How could a girl coming from a large loving extended devoutly religious family with no history of child abuse or violent behavior willingly participate in the brutal slaughter of another girl?
Of all the horrific questions raised in the murder of Micaela Costanzo, that question silently screams but is not answered in her psychological profile, according to sources connected with the now confessed murderer.
According to sources who read the report there is nothing in Fratto’s past that would have been a red flag or even a caution that the girl who was a regular on the preteen Utah beauty pageant circuit would play a lead role in the most horrific murder in Wendover history.
With an IQ measured as low normal or ‘dull’, Fratto is said to have an extremely malleable personality, a follower and never a leader.
“There is really nothing in there that would surprise anyone who knew the girl,” said a source who read the report. “”It doesn’t answer any questions. In fact it even raises some. Anyone looking for some deep dark secret is going to be disappointed. It is just not there.”
It was a year ago that Fratto sent shock waves through Wendover already shattered by the senseless murder of 16 year old Micaela Costanzo by local thug Kody Patten.
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Until Fratto walked into the offices of Patten’s Elko lawyer Jeffrey Kump on April 20, 2011 the local police, Elko County sheriff’s detectives and the Elko County District Attorney believed that it was Patten and only Patten who murdered the popular Costanzo on March 3rd of that year.
Fratto’s tale told to Kump and via conference call to his Reno attorney John Ohlson was bone chilling in its banality. Fratto told the defense attorneys that not only had she participated in the murder but actually dealt the killing blow.
Later in her plea agreement the now 19 year old woman admitted to hitting her victim with a shovel and then holding her down as Patten cut her throat. Fratto also explained in her plea agreement that Patten had sent her a text message after he abducted Micaela from West Wendover High School and that the girl was alive and in the SUV Patten used to pick up Fratto from a meeting of the Wendover Recreation District two hours after the kidnapping.
Patten, Fratto and their victim may have even passed by the first searchers for Micaela that were then mobilizing as they drove out to the gravel pit five miles out of town. The two even showed up the next day at West Wendover High to join in the search for Costanzo.
“It was really shocking to see Kody there. A lot of people already had suspicion about him.” Said one teacher. “Toni just seemed emotionless. Kind of blank like she always was in class.”
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Another teacher described her as a girl who was “barely there” and apart from check mark next to her name on daily attendance rolls it was hard to say whether she was in a particular class.
Patten was hauled in for interrogation three days after the murder and confessed to the killing just hours after Costanzo’s body was found. While saying nothing to police about Fratto’s role in the killing, the young man did tell his father Kip Patten and may have either told his attorneys out right or alluded to it.
It was Kip Patten who chauffeured Fratto to twice weekly visit to Patten in the Elko County jail and it was Kip Patten who drove her to that fateful meeting to Kump’s office where Toni Fratto made her infamous confession.
Early on in the case it was presumed that Fratto’s confession boded well for Patten. Fratto was painted as the brains behind the killing with Patten as her willing dupe by the young man’s lawyers.
While patten was still looking to spend a good chunk of his life in prison, the chances of him getting the death penalty were presumed to be very small, said the conventional wisdom.
That thinking began to change when the details of fratto’s confession began to be examined.
The major difference between Fratto’s and Patten’s confession is time. According to Patten the killing took place almost immediately after Costanzo’s abduction at a little after 5 pm March 3. Fratto’s time line put the killing much later at after 7 pm.
If Fratto is to be believed Patten must have held Micaela for about two hours against her will until Fratto was free to commit murder. Instead of an almost “accidental” killing in the course of a fight patten portrayed fratto’s version of events suggest a cold blooded calculated murder that would qualify for a death sentence.
The picture got even darker for Patten this January when Fratto learned that her boyfriend was considering a plea deal with the DA’s office where he would cop to a 1st degree murder plea but that the death penalty was taken off the table in exchange for his testimony against Fratto.
At the 11th hour Patten withdrew from the deal but not before news of it reached Fratto. The girl perhaps enraged by the betrayal agreed to a deal of her own where she pled guilty to second degree murder with the use of deadly weapon and to testify against Patten.
While Fratto’s psychological evaluation will be used in her sentencing next week it is almost certain that it will also play a key part in Patten’s prosecution.
“The evaluation makes it pretty clear that Toni is pretty incapable of having an original thought,” said that same source. “This and her testimony if she is called would pretty much prove that Kody was the brains in the murder and Toni was just doing what she was told.”
While Fratto may be the one person who could send Patten to death row the question of her involvement is sure to haunt Wendover for a very long time.
“Everyone suspected Kody the minute Micaela went missing,” said one teacher. “The kid was bad news from the moment he got here in the seventh grade. What really shocking is Toni. Yeah she was a nothing. But she came from a good religious family. She was never in any trouble. Never violent never in even an argument, and she does this? It is hard to wrap your head around.”
local thug??????
The definition of thug, is a violent criminal.