The minute amount of blood found under Micaela Costanzo’s finger nail belongs to Micaela Costanzo according to a DNA test completed this Monday, confidential sources reported.
According to those sources neither the DNA of Costanzo’s two confessed killers, Toni Fratto or Kody Patten was found in the test.
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This September Elko District Attorney Marc Torvinen asked District Judge Dan Papez for permission for permission to submit a tiny piece of blood and/or skin found beneath one finger nail of Micaela Costanzo for DNA testing.
The sample was so small Torvinen cautioned the court that it would have to be destroyed without any left over for retesting.
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According to court records neither of the defense teams representing kody Patten or Toni Fratto raised any objection to the test provided their own DNA experts be allowed to be present when the testing is done.
“Its a one off thing,” said a source close to the case. “And a lot could be resting on the results.”
Micaela “Mickie” Costanzo was murdered on March 3rd.
Toni Fratto and boyfriend Kody Patten confessed to the murder of but at different times and their 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 gravel pit about three miles west of Wendover.
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 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. However police recovered plastic restraints often used instead of handcuffs in the grave with Costanzo’s body.
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.
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 evidence of Fratto at the scene not even a footprint. DNA recovered from a blood stained shirt found at the scene does match Patten.
