perhaps two hours or more from the time of her kidnapping, and not only alive but be driven around town in full view.

fratto preliminary hearing exerpts

part one

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part two

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part three

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Costanzo was reported missing by her mother at about 5:15 pm Thursday afternoon when she failed to return from track practice.

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Police went on alert and increased patrols. One enterprising officer using facebook formed an ad hoc search party that eventually numbered around 80 volunteers Thursday night. It is unknown however exactly when the first police alert was issued.

West Wendover Police Chief Ron Supp also did not, however, issue an Amber Alert and his department did not issue a press release regarding the missing girl until well into the day after she was reported missing.

“I don’t think it would have made any difference,” said West Wendover High School Principal Terry Carsrud. “Thursday night the school was full of volunteers looking for her anyway.”

Carsrud may have made that statement based on reports that Kody Patten admitted to killing Mickey Costanzo within an hour after abducting her from West Wendover High School but if Fratto is to be believed, Mickey Costanzo was alive and in Wendy Murphy’s SUV after 7 pm and in the parking lot of the Toana Vista Golf Course.

According to portions of Fratto’s confession, Kody Patten picked her up at the golf course where she attended a West Wendover Recreation District meeting with her mother Cassie.

Both Fratto’s attendance at the meeting was confirmed by the meetings official minutes, as well as corroborated by several witnesses. The meeting adjourned at 7 pm. In her confession Fratto says that Patten picked her up and that Mickey Costanzo was also in the vehicle. Fratto made no mention of whether Costanzo was restrained but makes the clear implication that the soon to be murdered young girl was not. Fratto adds that the three drove around town a bit, and that it was Costanzo who suggested they drive to some secluded place because she did not want to be seen with either of them. Patten drove to the gravel pit a few miles west of Wendover and after a brief fight, Costanzo was killed.

According to Fratto it was she who cut the young girl’s throat.

If Fratto is to be believed the question now becomes just what was going on between Kody Patten and Mickey Costanzo in the two hours between her disappearance and the time Fratto was picked up by Patten?

Costanzo certainly did not contact her mother nor was she reported being seen by anyone else. In fact the absence of any credible sighting of Costanzo after 5:15 pm cast doubt on the veracity of Fratto’s confession.

Adding to that doubt is the fact that by the time Patten picked up Fratto it was well after sunset.

Sunset on March 3, 2011 occurred at 6:21 pm with night falling at about 7 pm and there was no moon. If Fratto’s confession is to be believed, the murder and the cleanup had to take place by starlight. While that is possible, the fact that apart from the girl’s confession, not a shred of physical evidence, not even a foot print, so far produced links Fratto to the crime. Patten’s finger prints, both literally and figurative, are all over the crime scene.

The lack of evidence suggests that either Fratto was incredibly tidy in a brutal bloody killing or she was not there.

The implications for the West Wendover Police Department are also huge. If Fratto is telling the truth in her confession that means for about two hours after she was reported missing, Mickey Costanzo was being hidden in plain site, at least part of the time driving on the streets of Wendover.

The inability to find the missing girl for those two hours may have been one of the factors in Kip Patten’s decision not to go to the police after Toni fratto originally confessed her involvement in the crime but rather to his son’s attorneys Jeffrey Kump and John Ohlson.

When asked why that very question during Fratto’s preliminary hearing, the elder Patten implied that he did not trust the West Wendover police to do a thorough investigation of Fratto’s claims.

According to sources, Fratto was briefly interviewed at least twice by West Wendover police before and after Mickey Costanzo’s body was discovered. Both times, police went away apparently satisfied by her denial that she had nothing to do with the crime.

Three months after Costanzo was killed the West Wendover Police Department announced that it was contracting with Emergency Communications Network to license its CodeRED high-speed reverse 911 notification solution. The CodeRED system provides West Wendover and Wendover, Utah officials the ability to quickly deliver urgent or emergency messages to targeted areas or the entire Wendover area. The system is specifically designed to give a mass alert to residents with locating missing children as one of it primary directives.

But while anything that would cut the time down in locating a missing person must be considered a benefit, West Wendover already had the capacity to mount a much more organized and thorough search back in March.

With two companies employing about 75 percent of the work force a 1,000 pairs of eyes and hundreds of vehicles could have mobilized within minutes of the first missing person report with no more than five initial phone calls from police.

Additional alerts could have been easily sent to every individual or business whose e-mail is retain at the police department or city hall. Even without  high tech, police could have broadcast the alert for the missing girl on loud speakers from their cruisers.

If Mickey Costanzo had been killed within a half an hour to even an hour from her abduction such a display would have been in vain. But if Toni Fratto is to be believe, there were two golden hours when every man, woman and child in Wendover could have been mobilized to save her.