Jennifer
Freeman, of Orlando, Fla., didn't want to leave their 5-year-old
daughter alone with him.
"He
is too
unstable and might hurt [their daughter] to get back at me," she wrote
in a petition for a protective order filed in the Ninth Judicial
Circuit Court of Florida and obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune . About a month after
the judge finalized a protective order against him, Sloop's new fiance,
Stephanie, brought her 4-year-old son Ethan to live with them in Utah
for the summer.
But
according to divorce papers filed by Ethan's father, the boy's mother
was also "unstable" and he didn't want Ethan to spend the summer with
her.
"The
mother
has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take
him and I'll never see him again," Joe Stacy wrote in an emergency
petition for temporary custody filed in November.
That
request
was denied. On April 28, Ethan arrived in Layton to spend the summer
with his mother and her fiance.
A
week
later, Nathan Sloop closed a bedroom door and began slapping and
beating Ethan around the head and face, leaving him bruised and
swollen, according to police documents. Ethan's mother didn't stop the
beating, and didn't take him to the doctor.
The
next
day, the couple locked Ethan in a bedroom and went to the county
courthouse in Farmington to get married, documents say. They didn't
bring him for fear that someone would see his injuries and call police.
Over
the
next few days, Ethan would not eat, was lethargic, had a fever and was
vomiting, possible signs of a brain injury. On Friday, Stephanie Sloop
said she came home to find her son badly burned on his feet and legs.
She said she didn't believe Sloop's story about an accident in an
overly hot bath, but thought he would hurt her and didn't call police.
Ethan
died
the next day, Mother's Day. The Sloops disfigured his body and buried
him off a trail near Powder Mountain Ski Resort.
Stephanie
Sloop reported Ethan missing Monday. After a 12-hour search, the
couple's story unraveled, and they admitted where they had buried the
body.
They
are
being held on suspicion of child abuse and desecration of a corpse;
Nathan Sloop is also being held on suspicion of aggravated homicide.
Charges are expected to be filed today.
They
are not
allowed near other inmates and are being held alone in cells 23 hours a
day, allowed out only to shower and exercise, jail officers said.
Carla
Jones,
a former friend of Stephanie Sloop from when she lived in Florida, said
that last week she received "a few" messages from Stephanie Sloop, but
she did not return them because she "was sick of the drama."
"You
carry a
lot of guilt around when someone calls you hysterical and you don't
call them back, but she had cried wolf one too many times," Jones said.
"Had I ever known they would have done this to Ethan, I would have
intervened."
According
to
divorce papers, Sloop was abusive in his first marriage. He and Freeman
married in 1999 in Florida, when he was 20 and she was 19. The couple
moved to Utah and bought a house in Roy. When she got pregnant in 2004,
he insisted she stay at home with the child.
He exerted
an "unreasonable" and "unhealthy level of control" over her, Freeman
claimed in divorce papers. He hit and slapped her, pulled her hair and
pushed her into walls, Freeman said. She left him in October 2007 and
took their daughter to her parents' home in Florida, according to court
papers.
Freeman
could not be contacted Thursday for comment.
In
court
filings, Nathan Sloop denied abusing her and denied being diagnosed
with a mental illness other than obsessive compulsive disorder. No
domestic violence charges were filed against him in Utah.
In
the
settlement, the couple shared custody, with the girl designated to
spend summers and half of holidays with her father and live the rest of
the year with her mother in Florida.
About
a year
after the divorce was finalized, Freeman filed for a protective order,
quoting from a 1½-hour stream of threatening voice mails Sloop
had left on Sept. 2 for both Freeman and her boyfriend.
"I
don't
give a f--- if I gotta spend the rest of my life in f------ prison,
f--- you, I'm coming for your f------ throat," he told her, according
to the filing.
"I
believe
he has the ability to carry out these threats," she wrote.
Meanwhile,
Nathan Sloop had reconnected with Stephanie Stacy, with whom he had
gone to the same high school in Florida.
Carla
Jones
said she befriended Stephanie Sloop five years ago when she came to the
Florida doctor's office where Jones worked. Jones watched Ethan while
his mother had her appointments.
She
said
their families would have dinner at each other's homes and hang out a
lot.
When
Stephanie left, Carla and her family did their best to be supportive
and kept doing activities with Ethan and Joe Stacy before they moved to
Virginia.
"We
were
friends until Stephanie went off the deep end and abandoned Joe and
Ethan," Jones said. "It was always all about Stephanie."
Sheena
McFarland and Bob Mims contributed to this story.
Stephanie
Sloop requests marriage annulment June
27th, 2010 @ 3:06pm
SALT
LAKE CITY (AP)
A woman charged in the death and
mutilation of her
4-year-old son is seeking an annulment from her new husband.
Stephanie
Sloop, 27, filed the annulment petition Friday in Farmington's 2nd
District Court. She married Nathanael Sloop on May 6 -- five days
before her son Ethan Stacy's disfigured body was discovered by police
buried on a northern Utah mountainside.
She
claimed in the court papers that the marriage "was not voluntary, and
was the result or product of physical duress by" the 31-year-old Sloop.
Nathanael
Sloop could fight the petition, which does not detail how he may have
coerced his bride.
Mary
Corporon, Stephanie Sloop's defense attorney, declined to comment on
the annulment petition.
A
wedding website said the couple had been engaged for several months and
had planned an Independence Day marriage ceremony at a relative's home
in Golden, Colo. But in a call to her half-brother on May 5, Stephanie
Sloop said she and Nathanael Sloop would marry in Utah the next day so
that they could qualify for public aid.
The
couple was married at Farmington's old memorial courthouse.
olice
say the Sloops left Ethan Stacy alone and locked inside a bedroom in
their Layton apartment during the ceremony.
On
May 10, Stephanie Sloop reported the boy missing to police. A search
was called off within hours after the story the Sloops had told police
began to change during questioning.
The
Sloops face charges of
aggravated murder and other felonies
related to the boy's death.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.
The
couple remained held without bail in the Davis County jail.
Stephanie
Sloop's annulment petition also asks that her name be changed to a
previous surname. No specific surname is indicated, but she formerly
used the name Stephanie Stacy.
Ethan
Stacy's father, Joe Stacy, of Richlands, Va., said Friday that he did
not want his ex-wife using his surname.
Court
date for Stephanie Sloop in son's killing - set
for June
Published:
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011 8:08 p.m. MST
FARMINGTON — A Layton woman accused of
murdering her
young son waived her right to a speedy trial Monday.
The preliminary hearing for Stephanie Sloop was pushed
back to give her attorneys more time to review new evidence in the
case. Her next court date is set for June 27, the Standard-Examiner
reported.
Sloop is charged with aggravated murder in connection
with the death of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy last year.
The next court date for her husband, Nathan Sloop, was
also set for June 27 last week. Both face capital murder charges in
addition to charges of child abuse and obstructing justice, both
second-degree felonies, and abuse or desecration of a body, a
third-degree felony.
The couple is accused of killing Stephanie Sloop's son
and burying his body near Powder Mountain in Weber County on or around
Mother's Day. Court documents list "severe abuse" as the cause of death.
Nathan
Sloop agrees to continue preliminary hearing
The Salt Lake
Tribune
First published Jan 28 2011 12:46PM
Updated Mar 22, 2011
11:26PM
Farmington •
Nathan Sloop
— accused along with his wife of killing her 4-year-old son, Ethan
Stacy — agreed on Friday to continue his preliminary hearing until
later this year while attorneys iron out the admissibility of certain
evidence.
A similar hearing is
scheduled for Monday for Stephanie Sloop.
The Sloops, of Layton,
are each charged with aggravated murder, which carries the potential
for the death penalty, as well as child abuse and other felonies in
connection with the May 2010 death of the boy.
Preliminary hearings,
scheduled for February, were canceled earlier this week.
Deputy Davis County
Attorney David Cole on Friday told 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin
that prosecutors have discovered two new sources of evidence that they
want to present at the preliminary hearing and at trial. Cole said the
continuance is necessary so the defense can file objections to the
evidence. He added that the continuance ultimately would not delay the
trial.
Allphin set a status
hearing for Nathan Sloop for June 27.
Meanwhile, attorneys will
sort out the evidence-related issues with the assigned trial judge,
Glen Dawson.
Such issues are usually
raised with the trial judge following a preliminary hearing. But
defense attorney Rich Mauro told reporters, "We’d like to deal with
them before the preliminary hearing."
Charging documents say
the couple engaged in multiple acts of "severe abuse" between April 29
and May 8, which led to Ethan’s death, including "beatings,
burning, drugging, isolating, malnourishing, leaving the child alone
and unattended while suffering, and refusing to seek vital
life-sustaining medical attention."
Attorneys
for Nathan Sloop seek to close hearing from public, seal evidence
Published:
Thursday, March 17, 2011 6:20 p.m.
Emiley Morgan Deseret
News
Attorneys for a
man accused of brutally beating
and killing his stepson claim that items have been taken from the man's
jail cell — and they are seeking to keep that information out of court.
Nathan Sloop's attorney, Richard Mauro, told 2nd
District Judge Glen Dawson that there are two items of evidence he
feels should not be used in any court proceeding. In addition to the
items that were allegedly taken from Sloop's cell by Davis County
sheriff's officials, Mauro said prosecutors are trying to subpoena
records involving Sloop's interaction with a therapist.
Admitting such evidence would violate Sloop's
constitutional right to reasonable search and seizure and jeopardize
his privileges involving the client-attorney and patient-doctor
relationships, Mauro said.
But Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said prosecutors
aren't seeking to do anything illegal or procure information that is
privileged.
"It's our intention that in both cases, with both
defendants, that all the evidence that has or will be obtained will be
done lawfully," he said.
David Cole, who heads up the criminal division of the
Davis County Attorney's Office, said, "We're not seeking to know
anything more than we know at this point."
Sloop, 32, and his wife, Stephanie, are both facing
capital murder charges in addition to charges of child abuse and
obstructing justice, both second-degree felonies, and abuse or
desecration of a body, a third-degree felony.
The couple is accused of killing Stephanie Sloop's son,
Ethan Stacy, and burying his body near Powder Mountain in Weber County
on or around Mother's Day 2010. Court documents list "severe abuse" as
the cause of death.
Investigators say Ethan was abused between April 29 and
May 8.
After the boy was killed, the Sloops took his body to a
rural area in the mountains and buried him in a shallow grave, police
say. The couple is also accused of attempting to disfigure his body
with a hammer to make it harder for police to identify him.
Defense attorneys had asked the court to close the
hearings to the public and press and seal all documents relating to the
evidence. Nathan Sloop's attorneys filed a motion in February arguing
that detailing what is in the evidence may be prejudicial to their
client.
"The identification of these issues with more
specificity will jeopardize Mr. Sloop's due process rights and right to
a fair trial, and exposure of the issues in a public hearing will
undermine the very privileges that Mr. Sloop seeks to protect," the
motion states.
Dawson decided to
hold a hearing on the patient-doctor
privilege issue and the potential subpoena of medical records on April
21. The hearing will be public, but any specifics within the evidence
in question will be heard privately by the judge.
1-800-422-4453 