Five Miles From Home - Ep. 6: "Haywire"

The question was, would we ever?" This, for example, and after a simple, why did they do it? This was perhaps the biggest question.

“Which one of those young people bore the greater responsibility for the attack on Bikika Stanzo?”

Was punishment for that crime, fairly applied? Cody Patton, by refusing to blame his girlfriend, ensured for himself a lifetime in prison.

Yes, he avoided the death penalty, but he'll never be free again, he'll die in prison.

Tony Frato, on the other hand, pile the blame on Cody, and more, she claimed she was an abused woman, and though an accomplice of frightened and reluctant one. Tony was imprisoned on the lesser charge of second-degree murder with a built-in possibility of parole. But was hers a true story? Or just a strategy? Was the fatal decision hers or Cody's?

Well, Tony was just along for a ride that went bad. We asked Detective Donald Burnham. He didn't claim to have the answers either. I don't think the Cody or Tony would tell the truth to anybody but each other. It just doesn't appear that anybody has gotten the true answers to this reasons or the wise.

“And I think the only people to have the answer to those questions as Tony and Cody.”

We wondered if their history would talk for them, or at least offer clues. And so we went digging into the past. Tony told me, I just hate her. I just hate her. She's such a bad person, and how much she just wishes to kill would just go away. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is five miles from home, a podcast, some big line.

Episode six, "Hey, wire." [music] There was, you'll recall, some significant history between Cody and the Kayla. They'd grown up in the same apartment complex where childhood friends. At a 12 or 13 of theirabouts, they played at being boyfriend and girlfriend, though it was all quite innocent and very brief.

Said Mickey's sister Christina.

They never had the feelings that you'd have for a boyfriend girlfriend.

More like brother, sister. More like brother, sister. They were just best friends for a long time. [music] Then, in high school, Cody met Tony Frodo, and that was the real deal.

Cody fell hard. In love for life hard. [music] But, we know from Tony's diary that she fear their love wouldn't last. Her entries revealed deep insecurity and repeated the intense jealousy directed towards the prettier and more popular Mickey.

And though she and Cody were planning a wedding, Tony wrote that she was certain he'd soon want to leave her for Mickey from the diary. He will be happier and can see her a lot, a lot more than he will ever see me. They hang out every single day, like all day long, too. I know anything I do is wrong. And then there was this. To be honest, I don't know why I'm even still living life.

It's not worth my time. It's pointless. [music] The source of all that angst seemed to be one incident in the high school. A minor thing really a misunderstanding of the sort of thing that happens at that age.

“Mickey and Cody remember where lifetime pals had grown up together.”

And one day, Mickey sister DJ said it must have been a couple of years before Mickey was killed. I guess they exchanged a kiss between each other from what Tony told me. Then Mickey would found out that they were together. And she felt horrible. So what my sister did was she wore ducked to Tony, face to face, and told her what happened.

Instead, I'm really sorry. I didn't know.

And boy, me will never happen again.

According to Tony's mother Cassie, Mickey's apology appeared to ease the tension between the two. At least during the summer of 2010, several months before Mickey was murdered. Tony and Mickey had coincidentally met up at our local swimming pool. And Tony had said, "I thought that we had made peace because they talked about how silly they were as young girls.

If you want Cody, you go for it, girl." They patched things up, came to an agreement. And Tony felt really comfortable about that. She did not have a beef with Michaela at that point. Things were fine.

But according to Mickey's sister DJ, things were not so fine. Tony's jealousy only intensified. She said things nasty things to Mickey. And this was not just a few times. This was a lot.

Oh yeah. Tony really hated her. She'd walk by and say something so rude on her breath. Makein' her feel bad. Michaela would just pretend it didn't bother her in reality.

I heard her. We're talking about a couple years though. Yeah. The hatred of Tony grew more and more and more. And it went on until pretty much she died.

But it was even worse than that said DJ. When Tony was mean, she said, "Cody got nasty too." I remember getting off work one day. And I was sitting there and she ran in. She's bleeding.

On our arm. She said. "Cody had a little box, clearly." And he wiped it across to arm. And at first she said, "I didn't even know."

And then I looked down and I'm bleeding. And I looked at him. And he's laughing.

“Was that kind of the straw that broke the canvas back with her?”

That was. She said, "This is what's made me see." That he's not worth it. And then I really don't want person like that in my life at all. And at that point, he was just a nobody to her anymore.

So from then on, Nicky avoided Cody. Cutter-old childhood pal right out of her life. Especially during the months before she was murdered. Nicky's mother, Celia. They weren't talking. They weren't being friends.

She already minimized any contact. But Nicky's cold shoulder only seemed to fuel Cody's fire. Here's DJ. He grew really angry at her after that. We would do things to try to make her mad.

Just so she talked to him. When they didn't talk for a very long time, he said, "He loved me, Kayla." He just didn't want her to ever go. And he didn't understand why she went.

It was a real shock to him to all the son have for there.

To thicken then and then never have her.

And angry at a abandoned Cody at jealous Tony.

“Maybe that's why Nicky had been so worried, said DJ.”

About what those two might be up to. Weeks and even months before, they killed her. She says he keeps trying not to get me to go with them. Why is he talking to me now? Because he's never tried to reach out and say anything

and now all of a sudden, here he is. And she just felt really insecure. They get her to go out with him and Tony. But the two of them? Yeah, and she just said, "I don't get it.

It's not right. Something's just wrong." So why would Nicky get into a car with Cody that day after school? Or maybe she didn't. Not voluntarily anyway. Remember the police found a zip tie around Nicky's arm.

We still don't know exactly how or why Nicky ended up in that car. With Cody and Tony, their shifting stories made it hard to know what was true. But Celia was impratic. The idea that Nicky would willingly get into a car with either one or both of them. Not a chance.

She was smart. She was careful. And she was afraid. She had already for two years been staying away from him. And then to hear that she got into a vehicle with Cody and Tony,

never in a million years.

Something else. Nicky's family is convinced that Cody and Tony knew that a few days around the time of the murder were the only days they would find Nicky alone after school. The timing was too perfect. It was the one time that DJ was at college.

Christina was out of town. I was at work. He's the one time that McKayley would have actually had to walk home.

“I believe that they set out to kill her in the first place.”

Yes. This is a girl who was always with someone. She had friends. She was around people all the time. You could not get my daughter alone. If you're going to do something, you would have to plan it out.

There is one more story that just might reveal the trigger for what those two kids did to McKayley know.

We found a recording buried deep in the case file, never presented in public, never reported.

It was January 2012, a little over ten months after the murder.

“Cody had just started making a sworn statement to the DA.”

All I'm asking you to do today is to tell me the truth. You gotta stand there. It was to be a full and frank account of what really happened and why. Here was the part of Cody's whole new story. He managed to get out before he climbed up.

That morning, between classes and several hours before he did what he did to McKay, Cody told the DA, Tony confronted McKay in a school hallway. Tony called her a slut. She looked a bit there. There's a slut.

I told her that she needed to stop that bulls. And this was with him. McKay that's hearing.

Yeah, she was behind one of us walking by.

So what happened then? Tony called her a few more names. I noticed the slut was what a great thing he sparked it. It sparked a big argument that is, Cody said he intervened. Told Tony.

Knock it off. Cody told the DA. He didn't like it when people have a feud between them, especially with friends and family. So after school, he suggested to McKay.

Why don't you guys just talk it out? And Tony told me that he just wanted to do it out with McKay. And I said, OK, well, I have to make it. So I relayed the message to McKay and said, well, she just wants to fight it out. And McKay came to the resolution.

She's like, OK. After school, that awful day, got into the car with just him voluntarily, expecting to go and have it out with Tony. It drove around for a while, so Cody. And then they picked up Tony and Cody drove out of town to the gravel bits.

“And what did Cody tell the DA about what happened there?”

Well, as it turned out, nothing. Because, just then, Cody's attorney John Olson arrived. And the two conferred privately about what would happen if his case went to trial, that he would likely be convicted. And yet, something in that moment shifted in Cody's mind.

Shifted in spite of his attorney's warning. Cody returned to his meeting with the DA, and announced that he had changed his mind. I decided to deploy him. I'm willing to accept the plea of my court. Which Cody's attorney John Olson further clarified by asking the DA?

And the author is not the table. Yes. Mr. Patton does not have the option of taking it anymore. Did you get all that? Cody, much to almost everyone's surprise, rejected the plea deal

that could have kept him off death row. Instead, he declared he would go to trial, but a jury decide. Because he believed he would be found not guilty. And why would a jury acquit? Well, his attorney John Olson believes Cody was convinced

Tony would never ever testify against him never betray him.

After all, he had never betrayed her. So right then, and their Cody refused to say another word ever again about what happened in the desert on that terrible day. But attorney Olson, who has never disputed that Cody was involved, does have his own theory about what really happened when those three arrived

of the gravel pits. My guess would be that there was an opportunity for Tony to confront Michaela. And they went out to the desert to have the confrontation away from crying. And something happened. I think something bad happened.

A bad idea that became a screw up. A bad idea that became a horrible idea. A bad idea that went very, very bad. Why do you think it happened? I'd have to just guess.

“But I think it's something that got out of hand.”

That went very, very wrong. I think there were more reactionary than they were premeditative. I think that nobody intended for there to be a death in this in the beginning. That maybe there was an intention to do something else. And I think it just went haywire.

So what was it? A planned premeditated attack to confront Michaela, simply scare her,

Everybody we talked to seemed to have a different theory.

“But on this, they agree, said Detective Donald Burnham.”

It appears to me that Cody and Tony carried this act out together. I don't think the Cody or Tony would tell the truth to anybody but each other. And they aren't talking. Oh, they're not. Except, we did talk to Tony.

In jail, after she confessed and was sentenced, she had a lot to say. Maybe just a little more than she intended. [Music] Hi, I'm Kate Snow, NBC 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 roast 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 podcasts.”

Hey guys, Willie guys here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the talented charming and hilarious Tracy Ellis Ross. To talk about her Broadway debut in a one-woman show. And the new season of her travel series that has Tracy seeing the world.

Solo. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. I really love the start today app. They care about how I feel. It's the staff on the app.

It's the connections you make. Without good mental and physical help, you have nothing. It tells me how to cook to keep myself healthy.

“I look at my having a like while I'm on this 7,000 steps today.”

Start today meets you where you are. Download this start today. Well, this app now on your Avalor Android device. Terms apply. See app for details. There's a dismal logic that work and jails around America.

It's an architecture of purgatory. These are the places that house inmates in that gray zone of waiting. Waiting for trial, waiting to be sentenced, waiting to be transferred to a more permanent prison dwelling. In most of these places inmates are stored in pods, as they call them. Huge rooms of painted concrete, in which metal bumps offer nothing like privacy,

as inmates milled out under the gaze of false seeing cameras and keepers. Watching in some central control room day and night. All the time. And the minutes and hours crawl. aimlessly.

endlessly. Tony Frater waited for her transfer to prison while encased in just such a place. The Elco County jail. Where she languished in the constant company of a hundred or so other waiting women. Day after day, night after night in that concrete pod for sixteen months.

And she thought about things like the value of telling her story to us. And on the last possible day, the day before her transfer to the state prison. A jailer led her in to see me. I'm Keith. Nice to meet you. So here she was. Tony Frater.

The former little Miss Windover. Still the picture of a child. Tiny in her big girl prison outfit. Her hair. Tightly braided in a bun. We'd arranged to have our meeting in a small courtroom, not far from her pod. And this was a new one on me.

The jail agreed to let Tony's mother watch from an adjoining room through a thick plate glass window, which meant she and Tony could make eye contact. Tony's mother could also hear us, though we could not hear her. So two lines of communication hours with Tony, hers silently, with her mother, as our cameras rolled.

We'd hoped, naturally, that she would finally tell the truth about that nightmare in the desert.

Tell us what really happened and tell why. Instead, she began with what sounded like a bit of historical revision about the young woman she helped kill. I knew up her, but I did not know Michaela.

We'd been hoping for an honest conversation too much to ask, perhaps.

“When it came to the question, did Cody decide to attack Mickey?”

Or did she? There are people who say that you were very jealous and that you manipulated him into committing murder. I was not jealous of Michaela. Yes, that one thing that I had wrote in my diary, but that was way early on our relationship. Did you ever say to him get rid of her?

No, I didn't get rid of her or you lose me. No, didn't give him that choice. Absolutely not. Tony insisted to us that on the day of the murder, she had no idea what was brewing. Only that earlier that week, Cody seemed angry and edgy about something

and that things were building up.

Otherwise, said Tony, it was just a normal Thursday, she went to school, then attended the town meeting with her mom. Things suddenly changed just before 7pm. Said Tony, "When she got that text message in Cody, I have her," it said. So I told him, "Come get me."

We'll talk this all out. Yeah, well, I want to find out for myself what's going on. People may find it hard to believe, but I still did not believe that he had her in that car. Until I had gotten in that car and just something on his face was not right. I guess that would have been another opportunity for you to decide not to go.

Right? What was the reason you walked out of that safe meeting, sitting beside a parent. Didn't understand that. Just to see proof from myself. proof of what?

Did he had her?

“Which, when he heard that, made us wonder, did Tony slip and reveal a hidden truth?”

When she made her a deal to plead to secondary murder, giving her a shot at freedom someday, Tony claimed that she was just doing what Cody demanded she do, and had no idea of what would transpire that awful night in the desert. But here she was admitting she actually wanted to join Cody. Demand did he pick her up, in fact, with a kidnapped Mickey in the back of the car.

Then another slip? Does this sound like some planning had been involved? Listen to this.

Well, when we finally got out to the designated area and everything.

What do you mean the designated area? Where everything went down. That area was designated? Well, just the area where we ended up. No plan to go there and sister Tony.

So, designated area? Maybe not. Okay, tell me what I folded. To me, I'd rather not get into a lot of detail. It's still a blurred to me, just when everything started getting out of hand.

Which began, said Tony, when Cody got out of the car, leaving Mickey and her inside, and started digging what would be a grave. Why didn't you just leave? You and McKayla, there were two of you. Could have just driven away when he got out of the car.

I was too much in fear. I was scared, terrified. Even if I tried to get away, drove off, he would still come and find us. And there'd be ten times worse. Tony insisted she had no choice but to stay there,

where she witnessed the last moments of Mickey and McKayla stands of life. He had told me to go and get in the car, turn the car around, face the headlights to where they were at. He had told me to stay in the car, look away, don't look. I stayed in the car when all that went down. Tony claimed insisted in fact that she did not take part at all in the killing.

“Which, as you may remember, was not what she said when she confessed to Cody's attorney”

that she was very much involved. Back then she said they'd both murdered Mickey together, using Cody's knife. But later she told the DA, and now sitting with me, a much different story. You didn't hold the knife, but you didn't cut her. Correct.

So it reduced your culpability. You can say, yeah. I'm not trying to diminish my actions or anything of what I did,

Pretty quickly, as Tony kept distancing herself from the crime, she looked through the glass to her mother, especially when the question turned to why. I did what I was told, because I was scared I didn't know what to do. So scared of Cody that she stayed there in the SUV and watched as he killed Mickey, because she feared that if she didn't do what she was told, she'd be his next victim.

Why would it kill you?

“The only thing that I can even think that I would be next was because I was a witness,”

and I was there with my killer. Even when it was all over in the Gotham, Cody kept her paralyzed and seared. So why is Mickey Costanza dead? You'd have to ask Cody, said Tony, "Frauto."

I don't know his motive. If I knew, I'd be more than willing to say why, so it would make sense. He's just a lunatic or what, I mean. I don't know. I don't have an answer for that.

And when he says he doesn't know why, do you believe him? No. He's got it in a way. There's a reason why he did this. And it wasn't the real Michaela, so the please you. No.

So did she avoid Cody?

“Once he was off in jail, before her own arrest,”

this man, she was so afraid of. No, she didn't. Jail calls are recorded, of course. You are, and a good mood, who will you? I'd like five or the night and grab you all five.

Who will you, who will you? They were lovers once engaged to be married in the Mormon Church, planning for a family. But now, Tony told us she was trying to cleanse her. He cleansed herself of Cody Patton.

Do you think about a month? You know, I am just doing my best to move forward. No, I don't want him a part of me and my family's life anymore. Is that your mind? He's out of my mind.

“There are times that yes, things pop up.”

I'm just working on healing myself.

Of course, Miki Costanzo's family will never heal.

Nor like the ever-be-satisfied with justifications or regrets that Tony Friday tries to offer. Not a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened. I know Star is not enough. If I could go back, I would and protect her,

and she would still be here today. Did they see her face now? And you're mine, did I? It's in peace, it's yeah. Probably be seen her for a long time. You're asking, I love you.

And with that, our interview ended.

Tony Frotto never wavering from her latest story,

the one that could set her free, even sooner than she thought. Ten years after Miki was kidnapped, beaten and stabbed to death and then about a desert. Tony Frotto sat for another interview. This time, at the meeting of the parole board,

whose members had the power to release her. So, would they? They were sent to separate prisons. Cody Patton to one end of Nevada, Tony Frotto, the other. Two different stories about the murder, too.

And two quite different penalties. Cody Patton is a hardcore lifer. For years, he was locked up at the Eally State Prison, a place so notorious, so dangerous, some call it the graveyard.

Then, in January 2026, he qualified to be transferred to a medium security facility as safer, less violent prison. Meanwhile, Tony Frotto, from what we could tell, has kept a low profile at the women's prison outside Las Vegas. Unlike Cody, Tony has possibilities, parole possibilities.

And in 2021, she took her first step towards freedom.

you'll see number for the record, please.

Tony Frotto, 1092636. Remember, Tony was given consecutive sentences for both murder and the use of a deadly weapon, which meant she would have to serve time separately for each conviction, a minimum total of 18 years.

So, this parole hearing was just for the murder charge. If parole was granted, she began serving time for the weapons conviction. We're all here on a discretionary parole hearing to receive a sentence of what appears to be

120 months to life in prison. Tony was 28. Prison at age terror. Still petite, but pale, a dark, curly hair, got short.

With her parents looking on,

she wept through her testimony. Wept without visible tears. My actions were wrong. And I just hope that one day, I give back and that I can show

the people in society who I am today, and not who I once was. All right, obviously, this was a crime that was kind of beyond the pale here.

“What was your frame of mind when this was occurring here?”

I was not in a healthy state of mind at the time. I was not thinking of the consequences. I was not thinking of the pain and the hurt that I was going to cause this family. Was still causing 10 years on?

This was silly to the parole board just as she had pledged to do when Tony was sentenced years earlier. Tony was in a position. Multiple times to stop

what happened before Michaela was ever killed. She was not pressured and she just going along. She got in that vehicle. She knew what was going on.

She made the choice to take my daughter out in the middle of the desert. Select her throat. She should paint the same price. My daughter did a life for life.

Didn't take long. Pro was denied. And then three years later, they did it all again. Good morning.

“Can you please state your name and in the O.C. number for the record?”

Tony Frado 1092636. In February 2024, she was back in front of the board for the second time. Tony looked a little different by then. Her hair was long and stringy.

Her face thinner. Expressionless. I would just like to say that I apologize to the family that I am sorry for their loss. And I want to let them know that I am doing time for the family.

Can you even begin to empathize with the loss that they've suffered in their lives? I can't even come close. And then again, the commissioners asked the question, why? Why kill that innocent young woman?

One of the things that strikes me is there were so many chances for you to take the off ramp. And you didn't? Why is that? I regret that every single day of my life.

“And the only thing I can say is I was scared.”

And I wish I would have been strong enough to take that stand. And save her life. We ask you this, if it was someone in your family, if the roles were reversed, would you want that person to get out of prison? No.

Once again, parole was denied. Tony's next hearing will be in 2028. She'll be 36 then. Half her life behind bars. Well, Cody Patton is going to die in prison someday.

Do you want to say to even one of those, too?

First off, I want them to look at me in the face and tell me why.

And it better not be some BS that they pull like they did on their confessions. I want the truth. Will I ever get it? No. They'll never tell me. I want them to know that if it were possible for me every day

to make their lives hell, I would. Because they deserve to be in hell for doing that. And there is nothing they can say or do that will make it better. They cannot fix this.

I feel for Michaela's family.

I feel for Cody's family. I feel for Tony's family. This is lead detective Kevin McKinney. They're all devastated.

“You know, the fratos and the patterns are just devastated as the castanzos in this case.”

Three families have been torn apart by this.

Cody Patton will never come on.

Tony Fredo might someday, but probably too late for her parents. I don't think I will. Still be alive when she gets out. I don't think that it will be a time that we'll be together like that again.

“At West Bend over high school, they still remember Michaela.”

Her basketball and track uniforms have both been retired in her honor.

Outside is a huge rock painted green. A memorial in her favorite color signed by dozens of her classmates. A college scholarship fund has also been established in Mickey's memory. It's called the spirit of friendship honoring the life of Michaela Costanzo. And up in the high desert mountains, overlooking Westland over is a ranch with a small family cemetery, a peaceful sacred place.

The ranch is home.

“It's home for Michaela. It's home for DJ. It's home for me.”

And now it's where Michaela is. Yes. She's exactly where she would want to have been. She's laying right next to my father. And she is in the most beautiful spot in the world, to me.

And she's like sitting on top of the world. And on the little strip along Interstate 80, that giant neon cowboy Wendover will still waves his grinning welcome. But he points to a place a little older now and sad it. As if the neon lights strung up among desert casinos had picked up a layer of grief after that night in the desert. Five miles from home.

Five miles from home has been a production of date line and NBC News. Robert Dean is the producer. Brian Drew Marshall Housefeld 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.

Well, I'm NBC News audio. Sound mixing by Rich Cutler. [BLANK_AUDIO]