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.
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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.
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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.
Both in motions to the court and in the line of questioning of Kip Patten during Fratto’s preliminary hearing Fratto’s attorneys have strongly implied that for the six weeks he drove Toni Fratto to visit his son at the Elko County Jail, Kip Patten pressured the girl to confess to the murder.
The mental evaluation could be offered as proof that not only was Fratto susceptible to pressure she may have even been able to convince herself that she was telling the truth.
A very partial transcript of Fratto’s confession confirms the general belief that whether lying or not Fratto confessed not because of any overwhelming guilt to the crime but rather to “help” her boyfriend.
It is also clear that Fratto is under the impression that she, her boyfriend Patten and Patten’s attorneys are on the same team and even if they cannot officially represent her, they will take care of her.
From the minute the news broke the overwhelming feeling from those who knew her was that far from a criminal mastermind with ice water for blood, Toni Fratto was confessing to a crime she didn’t and some say could not have committed at the behest of her jailed lover.
Patten certainly had the opportunity to make such a request. Fratto visited him as often as twice a week making the four hour round trip to Elko on Wednesdays and Sunday ever since Patten was arrested n May 7th.
She also talked to him at least once a day thanks to a collect calling plan purchased by her father. The frequent and continued contact the girl had with Patten also
Far from the black widow who directed Patten to kill a romantic or social rival, friends and acquaintances of both Fratto and Patten describe her as a mouse of a girl who was “barely there”.
Indeed some friends relate the Patten held the whole Fratto family in thrall and what official records exist tend to support the allegation.
He moved into the home after his own parents threw him out and bragged to classmates how he verbally and emotionally abused his benefactors.
So complete was his domination of the family, friends relate, that even when Patten was caught on school grounds strangling Toni Fratto just months before the murder, Claud and Cassie Fratto refused to press criminal charges and allowed the very disturbed young man back into their home.
By all accounts Fratto’s parents were oblivious to the point of denial that there was anything wrong with the future killer.
Then a juvenile Patten was suspended and than readmitted to the high school where he was put on probation.
According to one well placed source Patten was just one infraction away from being expelled at the time of the murder and like his girlfriend Patten also withdrew from the school’s social life in his senior year.
A possible reason as to why Patten would ‘suggest’ to his girlfriend to confess to the crime may be found in the mitigating factors regarding the death penalty. According to Nevada law juries may take into account the fact that a convicted murderer acted on the suggestion of another involved in the crime. And according to Fratto’s charge sheet that is exactly what she is accused of doing.
