Five Miles From Home - Ep. 5: Let's Make a Deal

Detective Donald Burnham was stumped.

“Yes, decidedly stumped, because even though Cody and Tony”

were securely locked up in a waiting trial, there were things, important things, he just did not understand about the murder of that poor young woman out in the desert. Two mysteries in particular, which of those killer kids

was driving the bus, sort of say? That is, which one pronounced sentence on Mickey Castanzo seemed like one of them had to be more in charge than the other. Or maybe not.

But for now, it seemed reasonable hypothesis. And the second mystery could be expressed in one, three letter word, why? Why kill Mickey? That smart, sweet, popular young woman

had never harmed a living soul.

“Well, it was possibly one way to start answering those questions.”

Call a triangulation via cell phone. Barry did the phone records of Tony Frado and Cody Patton was a trove of digital data recorded the day Mickey was taken. That is who texted whom and when and where.

Here's Detective Donald Burnham. There were conversations and texts between Tony and Cody from the beginning of the morning until 7 o'clock. How many calls have we talked about? Approximately over 100.

Wow, so they were just constantly in communication. Definitely all day.

They both knew each other's whereabouts and what was going on.

111 calls and texts to be precise over the course of 10 hours. Except for one particular window of time. Burnham and private investigator Bill Savage

“were convinced that the activity and its timing could tell them something.”

Especially when they discovered that Cody and Mickey were also talking and texting just before Mickey vanished. Here's Bill Savage. We know Cody picked Mickey up at school. We know that Mickey didn't call like she regularly did.

Phone had to have been taken away from her somehow. As Savage kept digging through those cell records, he noticed that activity on Cody's phone dropped dramatically around 5.15 pm about the time Mickey went missing. Then just a few sporadic calls and texts between Cody and Tony

up until 7 pm. Nothing at all like the flurry of texts constantly pinging earlier in the day. So 5.15 to 7. What was Cody doing when he was off his phone?

Savage had a theory somewhere in that hour and 45 minutes. Cody, Ty Rapt, Mickey's arms, and head her way in the back of the trailblazer. And then, during that window between 5.15 and 7 pm, this is Tony's version of events.

I had gotten a text saying that he had had her. And I didn't believe him. Wait a minute, I don't understand that. Saying that he had an account. And he said that he was out somewhere in the desert

and that he had her in the car with him. So I told him, you know, come get me. I just had him not my son. I didn't know what was going on inside his head. I'm Keith Morrison.

And this is five miles from home, a podcast from daytime. Episode 5. Let's make a deal. It was Christmas time in West Wendover, Nevada. The casinos on the little strip love the holidays,

and their bright lights burst out across the nighttime desert. Even City Hall was a glow. Neighbor after neighbor lit the trees brought in from far away and sang the happy girls. But not the casinos though, family.

Not Syria, not now. Christmas day, it was not fun for me. It's not the same. And I don't ever think that's going to go away. As much as I try.

Cody Patton and his fiance Tony Frattos spent the holidays in jail, of course, awaiting their respective murder trials. On New Year's Eve, just about 10 months since the murder, Cody turned 19, no one brought cake.

Just one year earlier, he had moved in with Tony and her family

and was baptized into the Mormon church and was planning their wedding. And now Cody lived. The existence might be a better word in the shadow of the death penalty. But as the New Year began, Cody got a birthday gift of sorts.

His lawyer, John Olson, had been working behind the scenes with the DA to get him a deal. plead guilty and get in exchange a long prison sentence with the chance it parole someday and no death penalty. That was the safest way to go.

That was the way that would present at least a possibility. The Cody was she daylight again. And I would take the death penalty off the table. In Cody's situation, that was a good deal. But the best to get hoped for.

There was a catch however, Cody would have to testify against his fiancée Tony Frado.

“In his confession to police, you may remember,”

he never even hinted Tony played a part in the murder.

Now he'd have to reveal what really happened. And he decided he would do it. So, two and a half weeks after his birthday, Cody and his attorneys met with a district attorney. Ready finally to tell the whole story.

And then suddenly, he changed his mind. He simply refused to implicate Tony at all. Instead, Cody patterned decided to turn down the deal and take his chances with a jury. And then, the very next day, the DA offered

Tony Frado a deal, not the same deal. Better said attorney John Olson.

She was given a plea bargain a second degree

“in return for her cooperation and statement in agreement to testify.”

Testify against Cody. Tell all the terrible things he did. She would not only afford the death penalty, but just maybe get a chance at parole when she would still be young in her 30s.

We were not in on the plea deal at all. That was a surprise to us. These are Tony's parents, Claude and Cassie Frado. It happened very quickly and was because Cody was going to do a plea deal and then backed out of it.

And her attorneys talked to her and Tony said, "You know what? Enough is enough. The truth needs to be told and I'm going to tell it." So I want a chilly January day in 2012. Little Tony Frado was led from her jail cell to an office at the sheriff's department to tell her story for the record.

And there, face to face with the DA,

“she promised to tell the gods on his truth about who did what”

out there in the desert and why. So, would she? Hi, I'm Kate Snow and BC News Anchor and host of the NBC News Podcast, The Drink. This month, I'm sitting down with the hilarious Leslie Jones. We chat about her remarkable journey from her childhood to family hardships to the unexpected,

almost accidental road that led her to comedy. From her unforgettable years at Saturday Night Live, to her new show "Rost My Rental" about vacation rentals gone terribly wrong. It is a funny, candid conversation. I hope you'll give it a listen. Join us for the drink, listen and follow now wherever you get your podcast.

The Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the talented charming and hilarious Tracey Ellis Ross to talk about her Broadway debut in a one-woman show. And the new season of her travel series that has Tracey seeing the world, solo. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.

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Straight out of the police playbook and criminal justice 101.

Got two suspects.

“Get one to take a deal, and then rat on the other.”

Though rat on might not be the phrase the DA would actually use. The technique certainly helps crack a lot of cases. They soloed off the legal system too. And it certainly looked like it would help solve the murder of making a stand-so. So now in the Sheriff's Office surrounded by lawyers and cops,

Tony Frateau told her story to the district attorney.

A whole new story, a very different story of how her fiance,

Cody Patton, after threatening and abusing her, forced her to witness and even help, commit the murder. I'm a person to tell the truth and deep down I wanted people to know the truth because I knew Cody wasn't and it comes forward. For three hours, Tony unloaded on Cody. How Cody was upset with Mickey, how he hated the sound of her voice, how things were building up.

And then one detail of her story that did not change, the evening of March 3rd, that text message from Cody. All it said was, I have her and I didn't believe him. He ended up feeling he had to picture the killer. And what did you see in this picture? I saw, in the killer in the, like, the back seat. You could tell that she was very scared.

Cody picked her up around 7pm, she said, and she sat beside him with Mickey's stuffed in the SUV's cargo area. And then he drove out into the desert. Not a word was spoken, she said. As they approached the gravel pits, said Tony, Cody showed her a text, he had typed on his phone.

“Then it said, we have to kill her. Did you say anything?”

I didn't clean anything, I just kind of looked more, why. And he just kind of should have paid him, didn't clean anything. Cody pulled over, said Tony, ordered her to get out and stand guard to watch Mickey, as he dug a hole. Tony said she peaked through the back window, and saw Mickey sitting there silently. I could tell that she didn't be enough. As Cody finished digging the hole, Tony heard Mickey repeatedly ask,

"What's that for? What are you doing with that?" Then Cody took Mickey from the car, said Tony, and pushed her to the ground. I remember him, like, pulling back her hair and thing to hit her, do it, it'll be okay. Just go it, and I went up and hit her in the face. Then Cody punched her and kicked her, said Tony, before producing a knife,

which he used to cut off Mickey's sweatshirt. That's when I had noticed that her arms were

“tied together. You know what, where? What does it type?”

It dot worse, as Cody issued yet another order, said Tony, dismissed Mickey with a shovel, and Tony said she did on the back shoulder. Must have hurt, but it wasn't enough for Cody, she said. He grabbed the shovel from her, she said, and hit Mickey in the head, and she blacked out, and then said Tony, Mickey was suddenly in that hole, Cody dug, or grave, as she called it, and he was on top of her.

And then I remember going up and holding her leg down, so she thought kicking, and then all of a sudden her leg went completely still, and she wasn't moving. And though she had told Cody's lawyer, she helped cut Mickey's throat. She now told the DA that wasn't true. Only Cody used the knife, she insisted, Cody and Cody alone, while she horrified, backed off, but couldn't stop watching and listening.

She had looked up at Cody and now, and I still hear her, I still alive, and then she kept him, and he just kept me in home, and I won't say anything, and he just kept me home. Then, Tony said Cody ordered her to get into the car, so she did as he demanded she said, and listened to the last sounds of Mickey Coastans' life. And I kind of glanced over, and she was down in the grave.

And then, said Tony, she watched Cody, Barry Mickey, by himself.

"You can't tell me to this day." "Why is that happening?" "No." "You never told you that." "No."

And with that, Tony Frodo had her deal. The sworn statement she provided would now

“comprise much of the DA's case against her fiance, Cody Patton.”

And none of it was like the story she told the day she showed up in her pajamas to see Cody's lawyer, not the same at all. Three months later, she was back in court to be sentenced. This time for all to see. Her family, Mickey's family, friends from both sides, a hoard of media. Tony shackles click-clacked on the hardwood floors as she entered the cram courtland.

Dressed in jail house moves. Then one by one, Mickey's family went to the witness stand to give victim impact statements. Here's Mickey's sister, Christina.

“"I hope that you give her the maximum that you possibly care and that's what she took away from”

all of us." Mickey's father, Teddy, also spoke, shaking with rage. "I don't have nothing good for her, ever. That's what I see. That's what I want." Tony's attorneys told the judge that their young client wasn't a black widow, but rather a sheep controlled by a boyfriend who was jealous and possessive and isolating. And then Tony rose from her seat and seemed to weep the no tears were apparent, and read a short and simple speech, which was recorded in the back of the courtroom off-mic.

Celia Castando, Mickey's mother, was listening just a few feet away. "Furious." That was not an apology. It was BS. She did not look at us. She had no remorse.

“She was not sorry. She looked at a piece of paper. She read what she was supposed to read because”

it was expected of her. I was so angry to hear that garbage. The judge was listening, too, of course, and had read all the letters, the many, many letters from Tony's family and friends, urging him to give her a lenient sentence. He looked out at all the eyes, tearing back so intently at him, and he paused, and said, "This is a violent murder as I've seen in 20 years on the bench. The attack on the Kayla was brutal. It was vicious.

It was violent. All shockingly so. There was a hush. The courtroom leaned forward. And then, the judge said it's Tony to the maximum penalty the law allowed, life in prison, with an additional 20 years for the use of a deadly weapon.

But, because she had accepted a plea deal, and that deal was for second-degree murder,

the judge agreed to make her eligible for parole after serving in minimum of 18 years. Meaning, Tony could have a chance of walking free when she would be just 36 years old. Am I happy that she can get parole at some point? No. This is Mickey's mother, Celia. I will be at every parole hearing. Thank you, Brian. Because she does not deserve to get out. She deserves to spend the rest of her life

in prison, but due to the lack of physical evidence, we got the absolute maximum we could get, and I am happy with that. Because the alternative was having a jury, possibly set her free,

never in a million years was I going to let that happen, never.

Tony looked shell-shocked as she was escorted from the courtroom. Her parents looked on, sad to be sure, but said the photos, but the sense of peace too, as they told the local media. Her father, Claude. It's a big burden lifted off of her right hand, so we're pleased with her decision and mother Cassie. She will be able to move forward with a clean mind and heart and nothing to hide. But his Mickey's family left the courthouse for the long drive back

to West Wind over. They couldn't help but think that Tony's father was still keeping secrets about how and why Mickey was murdered. Here again is Mickey's sister, Christina. She still doesn't want anybody to know what really happened, what her real true involvement was.

and I believe that it was her idea that she said this is what we have to do.

“She hasn't told it all yet. I do not think so.”

So, was there really more to Tony's story? Maybe, because before she was arrested, Tony left something behind, something in her very own words that just might reveal the real motive for the murder of Mickey Castanzo. They had been sitting in storage for months. Two small plastic containers,

full of papers, and personal items. Nothing fancy, or valuable?

Not yet, anyway. They belong to Tony Fratell. She had left them with Cody Patton's parents. Left them there the day she climbed into Kip Patton's car and he drove her to that meeting with Cody's lawyer where you'll recall she confessed to murder. Well, of course, Tony was later arrested, but those plastic containers said undisturbed until several weeks later when private investigator Bill Savage got a call from Cody's dad, Kip. When I said Bill, I've got these two

plastic containers, I've had them in my storage, and there are some diaries in there, and there's

“some information in there that I believe is important to the case. Diaries, the personal diaries”

of Tony Fratell, little booklets adorned in colorful graphics and handwritten entries in notes, revealing notes. In my opinion, there was some valuable information in there with regard to Tony's personality, her feelings. In these diaries, Tony unloaded her fears, lots of those, her hopes, and most particularly her profound insecurity. She expressed an attitude of being a very lonely person with no friends. She commented about Mickey's attractiveness and she Tony being very unattractive

and conflicts between herself and Cody back and forth, breaking up, getting back together, breaking up. This, for example, she worried, quote, "The Cody will leave me for someone else, cheat on me that Cody and I won't last forever. We won't get married." She wrote a her own terror that her relationship with Cody wouldn't work out, and if it didn't, there was no point in living anymore. Quote, "You don't know how many times I've wanted to overdose on something,

so I wouldn't have to be here anymore. I'm very angry today, so angry that I'm trying to overdose, after I got off the phone with Cody I went and took four aspirants." In my opinion, a very troubled young lady, a troubled young lady who, in many ways, did not feel worthy,

“"I gather." That's correct. And who loved this guy, but at the same time, was terrified of losing him?”

Yes. A fraid of losing him to the girl he had grown up with, the attractive and popular Mickey Distanzo. Tony wrote, "We might as well break up, so he can get back together with her. They're perfect for each other. Tears tears tears tears tears tears tears. I don't know what to do anymore." Tony was jealous of Mickey, and if he were out of the picture, then Cody and Tony would be together. She was everything. Tony wasn't. Yes, absolutely.

From the diary, they would be so happy together. If I didn't steal him away, I know in my heart, he really doesn't love me. I felt that that was a piece of the puzzle which tended to show a motive for this killing. In fact, St. Cody's attorney John Olson, those diaries were a true revelation. As he read Tony's desperate entries, the whole terrible thing seemed to him to fall into place. The diaries just closed at a real animosity that Tony had for Mickey. All right.

And we were never able to discern how it was, or why Cody would have any animosity towards

her. He didn't. No. They'd been friends for life. Yes. And no one's ever shown me any reason.

in this crime, the only one that seemed apparent was her animosity. The only one on paper in her own handwriting.

The conclusion was inescapable in Olson's mind. It must have been Tony who wanted Mickey to not Cody. Maybe her big strong boyfriend was just doing her dirty work. Do you think it's

“possible this tiny girl 5/1/90 pounds could make that big would be marine commitment?”

No. You were a teenage boy once. Could your girlfriend motivate you to do things? There's nothing more mindless than a teenage boy full of hormones. Nothing. In fact, private investigator Bill Savage is convinced Tony was pulling the strings. My opinion is that although Tony is a very small stature, I believe that Tony exerted a great deal of influence over Cody. Mickey's family certainly seemed to think so too.

And now, as they awaited Cody's trial, they remembered things. Sister Christina recalled how jealous and controlling Tony was. Tony used to get so upset. If Michaela was seen talking to Cody,

“and she would just yell and holler and say horrible things to Michaela. Don't talk to him and call her”

every name imaginable. And intensely jealous young woman said Mickey's sister DJ. He couldn't be around the girl, especially my sister. That was kind of the indication from her diary that she fought with him all the time, but she really wanted to be with him for the rest of her life, and she was terrified losing you. Yeah, she'd just would be afraid of the fact that they wouldn't be together anymore. Oh, he'll end this with me and then I'll be the little boy.

She'd be seeing like obsessed with him. And Cody? Well, Cody said Christina was on a very tight leash. I must have been doing laundry or something and here Tony came walking and he was like,

“"God, go!" and I was like, "You can't even talk to me." He was like, "No, I can't. I got to go.”

I can't be seeing Joey at mad." Who was the driving force in that relationship? She was. Why did all of this matter now? After all, Tony had made her deal. It had been set away to

serve years in prison for second-degree murder. It mattered because Cody had yet to be tried.

And per agreement with the DA, Tony would be the star witness against Cody. Perhaps Olson could get the diary into evidence, perhaps not, but if the jury bought the story Tony told at her plea hearing, Cody's conviction would be all that assured. The ticket to death row very possible. Cody's attorney John Olson. It wasn't until Tony agreed to take a plea bargain that she became at a wrecked evidentiary threat to Cody. And we were able to talk with him about

what his trial was going to be like with Tony testifying and how it impacted his case. And that part of Tony Fredo's statement, and what she said, the Kayla sat up in the grave and said, "To Cody, am I still here? Can I go home?" Oh, God. Do you want to hear that when you're sitting on a jury? Devastating. Yeah. So it was perhaps understandable, but soon after Tony got her deal, Olson contacted the DA.

Cody would like another chance to plead guilty to Mickey's murder if the state withdrew the death penalty. At settings in the judge would decide if he got a shot at parole. And it was agreed. This time, Cody took the deal and stuck with it. It was Cody's decision. He was very firm about it and he was very positive about it when he entered his plea. For the next several months, Cody waited in his little jail cell, hoping perhaps praying he might be given a chance of

freedom some distant day. And then, in August 2012, on a hot late summer day they took Cody to the courthouse. He wore a suit and tie. He was clean-shaven. His hair was as neatly combed as a grooms at a wedding. Inside a crowd waited. And on the judge's signal, Mickey's family rose

to offer their victim impact statements. Mickey's mother, Celia. Miss, never see the life of

beneficiary. And when he leaves it, he'll be the boss. Cody's attorney John Olson gave an

“entash in the speech, insisting that Tony Frato was the mastermind of the murder. And since”

the judge allowed him to make a reference to Tony's diaries, Olson argued that her very own words were as clear a statement of motive as the court could ever see. Then, Cody stood up to speak. A room, one silent. He turned to Mickey's family. Nervous. His voice quivering. "Looks like the only man that will be in this is called you." Weeping now, Cody took long and frequent pauses as he wiped the tears from his eyes. And for the first time, he spoke publicly

about his fiance. The woman he had protected in his confession, having never revealed that she was

within that the crime scene. Listen to what he said now. "To the court, I just want to stay dating." "Yeah, I quote a fan of Tony Frato not all the blame." Tony was not all to blame. Cody also went on to say, "I am to blame as much as her

“as to the motive of this crime. I believe it was jealousy, anger, senselessness, the rest of it.”

The rest of what he said to Mickey's family and the court was an apology. No more, really. No explanation beyond." "It's no reason. It was an old, why?" "It's no trouble. It's just the case you've ordered." "Sorry, it's not enough. We're like, hey, a pop ties. We're at the scene." He even recited part of a poem written by Mickey of all people, about a glimmer of beauty beneath all the ugly in the world. And then he sat down, while the words, "Tony was not

all to blame, hung in the air, and waited to be told if it had a chance to be a free man ever again."

Then the judge began to speak. "You always had the power and the ability to

distract and to stop when we all saw this murder that you put it to motion. Worked blood runs cold. It's the best." "I sent you to return when the life only allowed a part of the corrections. Your shall be no possibility in the court." "There would be no parole after all." A seal you watched Cody taken away in handcuffs. She felt a small measure of satisfaction. In Cody's case? "Live in prison for the rest of your life. In every day I want you to think

of what you did to my daughter. I want you to suffer every single day because dying, the death penalty. You're getting off easy. And I hope every day you live in the hell that I'm living because you took my daughter." But Mickey's sister, Christina, was conflicted. About the kid, the neighbor whom she knew and once liked and trusted. "Every time I started to say that I would wish that he would be away forever and that he would have the death penalty.

“I would have to stop myself because I would remember that Cody that has a heart.”

I know that that does not make this any less tragic and that it doesn't make me want him to get out. I see the good in him." "Spend on the fact that he killed your sister." "I know it doesn't make sense to me either, but he has to sit there and go." "Oh my God. This person that I knew so well

will never ever have a chance of anything." Both Cody and the person where he will spend

the rest of his life turned down our request for an interview. But Tony Frado, in our next episode, Tony will have a lot to say about that dark night in the Nevada desert, the whole new story, about the killing of Mickey Costanzo. Oh, and just possibly we'll get to some truth too. Next time, why did questions for Tony Frado? Did you ever say to him get rid of her? No, I didn't mean of her or you lose me. No. And some revealing answers. When we finally got out to the designated

That area was designated.

“Five miles from home is a production of dateline and NBC News. Robert Dean is the producer.”

Brian Drew, Marshall House Feld, and Meredith Greenstein are audio editors.

Molly DeRosa is a associate producer. Adam Gourphane is co-executive producer.

“Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer.”

For MNBC News Audio, sound mixing by Rich Cutler.