ETHAN STACY (2010) - 4 yo/ Accused: Mother and Stepfather; Stephanie and Nathaniel Sloop - Layton (N of Salt Lake City) UT

The father of a 4-year-old child killed in Utah wrote in divorce
papers that the boy's mother was unstable and had abandoned the
youngster, though the judge said she never read that.Police dug
up Ethan Stacy's badly beaten and disfigured body from a Utah canyon
Tuesday, nearly two weeks after a Florida judge finalized a divorce that
required the father to share custody.Ethan's mother, Stephanie
Sloop, has been jailed along with her new husband, both implicated in
the boy's slaying 10 days after he arrived in Utah.
Divorce papers obtained by the media show that Joe G.
Stacy, of Tazewell, Va., was worried about his son."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, who then lived in Apopka,
Fla., wrote in the November custody petition filed in the Orlando
Circuit Court. "The mother is unstable."But in the divorce
settlement, Joe Stacy finally agreed to share custody of the boy. Ethan
was to spend the school year with his father and summers with his
mother.The agreement was approved by Judge Maura T. Smith of the
Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Orlando, who said Thursday
that the divorce was a "cut-and-dried" uncontested settlement.Smith
said she had not read Joe Stacy's initial petition and simply approved
the final divorce and custody agreement."He should absolutely not
blame himself at all," Smith told The Associated Press. "No parent
should ever blame themselves for the unpredictable failures of another
parent."Joe Stacy appeared alone April 28 for the 10-minute
hearing, one of hundreds of divorce cases the court handles a week,
Smith said.The couple divided their personal property, and she
gave up claims to a Florida house that fell into foreclosure in
December, according to court files.Joe Stacy was an oil-rig
worker who expected a sum of money from a 2008 accident. He offered to
share the settlement with Sloop, who insisted on full custody of the boy
if the father didn't collect the money, but the judge ruled that
condition was unenforceable.Sloop didn't wait long to get
remarried. She and Nathanael Sloop exchanged vows in a courthouse
wedding in Utah eight days after her divorce.The Sloops locked a
badly beaten Ethan in his bedroom while they drove 10 miles away for the
ceremony, police said.Nathanael Sloop acknowledged beating the
boy for days before his death, and Stephanie Sloop did nothing to stop
the abuse, according to police interview statements used to hold the
couple in jail.Detectives wrote that Nathanael Sloop used a
hammer to disfigure the dead boy's face and teeth before burial in order
to make it harder for anyone to identify the body.Nathanael
Sloop was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder. He and the mother
face additional charges of desecration of a corpse, along with felony
child abuse and obstruction of justice, police said.The Sloops'
first court appearance is scheduled for Friday and security will be
tight, said deputy Davis County attorney David Cole.Stephanie
Sloop initially told officers that Ethan wandered away from their
apartment complex in Layton late Monday. But that was just a ruse aimed
at covering the couple's tracks, Lt. Garret Atkin said.Attorney
Richard Gallegos, who has represented Nathanael Sloop in previous
criminal cases, has not returned messages seeking comment. It was
unknown if Stephanie Sloop had an attorney.Utah State Courts
records show that between 2000 and 2003, Nathanael Sloop had several
convictions, including for criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and
drug possession. No criminal history was found for Stephanie Sloop.

http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/crowd_turns_out_for_funeral_of_4-year-old_boy_killed_in_utah/46448/

The father of a slain 4-year-old boy reflected on the good times, and
the good in people, at his son's funeral Wednesday in southwest
Virginia.
Joe Stacy, his family and friends paid final tribute to Ethan Stacy,
whose disfigured body was found on a Utah mountain last week. Utah
authorities allege Ethan died of abuse and neglect by his mother,
Stephanie Sloop, and stepfather, Nathanael Sloop. They've been jailed on
suspicion of aggravated murder but have not been charged.
"I'm remembering all the good times," Joe Stacy said, without
mentioning his son's violent death. "There were no bad times at all."
He also commented on the national outpouring of sympathy,

"You never realize how many good people are out there until something
bad happens," Stacy said.
Stacy, 35, said he reluctantly agreed to send Ethan to visit his
mother and stepfather in Utah on May 1. Ethan was found dead 10 days
later.
Pastor Mike Rife compared Ethan's death to a stone breaks the surface
of still water, sending ripples and touching the lives of people across
the country. Some in the crowd of about 100 at the funeral did not know
the family.
Mourners viewed a DVD chronicling Ethan's life in photos: In a
diaper, relaxing in a swing, posing with his father in front of a
Christmas tree, in a bathtub with soap-spiked hair.
Some mourners wore pins with a navy and yellow ribbon. Tammy
Childress of Princeton, W.Va., the sister of Joe Stacy's fiancee and
creator of the ribbons, said the navy symbolizes child abuse and the
yellow is for remembrance, so that whenever someone asks, she will tell
Ethan's story.
"I didn't want another child to die the way he did," a tearful
Childress remarked. "I don't want them to forget. They
forget about these things. It gets out of the news."

Greg Croft knew his
half-sister, Stephanie Sloop, was high-strung and excitable, but nothing
prepared him for the sickening news that she may have watched her
4-year-old son, Ethan Stacy, slowly die after being beaten and burned.
"I never got the impression she would be capable of something like
this," says Croft, 35, who first met Sloop, 27, three years ago when she
found him on the social networking site MySpace. "I just keep asking
'Why? Why did it have to come to this?'"
Croft and Sloop have the same father, who Croft described Wednesday
as "a rolling stone" who had little involvement in either of their
lives.
Both are natives of Michigan, though Sloop moved as a young child
with her mother to Florida. Except for a short stint in Florida as a
boy, Croft, a computer systems support engineer and part-time
photographer, has always lived near Detroit.
Sloop and her husband, Nathan Sloop, 31, are in the Davis County
Jail on suspicion of child abuse and murder in the May 9 death of Ethan
Stacy. The youngster had been with the couple for just over a week, the
start of a summer in his mother's custody, which was the result of a
divorce agreement.
Ethan was buried Wednesday in Richlands, Va., near the hometown of
his father, Joe Stacy.
Croft said he is still trying to absorb the news of his nephew's
death and the authorities' belief that his sister was complicit in the
boy's death and its cover-up.
"I know I could not sit back and allow anyone, including my own
spouse, to abuse my children," said Croft, who has been married 12 years
and has two children. "A part of me wants to say she had nothing to do
with this, but the reality is a whole different thing."
When Croft thinks back to that day in 2007 when Sloop first left a
message for him on the networking site, he remembers it as "a pretty
joyful experience."
He always knew he had a younger sister and that she lived in
Florida, but he'd seen her only once when she was an infant.
Just the year before, he had lost his beloved mother. "For a long
time, I felt alone because I'm an only child."
After a few messages back and forth, Sloop gave him her phone
number. They talked through the night, hanging up around 7 a.m.
Soon they were visiting each others' homes, including Thanksgiving
week in 2008 when the Stacy family of five, including Joe Stacy's two
teenagers, stayed with the Croft family in Michigan.
Croft and Sloop even tracked down their father and for the first
time met their half-brother, a teen who lives with their father in
Michigan.
Sloop apparently met her former husband Stacy while the two were in
the U.S. Army, Croft said. She was no longer enlisted in 2007.
By all appearances, she loved her son, he said. She often captured
photos and occasionally videos of Ethan acting silly and texted them to
her brother, he said.
"Ethan and the other two kids seemed to have a pretty strong bond
with her," he said.
In mid-2009, Sloop said she and her husband were having trouble. She
moved to Las Vegas to find work.
It was apparently there that she hooked up with Nathan Sloop, who
Croft believes is the older brother of one of her high school
classmates. By mid-October, Sloop told her brother she was in Utah with
her new beau.
Not long after that, Sloop made enthusiastic postings on Facebook
almost every day, counting down the days until her marriage, which was
to have been July 4 in Colorado.
Her postings struck her brother as "too much." She mentioned Nathan
Sloop's fight to see his daughter and her own inexplicable loss of
twins, a pregnancy, she said, that could have taken her life.
"It was overkill," said Croft.
Croft said he wasn't clear how the couple supported themselves,
though at one point Sloop told him she'd lost her job when a Blockbuster
store closed.
The last time Sloop contacted her brother was on May 5. She texted
him that she and Nathan Sloop were going to a courthouse the next day to
get married so that they could apply for food stamps, Medicaid and
other public assistance, he said. Their "real" wedding in Colorado was
still on, she told him.
In probable cause statements filed with the court, Layton police
said the couple did indeed get married at the Davis County Courthouse on
May 6, after locking Ethan into his bedroom for fear his bruises would
alert authorities to abuse.
Croft says he hasn't decided whether he will ever speak again to his
sister.
"I don't know how I could justify that with my own children," he
said. "This is a big mess she's a part of and she needs to atone for it
one way or the other."

A photo that shows a
possibly bruised Ethan Stacy has been circulating on the Internet and
now is the subject of police investigation.
In the photo, Ethan is sitting with his stepfather, Nathan Sloop,
who is suspected of murdering Ethan on May 9. The photo appears in a
screen image of a "Nathan Stephanie Sloop" Facebook page.


It reportedly is the page of Ethan's mother, Stephanie Sloop, who
was also arrested in the 4-year-old's death.
The photo's caption reads, "My two favorite boys playing video games
together." In the picture, the child's jaw appears darker than the rest
of his face.
Layton police Sgt. Todd Derrick said detectives are trying to
determine whether the picture is authentic. He would not say whether
they have confirmed Stephanie Sloop's connection to the page or whether
the discoloration of Ethan's jaw is the result of an injury.
"We aren't going to release any information because it is evidence,"
Derrick said. "It is part of the case."

The murder of a 4-year-old boy in Layton may
lead to a new law regarding parental custody.
Friends of the family of Ethan Stacy who live in Virginia have started
contacting congressional leaders to create "Ethan's Law."
The law would ban judges and other
officials from simply handing back custody of a child to a parent who
abandoned them. Instead it would create a visitation process to help
ease the parent back into the child's life.
In Ethan Stacy's case, a Florida judge ordered the boy to spend time
with his mother even after his father, Joe Stacy, wrote the judge that
the boy had been abandoned by his mother, who was unstable.
Ethan's stepfather, Nathan Sloop, is accused of abusing and killing the
boy while his mother, Stephanie Sloop, allegedly did nothing to help.
Tammy Childress, a friend of Ethan's father, remarked, "The
only thing we can do for Ethan now is to make sure other children don't
go through the same thing."

When Joe Stacy received a
call from his ex-wife's new husband on Mother's Day, he knew something
was wrong.
For a fifth straight day, Nathan Sloop wouldn't allow 4-year-old
Ethan to talk to his father, but Stacy and fiance Becky Elswick sensed
something else was off as well.
"His whole tone had changed. He just didn't seem the same. We even
made comments about it," Elswick said during a Thursday interview at the
apartment she and Stacy share above a gas station in Richlands.
The day after Ethan's funeral, the pair described their interactions
with Nathan and Stephanie Sloop, Ethan's mother, in the days leading up
to the May 11 discovery of the boy's battered body in a shallow grave
near Powder Mountain ski resort. The Sloops are in the Davis County jail
on suspicion of child abuse and aggravated murder in Ethan's death.
The morning after the troubling May 9 call, Elswick said she opened
the mail to find a Mother's Day card signed "From your son, Ethan" in
Stephanie Sloop's handwriting.
"She hated me, so that was completely out of character for
Stephanie," Elswick said.
Then on May 11, what Joe and Becky viewed as odd behavior came
together in one nightmarish phone call.
Nathan Sloop telephoned in the middle of the night to say Ethan was
missing.
The boy had been wandering away from their apartment, he said, and
Sloop told Stacy he had stacked items near the door so they would make
noise if the door opened. When Sloop heard the noise, he woke up, threw
on a pair of pants and ran to the door within 45 seconds, he told Stacy.

"I did not believe him whatsoever," Stacy said, standing in the
doorway of his son's bedroom, where photos, flowers and other gifts sent
from around the country in Ethan's memory are piled on a blue bedspread
depicting the Disney movie, "Cars." "A little boy just doesn't
disappear, nowhere to be seen, in 45 seconds."
During the call, Sloop handed the phone to a Layton police officer
who confirmed Ethan was missing. But because Stacy said Sloop had lied
to him before, he immediately called the police station to confirm the
story.
Later that evening, the nightmare turned to hell when Layton police
informed Stacy his son's body had been found buried near a trail.
Stacy said police realized there may be a problem after Stacy told
them Stephanie Sloop had told him Ethan's jaw was "a mess" due to an
allergic reaction to grapefruit. Nathan Sloop, in contrast, had told
police Ethan had reacted to a peanut allergy.
Stephanie Sloop had told Stacy and Elswick she had to clip Ethan's
nails because he had scratched his jaw so much.
"He had no allergy problems before. He was allergic to nothing. He
ate a variety of foods," Stacy said, adding that Ethan was particularly
fond of bone-shaped graham crackers called Scooby Snacks, a box of which
is still in Stacy's cupboard.
The reality that Stacy won't hear his son noisily sucking on his
fingers while sleeping or that the boy won't come bounding out of his
bedroom with a blanket to curl up on Elswick's lap as the couple watch
the morning news still hasn't hit.
And the outrage and sadness felt by the people of Grundy -- the town
near Richlands where Stacy grew up -- hasn't subsided either.
At the Food City where Stacy's mother, Peggy Akers, worked for
years, a table sits at the front entrance with a picture of Ethan
climbing in a tree and a white bucket for donations to help the Stacy
family with funeral costs. In a week, the townspeople had donated
$1,000.
"That's mostly in nickels, dimes and quarters, though one gentleman
put in a $50 bill," said Phyllis Scott, store manager and a longtime
friend of Akers'.
Residents of Grundy and Richlands today will gather to walk nearly
five miles and release blue balloons in Ethan's memory.
Their memorial will mirror one that took place in Utah on Saturday,
when up to 800 people paid tribute to Ethan by marching from the Layton
apartment complex where the Sloops lived to the jail where they're now
confined.
"I just hope that people continue to remember what happened, and be
more aware of what's going on around them, possibly prevent this from
happening to another child," said organizer Lucinda Martin of
Harrisville.
In Grundy, Scott said she last saw Ethan in the spring. He wore a
bright yellow shirt and sat in a shopping cart as he and his grandmother
shopped for groceries.
"They were just as happy as could be," she said.
She added Ethan may have inadvertently saved his grandmother's life.

Last October, Ethan reached up and gave his grandmother a big hug
around the neck. For the next couple of days, Akers was in significant
pain. She went to the doctor and learned Ethan's hug had repositioned a
fish bone stuck in her throat. She had surgery to remove it.
"If little Ethan hadn't hugged her, I don't know what would have
happened to Peggy," Scott said.
"I've used the PA system a lot to get people to donate. If one of us
is in trouble, we're all in trouble," she said. "It's going to take a
long time for all of us to heal."

They walked for Ethan and for justice.
Hundreds began walking Saturday morning outside the apartment where
4-year-old Ethan Stacy was murdered, many wearing white T-shirts and
carrying pinwheels, balloons and signs with Ethan's picture.
The 10-mile march ended at the Davis Justice Center, home to the
Davis County Jail, where Ethan's stepfather Nathanael Sloop and his
mother Stephanie Sloop are being held awaiting charges in connection
with his death.
Outside the justice center, the walkers held a moment of silence for
Ethan and released balloons into the sky.
The "Walk for Justice for Ethan Stacy" was organized on Facebook by
Lucinda Martin, of Harrisville, and Anissa Martinez, of Roy.
"We just wanted to get justice for Ethan. His family is not able to
speak for him. It's up to us as a community to speak for Ethan's
justice," Martin said. "This affected hundreds of people. I don't know
if anybody here actually knew him personally, but they're all here for
support. They're all here for justice for him. This affected so many
people on different levels."
Martin created a Facebook page for the walk last Saturday and
expected to see 50 to 100 people show up. She estimated 400 came
instead.
"This is just overwhelming. I just can't believe that all these
people are here," she said.
Danilyn Hansen, of Ogden, helped publicize Saturday's walk and
obtained donated food supplies for the walkers.
When she heard Ethan's story, she needed to do something to help,
Hansen said.
"I couldn't get (Ethan's) little face out of my head," Hansen said.
"Part of me kept thinking, there are so many people out there, like
myself, that can't have children of their own, and then you see
situations where it's like this, that people shouldn't have children."
Hansen was in an accident six years ago and afterward was told she
wouldn't be able to have children.
"How could somebody treat a child like this, instead of going to
somebody that's longed for a child for so long -- for all their life --
and can't have kids?" she asked. "And yet you see something like this
happen."
Hansen wants Ethan to be remembered long after his funeral.
"Just because this may be over, doesn't mean we should forget this
little boy and doesn't mean we should forget why we're (walking),"
Hansen said. "We're just hoping to raise awareness, because it needs to
stop. Maybe this small little step that we're doing today will be a step
in the right direction, toward stopping child abuse."
Tyler and Sharleen Patterson, of Salt Lake City, pushed a double
stroller with their 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter all the way
to the justice center.
"The story really affected us," Sharleen said, perhaps because their
little blond son is so close to Ethan's age, "and we wanted to do
something about it."
"We really felt connected to Ethan as well," Tyler added. "We
empathized with the little guy. He must have been so alone."
On Saturday, hundreds were there for him.

The two cases share
heartbreaking similarities.
Both children were found murdered, victims of unspeakable child
abuse.
Both cases would rally a community angered by how someone could kill
an innocent child.
But the cases of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy, found dead in a shallow
grave near the Powder Mountain Ski Resort earlier this month, and Shelby
Andrews, killed three years ago after suffering a year of abuse at the
hands of her family, differ in at least one respect.
Ethan's mother and stepfather, Stephanie and Nathan Sloop of Layton,
may face the death penalty for his slaying.
Shelby's father and stepmother, Ryan and Angela Andrews of Syracuse,
couldn't face a death sentence because the law wouldn't allow it.
But outrage over Shelby's horrific death spurred Utah lawmakers to
toughen the penalties for murdering a child -- opening the door for
capital punishment in cases like Ethan's.
Now, with charges against the Sloops pending in 2nd District Court,
Shelby's Law may be put to use for the first time.
The law -- sponsored by Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield and
signed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in 2007 -- added the intentional murder
of a child under 14 to the list of offenses that can bring a death
sentence.
The amendments meant prosecutors would no longer have to prove that a
killing was intentional to seek the death penalty if a child died
during an act of abuse, sexual assault or kidnapping.
When Shelby was killed, existing law didn't allow prosecutors to
file aggravated murder charges because they couldn't prove the girl's
death was intentional.
"It's a law that when it passes, you hope you never have to use it,"
said Ray. "But it's gratifying that it's on the books and that we can
make these people pay the ultimate price."
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said it's still too early to
determine whether Shelby's Law will be used to prosecute the Sloops, in
part because prosecutors are still waiting on a crucial piece of
evidence: Ethan's cause of death.
Rawlings said he hopes the state Medical Examiner's Office will be
able to make that determination by late next week, allowing prosecutors
to make more decisions about how to move forward with Ethan's case.
He said had the current law existed when Shelby died, prosecutors
would have pursued the death penalty for the Andrewses. Ethan's case,
Rawlings said, is "still actively in progress," but using Shelby's Law
hasn't been ruled out.
"Once we know all of the facts, we will take a look at all the
potentially relevant provisions. Shelby's Law -- amendments to the
aggravated murder statute -- will be at the top of our list," Rawlings
said.
Shelby, 10, had bites and bruises on 80 percent of her body when she
died on Aug. 1, 2006. The girl was beaten, kicked and forced to eat her
own feces over the course of a year in what prosecutors said was an
attempt by her parents to discipline her. Other siblings in the home
were encouraged to take part in beating the girl. On one occasion, those
attacks included striking her in the genitals with an aerosol can as
her father held her arms to keep her from fighting back.
The day Shelby died, her stepmother beat her head into a wooden
banister and forced her into a linen closet, where she suffocated. The
space between the closet's shelves and door was so small she couldn't
breathe.
The girl's father and stepmother ignored her pleas for help as they
watched television together in the next room. Later, her dead body fell
out of the closet when they opened the door to check on her.
Ryan and Angela Andrews are both serving 15 years to life in prison
for their roles in the slaying. They aren't scheduled to go before the
Utah Board of Pardons and Parole until 2041.
Others involved in the aftermath of Shelby's murder have mixed
emotions to know the legislation created after her death may be put to
use.
Syracuse police Lt. Tracy Jensen, who screened charges against
Shelby's parents after her killing, remembers his frustration after
discovering the couple weren't eligible for capital punishment. Syracuse
police officers testified before the Legislature in favor of changing
the law.
"This was a heinous crime. In law enforcement you can't fabricate
someone hurting their own child, or allowing someone else to hurt their
own child," Jensen said of Shelby's slaying. "A lot of officers were
frustrated and mad at the system. This child didn't just die. She died
as a result of something someone did to her. Her case will never be
forgotten."
For Shelby's family, memories of the girl's painful abuse and death
persist.
The girl's 2006 obituary described her as a "bright, warm, amazing,
beautiful, radiant young lady" who loved music, dancing, basketball and
"everything about being a girl."
"We will miss our Tinker Bell," her family wrote.
A year after her death, Shelby's family found some closure when
donations paid for a new headstone at her West Jordan grave site. The
family had previously been unable to afford the tribute, marking her
grave instead with a tiny brass plaque.
After community members donated $2,000, Shelby's family gathered to
celebrate her 12th birthday and decorated the grave with balloons and
stuffed animals.
Her mother, Kimberly Hale, said at the time she didn't want her
daughter to be forgotten.
"It's really important to us that people know she's there," Hale
said.

Prosecutors are still missing a key piece of evidence in the Ethan
Stacy murder investigation — the cause of death.
But Davis County
Attorney Troy Rawlings said he’s hopeful his office will have that
information from the medical examiner’s office by Thursday.
Meanwhile,
investigators continue to sift through evidence, and plan to file
charges against Nathan and Stephanie Sloop in the death of Stephanie
Sloop’s 4-year-old son Ethan Stacy. Ethan was to spend the summer with
his mother and stepfather.
Little Ethan’s body was found up Ogden
Canyon on Tuesday, May 11, in a shallow grave.
Police say
Stephanie Sloop called them Monday night reporting Ethan was missing
from the couple’s apartment in Layton. She allegedly told them he had
wandered away several times since Ethan had come to live with them less
than two weeks before he went missing.
Police initiated a search
in the Layton area, but by afternoon, based on information police say
the Sloops gave them, the focus of the search shifted to Ogden Canyon.
By evening searchers had found the body of the boy.
Ethan was
buried May 19 in services in Grundy, Va., where his father lives.
The
Sloops remain in the Davis County Jail. They will appear in court
Friday afternoon, when they are expected to be charged in the boy’s
death.
There has been a public outpouring of sympathy and support
for the Stacy family both in Utah and Virginia.
Over the
weekend, two walks were held to support the family. Andrea Bliss, a
Layton resident hopes to organize walks this coming weekend as well,
beginning at the apartment complex the Sloops lived in and ending at the
Davis County Jail.
She’s also planning a fund-raiser June 12 at
Sparetime Family Fun Center, 5160 S. 1900 West in Roy from 10 a.m. until
midnight.
While charges have yet to be filed against Nathan and
Stephanie Sloop, Rawlings has vowed to charge the couple with the
maximum penalties the facts of the case will allow. That could mean the
couple could be prosecuted under Shelby’s Law, a law passed by the Utah
State Legislature in 2007 in response to the death of Shelby Andrews in
Syracuse in August, 2006.
Shelby’s father and stepmother, Ryan
and Angela Andrews couldn’t face a death penalty under Utah law when
Shelby died, but with the enactment of Shelby’s Law that changed. It
added the intentional death of a child under 14 years of age to the list
of criminal offenses that could bring a death sentence.
Shortly
after the Sloops were arrested, Rawlings said the aggravated homicide
charges prosectors want to charge the couple with, carry three possible
outcomes. They include the death penalty, life in prison without the
possibility of parole, or 20 years to life with parole.

The latest information in the Ethan Stacy case is that the 4-year-old’s
autopsy report and case information will be made public tomorrow. Ethan
Stacy died on May 9, 2010 and according to authorities, his mother and
stepfather killed him by physically abusing him over many days.

Nathan and Stephanie Sloop, the newlyweds accused of killing their child
4-year-old Ethan Stacy, were formally charged on Friday. The couple is
facing several felony criminal charges including aggravated murder,
child abuse, desecration of a dead body and obstruction of justice.

In the courtroom on Friday, muffled, quiet sobs of Stephanie could be heard as tears
rolled down her face. Stephanie wept as a judge read her the charges we
saw emotion in the mother for the first time. Nathan Sloop was quiet,
said yes sir to the judge several times and mouthed to his mother, "I
love you."

The Sloops, the public learned, will be eligible for the
death penalty, a punishment the District Attorney revealed he is
leaning towards. But the death penalty wouldn't be on the table if it
wasn't for Shelby's law. The legislation was enacted after the tragic
death of 10-year-old Shelby Andrews nearly four years ago. Andrews was
killed after the severe abuse at the hands of her father and
step-mother.

"She was born to do great things, we just didn't
know it would take her death to bring that about," Shelby's mother:
Kimberly Hale said. And the mother continued, "It's horrific what
happened (to Ethan) and we're just glad we got Shelby's Law passed so
this will bring about the severest penalty."

The Sloops will both
be back before a judge next Friday, June 4th where they are expected to
receive new counsel.

Ethan Stacy: Murder Charges Filed Against Mother and Stepfather

http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

mom_in_il wrote:Ethan Stacy: Murder Charges Filed Against Mother and Stepfather

http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Praying they are punished to the fullest extent allowed. No plea deals either.
RIP Ethan, your safe now sweetie-in the arms of God.

Stephanie Stacy and Nathan
Sloop saw themselves as soul mates, inscribing the invitations to their
July 4 wedding with a quote from Aristotle: "Love is composed of a
single soul inhabiting two bodies."
That verse now chills former friends, neighbors and family of the
couple, who connected last year in cyberspace.
For when two volatile, unraveling souls unite, there is no voice of
reason.
It's just a matter of time before someone gets hurt.
From the combustible union of Stephanie and Nathan, that someone was
Ethan Stacy, her towheaded 4-year-old, a spunky, skinny boy with
glasses who arrived in Utah for a summer visit at the end of April.
Within two weeks, his mother reported
Ethan missing from the Layton apartment they shared with Nathan.
Ensnared by their conflicting stories the next day, police say, the
couple admitted killing Ethan and led officers to his body, buried off a
trail near Powder Mountain Ski Resort.
Stephanie told police the beatings began May 5, and said the next
day they locked the battered boy in his room while she and Nathan went
to the old memorial courthouse in Farmington to get married.
After Ethan died, the new Mrs. Sloop went to nearby stores for
provisions to conceal his death: lighter fluid for Ethan; slushy drinks
for Stephanie and Nathan.
They chose not to burn his body, instead taking a hammer to Ethan's
face to make him less recognizable.
As Stephanie tells it, they buried him on Mother's Day, a fine
spring day.
--
A perfect storm »Stephanie, 27, and Nathan, 31, had been together
just seven months when they were arrested May 11 in Ethan's death.
On Friday, they were charged with aggravated murder, child abuse,
obstructing justice and abuse or desecration of a human body. Under
those charges, the prosecutor could seek the death penalty.
It's difficult to find people who will speak up for Stephanie and
Nathan; most former friends and neighbors already at odds with the pair
are even more angry; their parents declined interview requests.
Others, however, describe the two as the worst possible combination:
An impatient, narcissistic mother indifferent to her only child, and an
unstable, violent man increasingly desperate over limited access to his
own 6-year-old daughter, who lives in Florida with his ex-wife.
Michelle Rodriguez of Mount Carmel, Ill. -- an ex-wife of Ethan's
dad, Joe Stacy -- says a couple of months ago she phoned Stephanie to
tell her to stop calling. When Nathan answered, she warned him that he
should never let Stephanie near his daughter.
But Rodriguez had no idea the child in danger would be Ethan, the
little boy she often took for weekends and even longer vacations to Los
Angeles and New Jersey with her own children, 14-year-old Destrian Stacy
and 11-year-old Alisa Stacy, Ethan's half-brother and half-sister.
Nathan "blew up" when Rodriguez suggested Stephanie was unfit.
"I said, 'The two of you are just alike,'" recalls Rodriguez. "He
sounded like a controlling freak. ... He called her 'my woman.'"
--
The center of attention »Stephanie Croft was born in Michigan but
raised in the Orlando area by her mother. She rarely saw her father --
described as "a rolling stone" -- and met her older half-brother only
three years ago when she tracked him down in Michigan. She also has a
teenaged half-brother in Michigan.
Stephanie's former friends say she has always been difficult. As a
teenager, she would sneak out at night with boys. She once brought a
physical abuse charge against her stepfather, a false accusation,
according to an ex-friend. The charge was dismissed.
Joe, her ex-husband, says Stephanie's mother once told him she had
been diagnosed at age 13 with borderline personality disorder, a
diagnosis Joe rejects. "It ain't no disorder. It's just the way she is."

She often bragged that her purse was a pharmacy, say former friends.

"She had a lot of prescription pills from doctors," says Joe. "She'd
always know just what to tell them."
She played junior varsity softball her senior year at Edgewater High
School in Orlando and graduated in 2001.
Stephanie enlisted in the Air Force, but was other-than-honorably
discharged during basic training, says Joe.
After a brief early marriage, Stephanie met Joe in Orlando via a
mutual friend and married when she was 21.
Except for the three years the family lived in Savannah, Ga., when
Joe finished a stint in the Army, the Stacy family lived near Orlando.
Over the years, Stephanie sometimes worked as a dancer at strip
clubs in Cocoa Beach and Daytona Beach, according to friends. She also
dabbled in modeling from a young age, she says on her Model Mayhem
website.
She claims to have been a Bud Girl and a Jager Girl in bar
promotions, and was trying to get into the "Playboy Hot Housewives"
special edition last year. But whether that was a real possibility is up
for debate.
"She is a pathological liar," says Carla Jones, a former friend.
Rodriguez, the mother of Joe's two older children, had a ringside
seat for the drama that surrounded Stephanie. Her children lived with
Joe and Stephanie for four years; a flight attendant, Rodriguez visited
often.
Stephanie pulled all kinds of shenanigans to try to make Rodriguez's
life miserable, she says. She tried to get her fired, falsely accused
her of neglect and bad parenting in custody court and with child
services; and cracked into her employee account at Continental Airlines,
as well as her MySpace, Facebook and eBay accounts.
"Stephanie is not a stupid woman. She's very clever," says
Rodriguez. "She always seemed to cover her tracks."
Stephanie insisted Destrian and Alisa call her "mom" and their real
mom by her first name, says Rodriguez. She monitored the few phone
conversations she allowed between Rodriguez and her children.
"She always had to be Number One," says Joe. "She was so
narcissistic."
Rodriguez says she didn't know, until much later, how much her
children disliked their stepmom.
Destrian says Stephanie expected him to take care of baby Ethan from
the start. Their father was often gone for two weeks at a time, working
as a roustabout on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. "She really never
changed his diapers," says Destrian.
Stephanie would spank Destrian and Alisa with a metal spatula, and
whack the backs of their heads with the back of her diamond-ringed hand,
the siblings say.
"We felt we were back in the slave days," says Alisa. "She used to
make us make her alcohol drinks, clean the pool, clean the bathroom
until it was spotless white."
Alisa went to friends' houses rather than invite them to her own. "I
was afraid she would yell at me in front of my friends," says Alisa.
"She yelled for stupid reasons.
"She threatened my dad so much it got me mad."
When a relative gave Destrian and Alisa laptops for Christmas,
Stephanie sold them, says Rodriguez. When their mother sent clothes,
Stephanie threw them away. When she sent cash, the kids got empty
envelopes.
Stephanie wanted people to think of her as the perfect mother, Joe
says. "But behind closed doors, it was a whole different story."
"I tried to get her to be more of a mother," he says. "But she was
not cut out to be a mother....She just is a person with no patience."
After Joe slipped on an oil rig in late 2008, a fall that required
surgery to insert two titanium rods in his neck, things got rocky, he
says.
Stephanie began commuting to Las Vegas to dance at a strip club, and
eventually moved there in late spring 2009.
Joe intended to move the family to Las Vegas in August, but
Rodriguez fought the move because she could not easily fly in and out to
see her children.
In August, there was an especially ugly fight in which Stephanie
accused Joe of choking her and for which he spent a few hours in jail,
though charges were never filed. Joe returned to Orlando with Ethan, and
late last year to his home state of Virginia. Destrian and Alisa went
to live with their mother in Illinois.
Joe filed for divorce in October, and in a motion for temporary
custody in November he said Stephanie had abandoned Ethan and was
"unstable," and that he feared she would take Ethan and never return
him.
By February, though, Stephanie's badgering and threats wore him down
and he agreed to a divorce settlement that allowed Stephanie to have
Ethan each spring break and summer. They were to alternate holidays. She
was to pay no child support.
Joe also agreed to give her half of the money he expected from a
lawsuit settlement for his injury. If he gets nothing, the agreement
said, Stephanie gains custody of Ethan.
"She said, 'I sold my son,'" says Jones, recalling a phone
conversation with Stephanie this spring.
"The only reason she wanted Ethan for the summer was because she
knew Joe didn't want her to have him," Jones says.
The divorce was final on April 28 in Orlando, the same day Stephanie
flew back to Utah with Ethan for the summer.
Ethan, Joe says, "was a pawn; someone she could use to get what she
wanted."
"Stephanie is the kind of person," says Rodriguez, "who could spit
on the ground and drown her own mother and not think twice about it."
--
A loose cannon »Nathanael Warren Sloop was raised in a tight-knit
Orlando family. His father, Warren Sloop, often coached his and his
brother's teams.
Nathan was a standout lacrosse player, a top scorer his senior year
at Cypress Creek High School, which today has nearly 3,500 students.
The Rev. Jim Henry was their pastor at First Baptist Church, a
mega-church in Orlando, but is now retired. He remembers that the Sloops
would wait in line after Sunday services to greet him at a reception.
"They were very positive, encouraging people," he says, recalling
that Nathan's brother, a high school baseball star, once gave him an
autographed bat.
"Their family seemed to be close-knit. They loved their boys. They
were just the kind of people you wish you had a church full of."
His recalls Nathan as "clean-cut and sharp."
Nathan graduated from Cypress Creek in 1997, and it wasn't long
before his parents and brother were in the insurance business in Utah's
Davis County.
Nathan, too, got his Utah license to sell property and casualty
insurance in early 1999, adding other lines later that year.
He and Jennifer Freeman, from the old Florida neighborhood, were
married in October, just weeks before his father died at age 46.
Although Nathan would later claim during their divorce that he had
sold insurance for nine years in Utah and was licensed to teach
insurance classes, he never renewed his license after it lapsed in 2001.

The couple bought a home in Roy, where they lived when their
daughter was born in May 2004.
Even before that, Nathan was evidently having drug and mental health
issues.
He was charged in several cases with drug possession in 2002 and
2003, and ultimately spent a month in the Weber County Jail, was on
probation for 18 months and paid a $500 fine. He was also required to
get mental-health and substance-abuse counseling.
But in 2009, he was charged with trespassing at Walgreen's because
he had already filled prescriptions for Percocet from three different
doctors in a week and was trying to fill a fourth. When the pharmacist
refused, he became belligerent and threatening. The pharmacist called
the police.
Former neighbors describe him as volatile and moody.
"One minute he'd be a good guy and then he'd just as soon want to
whip you," says Don Fernelius, who lives across the street from Nathan's
house.
Nathan would never get his hands dirty doing home maintenance, says
Fernelius, adding that Roy City twice had to order him to cut his grass
last year.
Rheta Phillips, a 70-year-old neighbor, recalls a series of
encounters -- some violent -- with Nathan.
Once, Nathan screamed at her for making the four dogs in his
basement -- a Great Dane, an English bulldog and two pitbulls -- bark by
knocking on his back door.
Another time, he threw all of his wife's clothes and shoes onto the
driveway and was screaming that he wanted her out of the house.
A confrontation in December 2008 was the most violent. It began when
Nathan's dogs jumped on one of Phillips' relative's new car. Nathan
went on to punch her grandson, and he swung a knife at her 47-year-old
son so close it cut his shirt.
"He called me an [expletive] bitch," recalls Phillips. "I'm 70 years
old. I'd heard this term before, but not right in my face, and I'm
wondering 'What the hell's wrong with you?'"
Nathan is, by all accounts, fiercely attached to his daughter. He
proudly shows her picture to people he meets, and once told Phillips
about blowing his top and striking out at his father-in-law and new
stepdad.
His daughter, then a baby, had fallen down a step after a holiday
meal. Nathan accused the others of not watching her closely enough.
His mother, Phillips says, promised he'd get mental help after that
incident.
In 2006, he got into a fistfight with a former friend outside a Roy
store because nine months earlier the man had verbally threatened
Sloop's daughter when he and Nathan got into a fight, Nathan told
police.
Jennifer left Nathan in 2007, claiming she and their daughter were
going to Florida for a visit.
In the divorce, finalized the next year, she accused Nathan of
abusing her by punching her and pulling her hair. He had been diagnosed,
she wrote, with multiple-personality disorder, a claim Nathan rejected.
He wrote in court papers that he had obsessive compulsive disorder.
As part of their settlement, Nathan was to get his daughter each
summer, spring vacation and alternate holidays.
But then, in a series of profanity-laced and threatening phone calls
in September, he berated Jennifer for going on vacation the same week
their daughter started school. That tirade led a judge to order him in
March to have no contact with his ex-wife for two years. He was allowed
only phone contact with his daughter, and no more web-cam sessions, in
which each party can see the other as they converse via the Internet.
Only his mother, Pamela Sloop Taylor, was allowed to collect his
daughter for her summer visit.
In February, Jennifer told a judge Nathan was more than $11,000
behind in child support and had never paid her $15,000 for her share of
the Roy house.
--
The fantasy unravels »To ex-friends who talked or exchanged e-mails
with Stephanie and Nathan in recent months and who visited social
networking websites where Stephanie posted, it appeared the two were
living in a fantasy world.
They hooked up shortly after meeting on Facebook -- Stephanie knew
his ex-sister-in-law in middle school -- and almost immediately were
engaged to be married.
Myriad pictures of the happy couple were posted, including on The
Knot, a site for betrothed couples.
Stephanie talked of Nathan as her soul mate and began discussing a
big wedding at a relative's Golden, Colo., home on the Fourth of July.
They were registered at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Macy's.
By spring, she was alternately begging former friends to be
bridesmaids or acting as if they'd already agreed to be.
Carla Jones, her friend in Orlando, has a note she received from
Stephanie in April prescribing a mid-calf black dress, gray snakeskin
heels as her bridesmaids' attire. The note told Jones to arrive in
Colorado on July 3 and that she and Nathan were leaving for Seattle on
July 6, presumably for a honeymoon.
It ended with a sentence Jones now finds jarring: "Ethan will be
there."
"I never even said I would go to her wedding!" says Jones.
Rodriguez says she ordered Stephanie to stop e-mailing her about the
wedding in March.
Neighbors say Nathan and Stephanie stayed in his Roy home until
about the time Ethan arrived, when the sewer backed up. That's evidently
when they moved to the Layton apartment where Ethan died.
In a call to her half-brother in Michigan on May 5, Stephanie
explained they were getting married in Utah the next day so they could
qualify for public aid, but that the "real" wedding was still on for
July Fourth in Colorado.
The next day and the next, she left increasingly frantic phone
messages for Jones, saying she couldn't handle Ethan.
Destrian and Alisa say they wrote letters to Stephanie in jail,
although they didn't immediately mail them.
"I hate you because you killed your own son and my brother," Alisa
wrote.
Destrian says he, too, expressed his anger.
He wants his former stepmother punished to the fullest.
"I hope she gets the death penalty."

A memorial walk will be held later this
morning for 4-year-old Ethan Stacy.

On May 11, police found Stacy’s body in a shallow grave in a Utah
canyon near the town of Layton, which is near Salt Lake City.

On Friday, Stephanie and Nathanael Sloop were charged with aggravated
murder, child abuse, obstruction of justice and abuse of a body in the
beating death of Stacy.

The Sloops are in a Davis County, Utah jail without bond. A
conviction on the aggravated murder charge could result in the death
penalty.

The memorial walk for Stacy will begin at 10 a.m. at the Grundy
Community Center.

Representatives from TruPoint Bank will also be there to collect
donations for the Ethan Stacy Memorial Fund.

The mother and stepfather accused of killing
4-year-old Ethan Stacy are expected to return to court Friday.
Davis County prosecutors formally charged
Nathan and Stephanie Sloop last Friday in 2nd District Court with
aggravated murder, child abuse, obstruction of justice and desecration
of a body.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings told the judge he plans to seek
the death penalty. Friday afternoon the Sloops will be appointed new
attorneys who are qualified to handle capital murder cases.
Charging documents claim both Sloops abused Ethan for days, inflicting
serious injuries. Prosecutors claim it was that abuse that ultimately
led to Ethan's death. His body was uncovered May 11 near Powder Mountain
after Layton police say the Sloops reported him missing the night
before. He had just been in Utah for 10 days with his mom, who had
summer visitation.

A Utah court is looking for lawyers qualified to take a possible death penalty case for
the newlyweds charged with beating the woman's 4-year-old boy to death.Nathanael
and Stephanie Sloop made separate appearances in 2nd District Court on Friday.They were expecting
to get new public defenders, but Judge David Connors has yet to find any lawyers to take what promises to be a
time-consuming aggravated murder case.

Nathanael Sloop escorted into the courtroom---------------------- Stephanie Sloop in Friday's hearing

The judge set another hearing for June 11.The Sloops are
being held without bail in the death of Stephanie Sloop's son, Ethan Stacy. The boy's body was recovered from a
shallow grave in the Utah mountains May 11. That was 10 days after he arrived in Utah
for a summer visit with his mother and stepfather.

Now that they both have attorneys, let's hope they plead guilty-somehow I don't think they will though.....

Rest In Peace Little Ethan they can't hurt you anymore buddy!

Defense lawyers for a couple charged with aggravated murder have told a
Utah judge they need time to compile evidence gathered by authorities on
the beating death of the woman's 4-year-old boy.

In a hearing Monday, 2nd District Judge Michael G. Allphin formally
appointed Richard P. Mauro to represent the boy's stepfather,
31-year-old Nathanael Sloop, and Mary Corporon to represent the boy's
mother, 27-year-old Stephanie Sloop.

The couple is being held without bail at the Davis County jail in the
death of Ethan Stacy last month.

Allphin set the couple's next hearing for July 14.

Searchers dug up Stacy's disfigured body May 11 — 10 days after he
arrived in Utah from Virginia for a summer visit with his mother.

Greg Croft knew his half-sister, Stephanie
Sloop, was high-strung and excitable, but nothing prepared him for the
sickening news that she may have watched her 4-year-old son, Ethan
Stacy, slowly die after being beaten and burned.

“I never got the impression she would be
capable of something like this,” says Croft, 35, who first met Sloop,
27, three years ago when she found him on the social networking site
MySpace. “I just keep asking ‘Why? Why did it have to come to this?’ ”

Croft and Sloop have the same father, who
Croft described Wednesday as “a rolling stone” who had little
involvement in either of their lives.

Both are natives of Michigan, though Sloop
moved as a young child with her mother to Florida. Except for a short
stint in Florida as a boy, Croft, a computer systems support engineer
and part-time photographer, has always lived near Detroit.

Sloop and her husband, Nathan Sloop, 31, are
in the Davis County Jail on suspicion of child abuse and murder in the
May 9 death of Ethan Stacy. The youngster had been with the couple for
just over a week, the start of a summer in his mother’s custody, which
was the result of a divorce agreement.

Ethan was buried Wednesday in Richlands, Va., near the hometown of his father, Joe Stacy.

Croft said he is still trying to absorb the
news of his nephew’s death and the authorities’ belief that his sister
was complicit in the boy’s death and its cover-up.

“I know I could not sit back and allow
anyone, including my own spouse, to abuse my children,” said Croft, who
has been married 12 years and has two children. “A part of me wants to
say she had nothing to do with this, but the reality is a whole
different thing.”
When Croft thinks back to that day in 2007
when Sloop first left a message for him on the networking site, he
remembers it as “a pretty joyful experience.”

He always knew he had a younger sister and that she lived in Florida, but he had seen her only once when she was an infant.

Just the year before, he had lost his beloved mother. “For a long time, I felt alone because I’m an only child.”

After a few messages back and forth, Sloop gave him her phone number. They talked through the night, hanging up around 7 a.m.

Soon they were visiting each others’ homes,
including Thanksgiving week in 2008 when the Stacy family of five,
including Joe Stacy’s two teenagers, stayed with the Croft family in
Michigan.

Croft and Sloop even tracked down their
father and for the first time met their half-brother, a teen who lives
with their father in Michigan.

Sloop apparently met her former husband,
Stacy, while the two were in the U.S. Army, Croft said. She was no
longer enlisted in 2007.

By all appearances, she loved her son, he
said. She often captured photos and occasionally videos of Ethan acting
silly and texted them to her brother, he said.
“Ethan and the other two kids seemed to have a pretty strong bond with her,” he said.

In mid-2009, Sloop said she and her husband were having trouble. She moved to Las Vegas to find work.

It apparently was there that she hooked up
with Nathan Sloop, who Croft believes is the older brother of one of her
high school classmates. By mid-October, Sloop told her brother she was
in Utah with her new beau.

Not long after that, Sloop made enthusiastic
postings on Facebook almost every day, counting down the days until her
marriage, which was to have been July 4 in Colorado.

Her postings struck her brother as “too
much.” She mentioned Nathan Sloop’s fight to see his daughter and her
own inexplicable loss of twins, a pregnancy, she said, that could have
taken her life.

“It was overkill,” said Croft.

Croft said he wasn’t clear on how the couple
supported themselves, though at one point Sloop told him she had lost
her job when a Blockbuster store closed.

The last time Sloop contacted her brother was
on May 5. She texted him that she and Nathan Sloop were going to a
courthouse the next day to get married so that they could apply for food
stamps, Medicaid and other public assistance, he said. Their “real”
wedding in Colorado was still on, she told him.



In probable cause statements filed with the
court, Layton police said the couple did indeed get married at the Davis
County Courthouse on May 6, after locking Ethan into his bedroom for
fear his bruises would alert authorities to abuse.

Croft says he hasn’t decided whether he will ever speak again to his sister.

“I don’t know how I could justify that with
my own children,” he said. “This is a big mess she’s a part of and she
needs to atone for it one way or the other.”

This case really breaks my heart. Ethan was such a sweet little boy. He and his family used to live here in Orlando. I worked with the bio-mom "Stephanie Stacy" at the Orlando Wing House. I always had a funny feeling about her because she was so high-strung, so inappropriate, and the type of person to become too attached to someone too quickly. She thought because her and I both had children and were older than most of the girls we worked with that that automatically made us BFFs. I knew Joe because he'd come in with Ethan from time to time. Ethan was a sweetie. I remember how enthralled he was with his comicbooks.

It makes my blood boil to know I knew this "wench" and now know what she's done and what she's allowed to be done to that sweet little boy. I pray that Joe has the strength to carry on after such a horrible tragedy. I don't think I could do it.

Thanks Stephanie for adding your personal insight and observations into this case. It is maddening that this stuff happens to innocent children.

Ethan Stacy case: A push for “Ethan’s Law” nationwide

http://www.thehinkymeter.com/2010/08/30/ethan-stacy-case-a-push-for-ethans-law-nationwide/

Prosecutors plan to try separately the mother and her boyfriend charged with murder in the slaying of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy, whose body was mutilated and buried in the mountains. "We feel like it is to our strategic advantage to focus on the individual conduct," said Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said Friday. "We believe it's the fairest way to do it." Stephanie and Nathan Sloop are charged with capital murder in connection with the death of Ethan, whose disfigured body was found buried in a remote area near Powder Mountain on May 9.
Police say Ethan died as a result of "a systematic and progressively more violent pattern of abuse." Rawlings said prosecutors are still planning on pursuing the death penalty for the pair but will re-evaluate after upcoming preliminary hearings. "At both (preliminary hearings) we'll look at the status of the case, how strong does this case seem, but I really don't see why we wouldn't be filing intent (to see the death penalty) for both defendants." At Friday's hearing, both Sloops received dates for preliminary hearings where evidence will be presented in their respective cases. Nathan Sloop's preliminary will take place Feb. 1-3. Stephanie Sloop's is slated for Feb. 9-11. After the hearings, a judge will determine whether each Sloop will stand trial on the current charges. An arraignment date will be set and prosecutors will have 60 days from that point to determine whether they should seek the death penalty. In addition to the capital murder charges, the Sloops face charges of child abuse and obstructing justice, both second-degree felonies, and abuse or desecration of a body, a third-degree felony. Rawlings told reporters he doesn't plan to call Stephanie Sloop to testify against her husband at the Feb. 1 preliminary hearing. She could assert her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse, he said. One of the Sloops could be forced to testify after conviction and sentencing at the other's trial, Rawlings said. But the order of trials hasn't been fixed and Rawlings said he wasn't certain he needed one spouse's testimony against the other. A post-conviction appeal by one defendant could complicate any such effort, he added.