Net Closing On Third Suspect? Detectives Hand Case Over To DA

The decision to a charge an as yet unnamed third suspect in the murder of a 16 year old West Wendover girl will rest with District Attorney Marc Torvinen said Elko Sheriff’s lead detective Kevin McKinney, Wednesday.

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Working on a tip that there could be a third person involved in the crime Elko County Detectives were in Wendover Friday interviewing potential witnesses about the events on the night of the murder of Micaela Costanzo, March 3.

“We conducted several interviews,” McKinney confirmed Wednesday. “They are being typed up and our report will be delivered to the District Attorney’s office. It is up to them if they want to press charges.”

Police agencies are not the only ones interested in this supposed third suspect. Private investigators hired by Toni Fratto’s defense team are also said to be very interested if there is evidence of a third party in the crime.

Fratto and boyfriend Kody Patten confessed to the murder of Mickey Costanzo but at different times and there statements were at least partially contradictory.

Patten confessed first, three days after the murder and just hours after the Costanzo’s body was found in a ravel pit about three miles west of Wendover.

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Patten did not mention Fratto being involved in the crime at all and in fact in a throw away line to detectives interviewing him said he left the crime scene “to go pick up, Toni”. Fratto had been attending a meeting of the West Wendover Recreation District where her mother Cassie is a member of the board.

Patten may have told police that he committed the murder within 30 minutes of abducting Micaela “Mickey” Costanzo.

Patten’s time line of the killing is at least superficially at odds with Fratto. In her confession the 19 year old Wendover girl said Costanzo was alive and with Patten  when Patten picked up after the meeting at around 7 pm.

Neither of the two confessed killers admitted that Mickey Costanzo was at any time restrained or bound before they killed her.

Where the two confessions agree is in their portrayal of a panic murder when a verbal argument progressed into a physical shoving match that lead to the actual killing.

In Patten’s confession, the young man instead he dealt the killing blow, shovel blade across the neck after Costanzo went into a seizure after striking her head against a rock. In Fratto’s confession, it is she who kills Costanzo by cutting the unconscious girl’s throat with a folding knife.

Speculation that Patten or Patten and Fratto had help at least after the murder had long been rumored. While most reports were simply idle gossip there is some evidence that has fueled the rumor mill.

With the exception of tire tracks belonging to the borrowed SUV that Patten or patten and Fratto used to get to the gravel pit, there is virtually no forensic evidence linking the two to the crime and there is no forensic evidence linking Mickey Costanzo to the vehicle.

“She was a 16 year old girl, she got out of the shower from track practice,” said a source close to the investigation. “She was in the car for any where from 20 minutes to two hours. It should have been full of her DNA.”

Police, prosecution and both defense teams have already commented on the tremendous lake of forensic evidence linking either Patten or Fratto to the crime scene or even the SUV.

“You don’t expect that from a so called panic murder by one or two teenagers,” said a source close to the case. “But the car was almost spotless. There was no trace of Fratto at the scene not even a footprint and very slight DNA evidence putting Patten there either. It just doesn’t fit the knocked drag out fight account in their confessions.”

According to as yet substantiated reports the reason for the lack of evidence is that the killers may have had help after the murder but before Patten’s confession to clean up by an adult who may or may not have known about the killing three days before Micaela Costanzo’s body was found.

If true, and that is a big if, that helper could find him or herself facing murder charges. According to Nevada law there is no lesser charge of aiding and/or abetting after the fact.

“If one is a principal before during or after the fact in a murder one is a principal in the murder,” said Fratto’s attorney John Springgate.

However, despite their ages Kody Patten and Toni Fratto may have had enough knowledge on how to clean a crime scene without adult supervision. According to teachers at west Wendover High School Kody Patten’s senior English report was on modern American serial killers.

Of the two the arrest or even open speculation of a third accomplice would be more beneficial to Fratto.

Her lawyers have long contended that her confession was simply made out of whole cloth and have pointed out details in it that simply could not have happened when she said they did.

The most glaring example was Fratto’s account of hiding from a passing train. According to records the only train passing through the area came at around 5:30 pm, a time when Fratto’s whereabouts are known at the time Fratto admits to killing Costanzo the track was empty.

Depending on who and if a third accomplice is a identified the case against Fratto could collapse.

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There is also clear proof that at least one person in Wendover still holds a tremendous amount of enmity toward the murdered young girl and her family.

In July perhaps during Toni Fratto’s preliminary hearing a hand mad wooden cross that marked the girl’s shallow grave at the gravel pit was stolen.

The  cross was placed by family friends Tracy and Todd Woofinden where she was killed and buried. The cross was erected on what would have been Micaela Costanzo’s 17th birthday on May 3rd.

“It was so beautiful, I know Todd worked on it so hard,” said Celia Costanzo to the High Desert Advocate. “We are Catholics, and while Mickey was buried at our family’s ranch but this was her first resting place (referring to the gravel pit five miles west of town where her daughter’s body was discovered in a shallow grave). The family grave yard is so far away and hard to get to. I think it was nice that there is a little shrine that is easy for her friends to get to.”

The cross was stolen between July 11 and July 14. Coincidentally the preliminary hearing of Toni Fratto was held on July 13 and July 14. According to Costanzo only the cross was stolen everything else, the flowers, photos and written tributes are still there.

“After everything that has happened it feels like we have been violated all over again.” Mrs. Costanzo said. “Why would anyone do something like this? How could anyone do something like that?”

While the theft of the cross may have all the hallmarks of a sick mind, the act itself while revolting may not have been illegal.

Grave desecration is not specifically if Nevada Revised Statutes and although it was a touching memorial to a young girl the cross marked no grave. Indeed because its location was on the NDOT gravel pit prosecutors would be hard pressed to charge even simple vandalism or theft if the perpetrator was ever identified.

“He or she could simply argue they took something that had been abandoned in the desert.” Said one law enforcement officer who declined to be identified. “It was a pretty terrible thing to do but it may not have broken the law. On the other hand I would not want to be in his shoes if he ever gets identified either.”

If there is a third accomplice, he or she could have a lot more to worry about than public approbation of a stolen cross and may be even be facing a murder charge.