Videos courtesy KSL TV
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Unmoved by his lawyers contention that Kody Patten was dupe in the brutal murder of Micaela “Mickie” Costanzo, White Pine District Judge Dan Papez sentenced the former West Wendover High School student to the maximum life without parole, Friday in Elko District Court.
Testimony of Teddy Costanzo, Kip Patten & Kody Patten
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Papez Sentencing
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The scheduled seven hour hearing actually was over after three hours and the bombshells implied by the defense failed to materialize or were duds. In the months and week before the sentencing Patten’s lead attorney John Pohlson of Reno said the might present entries Toni Fratto, Patten’s accomplice, made in her diary of her hatred for Mickie Costanzo indicating that the motive for her murder was Fratto’s jealously.
Patten’s girlfriend Toni Fratto was sentence this April to 18 years to life on one count of second degree murder after striking a plea bargain with the Elko District Attorney office. Originally facing a first degree murder charge like her boyfriend District Attorney Marc Torvinen allowed the 19 year old teen to plead to the lesser charge in exchange for her testimony against Patten. According to Patten’s own attorney John Ohlson of Reno, Fratto’s testimony would have almost assured his client ending up on death row if the case went to trial.
Less than a week after Fratto was sentenced Patten also accepted a deal.
The plea bargain was almost identical to a January deal Patten first agreed to and then rejected just hours before the change of plea was supposed to be entered.
“It was the sensible thing to do,” Ohlson said at the time, adding that if some of the details about the killing came out at trial, “It would be difficult to avoid the death penalty.”
Patten’s sudden refusal to take the earlier deal had a far ranging implication. Less than 24 hours after the news broke that the plea bargain was busted, Fratto copped her own deal with the DA. And Fratto’s testimony against her former boyfriend is devastating.
“Before she gave her affidavit the chances of Patten getting the death penalty were pretty slim,” said a source close to the case. “Yes the DA had the confession but the defense had some pretty good supposed mitigating factors as well as another defendant they could pin some of the guilt on who wouldn’t testify against Kody. After her plea and especially after her affidavit the all that change. That (the affidavit) is a death penalty affidavit.”
In a three and a half hour interrogation by Elko District Attorney Marc Torvinen, Fratto gave the prosecution evidence that could have put Patten on death row. According to her attorneys Fratto told the District Attorney that Patten spent more than a week planning Costanzo’s murder to the last detail.
Fratto also told the DA that after he had abducted Costanzo from West Wendover high school, Patten sent her a text message and a photo of his young victim while Fratto attended a Wendover Recreation district meeting where her mother Cassie is a board member.
In exchange for that damning proffer, Fratto agreed to plea guilty to second degree murder.
Click link below for Fratto’s statement to prosecution
“He was just an awful kid,” said one of his elementary school teachers who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “He attacked other students, used vulgar and obscene language. I couldn’t turn my back on him couldn’t even let him sit with the rest of the class. But the worst thing was that when you tried to discipline him his father Kip would come and threaten to sue the school. Kip would argue every single point of Kody’s infractions. Finally instead of suspending him for one thing a wrote out a list. I think the longest was 14 separate major infractions in one week.”
The younger Patten’s behavior was so out of control that he was taken out of the classroom by the time he was in 6th grade and by the time he was in junior high school, teachers actively sought to have him expelled.
“A number of Kody’s teachers, myself included, argued regularly that he be expelled to protect students. The administration seemed intimidated by his parents,” wrote one of his Junior High School teacher’s on the Advocate’s web page www.coyote-tv.com.
When contacted this week that teacher provided a litany of the younger Patten’s more egregious and memorable offenses.
“This was junior high, pre-teenagers, I never thought I would ever push for the expulsion of so young a kid but he was unbelievable,” the teacher said. “Like I said in my post, his parents mostly his dad Kip fought for him tooth and nail. I am all for dad’s sticking by their sons but it’s a father’s job to raise a good man not a murderer.”
Fratto on the other hand was described as a meek girl who was barely noticed in school.
Thank heavens Mickie got justice!!! He deserves worse than what he got, but thank goodness this sick, waste of space, air, and tax payers money will not allowed to be free to do this again!!! And the fact that he is so pathetic and would not give the Costanzo family answers as to why is sickening and sad. To say you don’t know why is an excuse!
Your pathetic Kody Patten and may you rot, waste away, and live a horrible and terrible life. I will hope each and every day that you and Fratto will meet your matches in prison. Karma will get you both, and I hope its as terrible as your crime!!
Now it is time for his parents to get out of this part the the Country. You as his parents do have allot to do with how your kid Kody turned out.
Don’t let the 50 State Lines Hit in your a$$
@ John Elder I completely agree!!!!!!!
It made me sick watching the videos. He truly is sick!!! After 1 year and 5 months you have to stumble through and think about what you want to say to the family. This family deserved answers Kody Patten and you know EXACTLY why you and Fratto did this,if you truly had no reason or justification the crime would not have been comitted and Mickie would still be here. Unfortunatly some will continue to suffer because they did not recieve answers as to why.
And to have no reaction, NONE at all to his verdict shows that Kody is a physco, he only began to have some what of a reaction as he probably looked at his family. You and Fratto deserve MUCH, MUCH worse and I hope you find that worse waiting for you behind prison walls. You 2 are truly monsters!
you stand in court and repeatdly state you don’t know why? you do and so does Fratto. God will be your judge now. And i know (a former prison guard) that your life will be a living hell in prison. I bet you give them the answers. Prison is not a place for rapists or murderers and especially one of a child. You are emotionless now but wait till you ride through the gates of the prison and see how emotionless your are. To Micaela’s family we can celebrate her life now and embrace family and friends. We will never speak this monster’s name again!!!!.
There is not any reaction at his sentencing? See his face while he is escorted out of the courtroom. He didn´t expected the maximum life sentence. Now, he´ll live upon his passing behind bars, eating sith, without any travel, any party, he won´t go to restaurants, to hotels, he will not buy a new car or get a prize or a fellowship, he will not fuck a girl for the rest of his life. While I´ll be doing these things!!!
ENJOY YOUR INTERESTING AND EXCITING LIFE IN PRISON!! I´ll send you a postcard each year with the number of countries visited and fucked girls!
You should be ashamed of yourselves. Parents can guide their children, but the children’s friends and the outside world mould the kids even farther. I knew Kip when his boy was quite a bit younger. He was devoted to his family and punished kody when he was wrong. What’s wrong with you people? Kip was as horrified as anyone else to find out his son was involved in this murder. Have some compassion.
I´d like know how is the day-by-day life at Ely S Prison. What kind of food they eat, how these luxury Hilton cells are, if they´re alone or accompanied in them, etc. Kody has executed this barbarity and has to pay because he ´s a danger for society. State prisons should have an armored window to can see Patten and all these monsters rot in their cells from outside, I´d show them excellent food,beauty girls and all these great life things that they won´t deserve to enjoy. Have a nice stay Kody.
Actually, it was Kody’s father that made his son do the right thing and confess. It’s on tape. You can hear it on Dateline “Under the Desert Sky”. I have no doubt why they did it. His girlfriend was extremely jealous of the victim. The meticulous way her face was mutilated shows someone wanted to make her ugly. This mutilation is different from the violent bludgeoning that Kody perpetrated on the victim. This type of face mutilation is more commonly perpetrated by women to women.
They’re both wrong and they both deserve to be punished. But c’mon no matter how I look at it, I think Toni is the most guilty and she should be senteced to death row or life sentence without parole. And Kody with parole. Because no matter how I look at it, all the evidence point on her way, she was jealous, Mickey’s face was slashed because she wanted to make her ugly. She never shed a tear on the interview and it all seemed fakes, actually she looked like psychopath. On the other hand, Kody feels really bad about it. And Toni changed her version of the story he tried to protect her, she screwed him over. Stuck up bitch I hope she rots in prison.
Both are killers, so both deserve life without parole. But not in this kind of prison system. In other system designed to be wake up at 5:00 AM, having only 30 minutes for a speed shower in an overcrowded bathroom, then checking list, other fifteen minutes for a very bad breakfast, and from 6:00 AM to 12:00 AM hard forced work. Then, 30 minutes for a worse meal, (we know the shit that our prisons provide) and 30 minutes for rest. Then, from 13:00 to 18:00 more hard work, unpaid, of course. Other 30 minutes for a small lunch, chek list, and to their cells again, living always in two or three inmates cells with no TV, no radio, nothing else tan free day on Sundays. As recreation, see an small video in the dining room of nice girls, hotels, travels, sucessful people -normal people earning money and enjoying their lives in their business, Jobs, graduating, practicing sex, etc- to remember them the life thei´ve lost.
This is an appropriate punishment, not the death row.
Have a nice stay, Kody. Did you like the postcard I sent you from Spain telling you about all travles I´ve done this year from my graduation at the Languages School, the restaurants I go, and the Dominican Girl I had sex with?
I enjoy when I remember of you when I see the Ely State Prison and when I relax in Seville taking a coffee with cake, or I eat the Big Mac with my girl. So, enjoy your interesting and exciting life at Ely!!!!!!! I´ll send you a new postcard for 2014!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!
Kind of feel bad for Kody since his dad made him confess first before getting a lawyer and she was the guilty one. Instead his dad freaked out instead of getting a court appointed lawyer as he was allowed.
He should have got the death penalty. POS!
Death penalty doesn´t fit the crime. In my opinion, LWOP at the Ely State Prison in the middle of the desert, imposed on a 20-years old male who´ll live keeping in mind he´ll never have sex, or travels, or enjoy restaurants; first dates that never will be; liberty to choose a book in a public library, or browse the internet to keep pornographic sites or see the world with the GoogleEarth; or those trivial daily things we usually enjoy. See how your life is ending day by day, year by year, withouth any hope; living in a cell where several webpages indicates that he spends 23 hours a day; eating authentic shit; probably without any privacy because he´ll surely has to share with other inmate. Surrounded by criminals that can kill him every minute. Please read statements on the daily routine al Ely State Prison. You´ll discover tan death is better tan this hell.
I´ve sent him postcards each year relating briefly my experiences travelling, going to events and meeting, and sexual encounters. I´d like see his face expression of frustration Reading them.
I laugh at him, as I do at all these stupid teenagers sentenced to life in USA and Mexico, while I enjoy strongly my freedom. Today I´ve spent the day in Cordoba, Spain, surrounded by extraordinary monuments, beauty girls and luxury restaurants. I remembered of Kody and his solitary confinement. He´ll never enjoy all the things Iñve enjoyed today for the rest of his pointless life. I remember of him when I´ve just experienced an orgasm with one of my several girls or when I obtain a sucess of any kind. Fuck you Kody, you should pleaded not guilty to receive the injection, if you were intelligent. Now, remembering of you each day is my favourite hobby…