Elko District Attorney Tyler Ingram stated on Monday that Fratto’s parole was denied. “Toni Fratto will be a middle aged woman when she breaths free air again. White Pine District Judge Dan Papez imposed one of the harshest sentences on the West Wendover teen of life in prison plus 20 years for Fratto’s part in the vicious killing last year of 16 year old Micaela Costanzo” commented Howard Copelan at the time, in April 2012.(photo credit High Desert Advocate Archives April 2012)
Toni Fratto, a vicious woman (then a teen, at that time of the murder in 2011 she was 18) convicted in the murder of an other West Wendover teenager has been denied parole in her first hearing since being incarcerated in 2012.
Toni Fratto appeared before Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners on Feb. 24 via video conference in regard to her second-degree murder conviction in the death of 16-year-old Micaela Costanzo.
Elko District Attorney Tyler Ingram stated on Monday Fratto’s parole was denied.
Tony Fratto and Kody Patten, both of whom are now 28 years old, were convicted in the March 2011 vicious murder of Micaela Costanzo. Her body was found buried in a shallow grave five miles outside of West Wendover.
For his first-degree conviction, Patten received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Patten and Fratto each received a consecutive sentence of 8-10 years in prison for the use of a deadly weapon tacked on to their life sentences.
Ingram explained Fratto would have to serve a minimum of 18 years – 10 years for the second-degree murder conviction and eight years for the deadly weapon enhancement – before she could be released.
If Fratto had been granted parole as a result of the February hearing, it “does not mean she walks out of prison. If it was granted, she would then start to serve her second sentence,” Ingram said. Patten and Fratto were in a relationship at the time of the murder. During Fratto’s and Patten’s court appearances, a clear motive was never determined. Patten said, ‘I can’t describe what happened. I can’t justify it. I don’t know why,” before he was sentenced. The homicide received national media attention. On a Facebook page dedicated to the memory of Costanzo, her family announced on Jan. 1 that they were informed about Fratto’s upcoming parole hearing slated for February. Another post made on Jan. 25 asked family, friends and classmates to send letters to the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners with the mailing address provided.
One day after the hearing, Costanzo’s mother wrote a message hoping her daughter would be “proud” of her sisters, friends and community who endured “the second hardest thing.”
“All of us did our best,” she said. “Let’s see what happens. We tried our best to be your voice.”
Ingram said due to the rules of the parole board, he was not allowed to speak during the hearing.
“However, I wrote a letter to the Board urging them to deny parole,” he said.
Fratto is scheduled for another parole hearing in May 2024.
Posted on coyote-tv (High Desert Advocate Newspaper website) on 23 December 2011,
written by Howard Copelan: “Confessed murderer Toni Fratto will be transferred to the Washoe County Jail in Reno while she undergoes a psychiatric evaluation, said her attorney John Springgate.
The Reno based attorney stressed that Fratto’s examination would be done by metal health practitioners contracted by her defense team and not by psychiatrists at the state run facility Lakes Crossing for the criminally insane.
Lakes Crossing was the facility that did the mental evaluation for Kody Patten, Fratto’s lover and accomplice in the murder of 16 year old Micaela Costanzo this March.
After less than two weeks at the facility Patten was found mentally competent to stand trial. The finding was not unexpected, the number of accused offenders that have been found mentally incompetent or criminally insane over the past 30 years at the facility can be literally counted on one hand.
The mental evaluation of Fratto however is not expected to address whether the girl is sane or knows the difference between right and wrong, at least not exclusively. Rather and perhaps more importantly it will be used as evidence that Toni Fratto does have the personality to confess to a crime she may not have committed to either help save her lover, gain some form of notoriety or buckled under pressure by someone else.
Both Patten and Fratto confessed to the murder of Mickie Costanzo but gave widely different time lines.
In his confession taken just days after the murder Patten suggest that the killing did indeed take place shortly after 5 pm perhaps no later than 5:30 pm on the afternoon of March 3rd.
Patten also does not mention Fratto even being at the scene of the killing and in a throw away line to detectives says he left the gravel pit after the killing to pick up his girl friend.
In her confession made some six weeks after the murder, Fratto parrots Patten’s words except for the time of the killing putting it well after 7 pm that day. The reason for the difference in time lines is quite simple until Fratto’s where abouts are known from 5 pm to 7 pm and she was not with Patten and thus could not have been murdering Costanzo.
Fratto’s confession is especially crucial to the prosecution because other than it, there is simply no evidence whether forensic or even a witness linking Fratto to the crime.
Patten however is caught on video tape stalking the halls of Wet Wendover High School shortly before Mickie Costanzo disappeared, it was Patten and not Fratto seen driving the borrowed SUV whose tracks were found at the murder scene. Patten’s DNA was found on a bloody shirt at the crime scene.
On the other hand the only evidence against Fratto is Fratto herself.
And while Fratto appears to be adamant in sticking by her confession her attorneys may be building a case that while the girl is certainly sane she should simply not be believed.
Fratto’s attorneys have contended that her confession is not only false but was drilled into her by Kip Patten, Kody’s father.
