Pyrrhic Victory For Killer’s Dad- Kip Patten?

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Just as Toni Fratto and Kody Patten may be receiving different sentences for essentially the same crime, the treatment of their parents has been as different as day and night.

While Claude and Cassie Fratto have received mostly sympathy, Kip and Dawna Patten are virtual pariahs.

But as blogger on the High Desert Advocate’s website noted it was Kody’s father Kip who not only encouraged his son to confess to the crime and not ‘lawyer up’ but it was also Kip Patten who pressured Fratto to confess as well.

And it may have been the elder Patten’s successful effort to bring his son’s accomplice to justice that accounts for his lack of popularity

According to Kip Patten’s own testimony in both his son’s and Fratto’s preliminary hearings he was soon made aware of Fratto’s involvement in the murder shortly after his son was arrested.

At first reluctant to implicate his girlfriend Kody Patten began to confirm his father’s suspicions via notes and phone screen messages held up to the glass in the Elko County Jail’s visitors area.

The reason for the secrecy may have been simple. Given a clean bill of health by the police Toni Fratto had resumed her life as the quiet shy school girl.

Kip Patten may have assumed that if the accusation against Fratto came from his son or even himself it would not have been believed or taken seriously by either police of the District Attorney.

Instead, as Patten told the court, he began what would be a month long effort to persuade Fratto to come forward herself. In weekly or twice weekly drive to the Elko county jail the elder patten first got the girl to admit to her role in the killing to himself and then to his son’s attorneys all the while keeping his efforts secret from detectives.

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Six weeks after the killing in what was supposed to be a routine hearing, John Pohlson, Patten’s lead attorney dropped the bombshell confession from Fratto.

At first the news was met with mostly disbelief. Toni Fratto was making it up or that she had been brainwashed by Kip Patten and her boyfriend’s lawyers to confess to a crime she did not and could not have committed.

Her own court appointed attorneys were quick to point out inconsistencies between her confession and that of Kody Patten’s and suggested in later filings that the girl was merely parrotting lines fed to her.

But once convinced to confess Fratto held firm and despite pleas and entreaties by her family she never withdrew her admission of guilt. If she had and if her attorneys were successful in getting the confession thrown out of court she may have even escaped conviction.

According to David Lockie one of her attorneys there was not single piece of physical evidence linking her to the crime or the crime scene. While granting that detectives weren’t looking her trace evidence at the time of the killing, Fratto’ defense were if not confident at least slightly optimistic of the chances had it not been for her confession.

Working as though it did not exist and perhaps that Fratto would eventually retract it, Fratto’s defense team identified Kip Patten as their biggest problem. And began what would have been a full scale assault on the man’s reputation and his credibility.

Private detectives were hired to ferret out every bit of dirt on him and they quickly found out that Kip Patten did not lack for enemies in Wendover.

Often portrayed as a bully and a trouble maker, some of Patten’s harshest critics came from former teachers of his son who according to some was allowed to remain in school when any other student would have been expelled only because administrators had been intimidated by Kip Patten.

That character assassination was canceled when Fratto took the plea deal offered by District Attorney Marc Torvinen.

Apart from avoiding trial the plea bargain had another result the belief that Toni Fratto had not actually committed the crime evaporated.

First by the plea deal itself and then by the release of her proffer to the court, Fratto dispelled all doubts that she was an innocent.

Later a jail house interview with CNN’s Andersen Cooper, Fratto may have lost all but her family’s support when she insisted that she ‘was kind of forced’ to commit the murder and was also a victim in a sense.

Ironically Kip patten’s successful efforts to win Fratto’s confession and conviction in the murder may not have helped his son.

Until Fratto confessed Patten’s lawyers were preparing a motion that patten should not face the death penalty and perhaps not even a first degree murder charge because according to the boy’s confession the murder was neither premeditated nor was there a kidnapping involved.

Patten told police that killing occurred during a fight between himself and Costanzo just minutes after she accepted a ride from him from West Wendover High School.

In a motion Patten’s Attorney John Ohlson argued that given the spontaneity of the crime, while heinous did not rise to the level of death penalty case and perhaps not even a first degree murder charge.

Fratto’s confession rendered that argument moot.

The murder according to Fratto happened two hours after Patten said it did meaning Patten held their victim against her will, kidnapping. Also Fratto added that she and Patten spent days if not weeks planning the killing.

After reading Fratto’s proffer Ohlson confided that if Patten had gone to trial he would have most certainly been convicted and very likely could have received the death penalty.

Still Kip Patten may have the satisfaction that without him and if Toni Fratto had not confessed she might have gotten away with it while her boyfriend rotted in prison.