Open Murder

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Five Miles From Home — "Open Murder" (June 15, 2026)

Host: Keith Morrison (NBC News)
Episode Theme: The investigation into the murder of high school junior Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo unravels in the tight-knit Nevada casino town of West Wendover. As evidence mounts, detectives, families, and the town itself wrestle with shocking confessions, lingering doubts, and hints of deeper secrets.

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Episode Overview

In "Open Murder," Keith Morrison revisits the harrowing investigation into the disappearance and murder of 16-year-old Mickey Costanzo. The episode follows the law enforcement pursuit of Cody Patton, the prime suspect, and details the subsequent investigation, confession, and community fallout. With unexpected twists and unresolved questions, the story explores betrayal, small-town dynamics, and the struggle for truth amidst anger and loss.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mysterious SUV and Forensic Leads

• Borrowed SUV: Investigators focused on a Chevy Trailblazer borrowed by Cody Patton from a local woman. She noted the car was spotless when lent out but returned unusually dirty, spurring suspicion ([00:48-02:50]).
  • Quote: "Her SUV was spotless when she handed the keys to Cody, but was very dirty when he returned it." — Keith Morrison [02:50]
• Crime Scene Links: Forensic analysis found the SUV's tire treads and dust matched those at the crime scene, strengthening the case against Cody ([02:50-03:54]).
  • Quote: "They were consistent with the tire brand and model that was on that vehicle." — Detective McKinney [03:47]

2. Evidence Search at the Fratto Residence

• Missing Shovel: While searching the Fratto home, Cassie Fratto reported a small military entrenching shovel missing from Cody’s room, a potential murder weapon ([04:20-04:39]).
• Household Tension: Discovery was fueled by mounting suspicion despite no immediate physical evidence ([04:21-04:39]).

3. Emotional Confession & Interrogation

• Confrontational Interrogation: Detective McKinney pressed Cody, who eventually requested to speak with his father ([06:01-07:02]).
• Father’s Influence: Cody’s father, in distress, encouraged him to tell the truth.
  • Quote: "You've got to do what they need you to do, and they need their answers. The family needs their answers. You know, this is it, man. We have to fix this." — Kit Patton [07:54]
• Cody's Recounting: Cody described a heated argument with Mickey, followed by a violent incident in the desert. He claimed she demanded he break up with his fiancée Tony, leading to an altercation, her fatal injury, and then, in panic, ensuring her death with a shovel ([08:16-10:47]).
  • Quote: "She started yelling at me... she started, like, pounding on my chest... and she fell down and hit her head, and... her eyes started to turn black, and she started to shake and seize." — Cody Patton [09:02]
  • Quote: "I split her in the little crazy thing I thought covered her up, but I took the clothes apart and burned them." — Cody Patton [10:37]
• Details of Confession: He admitted burning her clothes and belongings, then spending the evening with Tony, not telling her what occurred ([10:47-11:18]).
  • Quote: "I just want to say that I'm sorry. Hate being. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time." — Cody Patton [11:18]

4. Skepticism and Disbelief

• Community Shock: Friends, family, and the entire school community were stunned Cody could be capable of such violence ([13:32-18:02]).
  • Quote: "All Cody would say the week before the murder was, things are coming to a head. I need to take care of this." — Cassie Fratto, Tony's mother [13:50]
• Open Murder Charge: Cody was charged with "open murder," allowing the jury flexibility in deciding the final verdict ([18:17]).

5. The Case Against Cody

• Additional Evidence: Police recovered Mickey’s polka dot backpack, apartment key, and a panda bear charm from the burn pit Cody identified ([30:34-31:04]).
  • Quote: "We decided to dig in that area... and we were lucky to find remnants of that polka dot bag." — Detective Burnham [30:34]
• Autopsy Contradictions: Investigator Bill Savage found the brutality of Mickey’s wounds suggested more than an accident or shovel strike – likely multiple weapons and extraordinary rage ([32:25-33:42]).
  • Quote: "Horrible slicing disfigurement to Mickey's face... It indicates to me a great deal of rage by someone to cause those type of wounds." — Bill Savage [33:17, 33:31]
• Community & Family Doubts: Mickey’s mother and sister doubted the full truth had been revealed, suspecting a more complex scenario or unspoken accomplice ([23:51-24:33]).
  • Quote: "I'm sure that he snapped and I'm sure that he hurt her. There would have to be something somewhere that forced the whole scenario." — Celia Costanzo [23:59]
  • Quote: "It's not the person that I knew. He would never hurt Michaela." — Christina Costanzo [24:33]

6. Tony Fratto's Role and Defense Attorney Perspective

• Loyalty Amidst Chaos: Tony Fratto, Cody’s fiancée, remained steadfastly supportive, frequently corresponding and visiting him in jail ([28:43-29:59]).
  • Quote (love letter excerpt): "Yes, baby, I'm going to stay faithful. You're the only one for me... my cheese to my macaroni, my everything..." — Tony Fratto [28:43]
• Defense Strategy: Veteran attorney John Olson expressed the challenge of saving Cody from a death penalty case, scrutinizing the confession and exploring Tony’s potential involvement. He advised Tony’s family to leave town for her well-being ([21:13-22:49], [35:39-36:15]).
  • Quote: "I approach every case with the thought that I'm going to try it to a jury..." — John Olson [23:04]
  • Quote: "If you want to do a favor for this child, get her out of town." — John Olson [35:39]
• Olson’s Impressions: Olson found Tony’s demeanor emotionless and odd during interviews, raising further questions ([36:39]).
  • Quote: "I would describe her aspect as deadpan. I would describe her as emotionless." — John Olson [36:39]

7. Community Mourning and Collective Grief

• Memorial Service: Nearly the entire community turned out to mourn Mickey, reflecting her profound impact ([25:56-27:17]).
  • Quote: "This town suffered as a group. It's not just me that suffered... This entire town suffered. As if this town was her parent." — Celia Costanzo [26:17]
  • Quote: “She was many things to many people. A friend, a fellow student, a teammate and an inspiration.” — Classmate [27:19]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Cody's Confession:
  • "He stated he was alone with Michaela. He never implicated anybody else, even being present or aware of it." — Detective Burnham [12:13]
• Detective Skepticism:
  • "I was never convinced that he told us the complete truth about what happened." — Detective McKinney [12:58]
• Investigator Savage on Evidence:
  • "Some of the details that Mr. Patton reported didn't quite pass the sniff test to me." — Bill Savage [32:25]

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Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:48-04:39 | Lead-up: Borrowed SUV, forensic evidence, and the search at the Fratto home | | 05:54-07:54 | Interrogation and emotional confession by Cody, with input from his father | | 08:16-11:18 | Cody’s step-by-step confession of the night of the murder | | 13:32-14:21 | Family and fiancée reflections, turmoil leading up to the crime | | 18:02-18:47 | Open murder charge explained; initial legal steps | | 21:13-23:04 | John Olson, defense attorney, discusses the steep legal challenge | | 23:51-24:33 | Mickey’s mother and sister express deep skepticism about Cody's confession | | 25:56-27:30 | Community mourning at Mickey's memorial: family, friends, and school unite in grief | | 28:43-29:59 | Tony Fratto’s jailhouse loyalty and her family's confusion | | 30:34-31:04 | Burn pit search recovers key evidence (bag, key, charm) | | 32:25-33:42 | Private investigator questions confession based on autopsy findings | | 35:39-36:15 | Olson urges Tony’s parents to move her away; describes her as emotionless |

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Tone & Language

The episode is classic Keith Morrison: empathetic, suspenseful, and detailed, weaving in recollections and quotes from investigators, family, and the suspect himself. There’s a deep undercurrent of grief, confusion, and disbelief that colors the conversations, reflecting both the horror and the mystery still unresolved.

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Summary

"Open Murder" explores the complexity behind seemingly open-and-shut investigations. Despite Cody’s emotional confession and overwhelming physical evidence, persistent doubts remain about what truly happened to Mickey Costanzo, and why. Family, friends, and even defense investigators suspect Cody’s story doesn’t capture the whole truth—hinting at possible secrets yet to be revealed.

The episode leaves listeners on edge, promising further revelations about Tony Fratto and the case as the investigation digs deeper.

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Transcript

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[Keith Morrison]

you'll remember, I'm sure, the old adage taken from Shakespeare. Neither a borrower nor a lender be the phrase itself, borrowed all the time and everywhere, like so much of the great playwright's work. Wise advice, perhaps, if widely ignored in modern life. But the question of borrowing was about to matter in the West Wendover murder investigation. It had to do with a car. An suv, actually. A Chevy Trailblazer. A borrowed Trailblazer. And why would a borrowed car matter to the investigation into the murder of that much loved teenager, Mickey Costanzo? Curious little story that the SUV belonged to a local woman. An older woman, you could say, at least compared with young Cody. There had been talk, rumors that Cody may have been spending time with the woman. But talk is cheap, isn't it? And no evidence of a relationship ever surfaced. And after all, Cody was at that very same time planning his marriage to Tony Fratto. So perhaps that woman was simply offering the SUV as a favor to a friend, to be used by Cody to pick up those car parts he'd left at the school shop. But now Cody Patton was a murder suspect. And so naturally, Detective Burnham thought it prudent to talk to that woman, the owner of the car. And sure enough, she confirmed Cody's story. Confirmed also the reason he asked to use it. Because it was big enough to accommodate all that car stuff, parts and things, that is. She assumed it was car parts. And then the woman added one curious little detail. Her SUV was spotless when she handed the keys to Cody, but was very

[Detective Burnham]

dirty when he returned it.

[Keith Morrison]

Not just teenager messy, but especially dirty and dusty on the outside, as if he'd driven it off road. But did she rush out to wash it that very day? No, she did not. Instead, investigators had their way with that car. They swabbed it from bumper to bumper for samples of dust and dirt and compared those samples with soil samples from the crime scene and they sure looked the same. Which by itself could simply have been a coincidence. Of course. Didn't prove Cody did some terrible thing to his old friend Mickey. But that wasn't all those cops took from the car. They took impressions of the tread on the tires and then they lined them up with the tire tracks at that place in the desert where they found Mickey's body.

[Detective McKinney]

They were consistent with the tire brand and model that was on that vehicle,

[Keith Morrison]

which again, could have been a coincidence, though it was seeming less likely now and then. The investigators conducted a search where Cody lived, which was, remember, at the home of Claude and Cassie Fratto.

[Detective Burnham]

See if there was any type of evidence of, you know, knives or items that could have been used to restrain her or that coincided with what we'd found at the scene at the time.

[Keith Morrison]

Did you find anything?

[Detective Burnham]

We didn't find anything initially. However, during our search of the house, Cassie Fratto stated that she had observed a shovel in Cody's room and that the shovel was no longer there. And she identified the shovel as a small military entrenching type tool.

[Keith Morrison]

The kind normally used for digging a hole in the ground, maybe. Of course, it wasn't around anymore. So as evidence, that story was perhaps iffy. But just as the detectives were contemplating that it happened the moment. Dramatic, strange, the kind of thing that just never happens until it does.

[Detective McKinney]

I heard some wailing from the father. I could hear him yell and it sounded to me like he was crying.

[Keith Morrison]

I'm Keith Morrison and this is Five Miles from Home, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 3 Open Murder. Sunday night in West Wendover. A busy evening along the little strip. Its five casinos bustling with gamblers, drinks flowing, slots spinning, oblivious of course, to the real life action just across town at the West Wendover Police Department where Detective Kevin McKinney was still grilling Cody Patton.

[Detective McKinney]

You're not telling us the whole truth. You're telling us bits and pieces, but you're not telling us the whole truth.

[Keith Morrison]

By this time it was almost 1am all but the most dedicated gamblers had drifted into the night. And Sunday had given into Monday. Detective McKinney had been up 24 hours straight, first driving to West Wendover, then supervising the crime scene when Mickey Costanzo's body was exhumed. Followed by a trip to the school where he studied the surveillance video. And now here he was, face to face with 18 year old Cody Patton in a Cramped and stuffy interrogation room. For hours, they had gone back and forth about what happened to Mickey, with Cody denying I did not kill Extensive and the cop offering a way to confess.

[Detective McKinney]

I don't think you planned on it. I don't think you intended.

[Cody Patton]

I didn't.

[Detective McKinney]

I think you panicked.

[Keith Morrison]

At which point, Cody, perhaps feeling cornered, asked for a break.

[Detective McKinney]

He asked to speak with his father. So we allowed them to meet in the interview room.

[Keith Morrison]

Did you overhear what they said to each other?

[Detective McKinney]

No. I didn't hear what was said. But at one point, I heard some wailing from the father.

[Keith Morrison]

What in the world was going on in there? Detective McKinney waited, quiet again, and a

[Detective McKinney]

few minutes later, we went back into the interview room. And his father told him, he needs to tell us what happened.

[Keith Morrison]

Be a man. And that's when he told you the story. Would a lawyer have prevented Cody from telling his story? But Cody didn't ask for a lawyer. His father's advice is what he sought. And his father, in some kind of shock from what he had heard, insisted that the truth was what was needed now, ugly though the truth certainly was. This is Kit Patton, in the presence of the detectives, speaking to his son, Cody.

[Cody Patton]

What you did is painless, Cody. I don't want to abandon you at all, okay? You've got to do what they need you to do, and they need their answers. The family needs their answers. You know, this is it, man. We have to fix this.

[Keith Morrison]

And then Detective McKinney made sure his tape recorder was still rolling, and he leaned forward in his chair and listened intently as Cody Patton began. He picked up Mickey at school, he said, and they started driving and talking. That, said Cody, is when Mickey started all the trouble. And how did she do that? Mickey insisted Cody break up with his fiance, Tony Fratto, and date her. Mickey instead, he said. Well, that wasn't going to happen, said Cody. So then they started arguing, and Cody kept driving deep into the desert. But then Mickey got really mad, said Cody. Insisted he stopped the car. So they got out.

[Cody Patton]

She started yelling at me, and I said, it's because I'm not leaving Tony high. She started, like, pounding on my chest and stuff.

[Keith Morrison]

By this time, said Cody, he was upset, too. More mad, as he put it. And that is when it happened. He shoved her pretty hard, he said,

[Cody Patton]

and she fell down and hit her head, and I. And she just laid there. And, like, her eyes started to turn black, and she started to shake and seize. And at that point, I knew something was wrong. I looked at where she was at there's this big rock sheet. Hit her head off.

[Keith Morrison]

Gody had been trained as an emt, said when he checked for a pulse, he couldn't get anything, and she was just flopping.

[Detective McKinney]

He was very tearful. We had to stop several times to allow him to gain his composure back. A couple times he told us he was getting physically ill while he was describing details to us.

[Keith Morrison]

We will spare you the rest of Cody's description of what he said he did to Mickey out there in the desert. Desert. Suffice to say, it was more than just a push and a fall and whatever it actually was, Cody did not use his EMT training to save her life. Instead, he said he panicked, didn't know what to do. And then what he did do, he said, was go to the car and grab that shovel and use it to make sure she was dead.

[Cody Patton]

I split her in the little crazy thing I thought covered her up, but I took the clothes apart and burned

[Keith Morrison]

them, he said, at another location a few miles away. After which, he went and picked up Tony, he said, and told her nothing about what he had done. The two went and got food and after a while went home. And that, he said, is when he stashed the shovel under the Frato's house. There it was, he claimed, the whole awful story, after which Cody offered this.

[Cody Patton]

I just want to say that I'm sorry. Hate being. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had to happen. Someone that didn't deserve it.

[Keith Morrison]

Never before had Detective Donald Burnham heard a confession as detailed as awful as that one. And from Cody Patton, of all people, just a regular local kid. He was on the high school football team, had lots of friends, also regular kids. But then, out of the blue, he brutally murdered a lifelong friend. And just because she wanted him to dump Tony and be her boyfriend, well, that didn't make any kind of sense at all. Oh, and there was one other thing, said Cody, and he was adamant about this, insisted on it.

[Detective Burnham]

He stated he was alone with Michaela. He never implicated anybody else, even being present or aware of it.

[Keith Morrison]

He did it alone. Did he tell anybody why?

[Detective Burnham]

No, he did not.

[Keith Morrison]

Detective Burnham, still reeling a bit after Cody's story, did one more bit of investigating. That night, he went to the Fratos house to look again for the trenching shovel Cody said he used and then hid under the house. And sure enough, there it was. It looked like it had been wiped clean. Burnham bagged it, that it sent to the crime lab to check for clues while detective Kevin McKinney tried to make sense of what he had heard from Cody. Did you think you got the whole story at that point?

[Detective McKinney]

Not completely. I was never convinced that he told us the complete truth about what happened.

[Keith Morrison]

By now. It was a few hours before dawn on what was Monday morning when the police actually arrested Cody and told him he'd be charged by the DA later that very day, his fiance, Tony Fratto, and her family were still sitting restlessly outside the interview room, fully expecting to take Cody home. They would not do so, of course. This is Tony's mother, Cassie.

[Tony Fratto's Family Member (likely Cassie Fratto)]

The police came out and told us that Kody had just confessed. Devastating. Did not believe it. We had been working so hard with

[Keith Morrison]

him, working hard to help Cody keep his life on track so he could graduate from high school and join the Marines.

[Tony Fratto's Family Member (likely Cassie Fratto)]

We thought we were bringing him around. We thought things were going well until the last week or so. And we knew he was angry about something. All Cody would say the week before the murder was, things are coming to a head. I need to take care of this. And Toni would say, what is wrong? Why are you so angry with Mikayla? What did she do? And he would say, it's none of your business.

[Keith Morrison]

Here's Cody's fiance, Tony.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

He would tell me as things were building up and things that happened in the past, he would not go into further detail and he would not say anything else towards me.

[Keith Morrison]

And he wouldn't be telling her now because cody was taken 100 miles away to the county jail in Elko, Nevada, where he would be held until they could put him on trial for murder, quite possibly facing the death penalty, though that had yet to be decided. But was it over now? Oh, no, not at all. And the rest of the story?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Well, it didn't make sense. It's not the person that I knew. And I said, then somebody made him do it. Somebody made him do it.

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[Keith Morrison]

In just a few months, he planned to be on his way to the Marine Corps to be stationed by the beach near San Diego. But now Cody Patton's uniform was a red jumpsuit and his station was a tiny jail cell in Elko, Nevada. Well, back home in West Wendover, the police made the shocking announcement at a press conference.

[Detective Burnham]

Patton has been enrolled as a student in the West Windover Junior Senior High

[Advertiser]

School and has been attending until the

[Detective Burnham]

time of his arrest.

[Keith Morrison]

To that, his classmates expressed a kind of universal disbelief. Cody did this to Mickey.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It just makes me angry and that

[Keith Morrison]

we don't have all information.

[Tony Fratto's Family Member (likely Cassie Fratto)]

Knowing that she's gone is just really hitting everybody hard.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

There's no words that could explain what we're feeling. I just want to know what happened, why it happened.

[Keith Morrison]

Yes, students and teachers alike all acknowledged Cody had problems at the school. He could be a bully, sometimes intimidating. But to murder his childhood friend, the very popular Mickey, attack her so viciously and dump her in the desert, well, that was unimaginable. Even the school principal was stunned.

[Detective Burnham]

Cody was a kid that we knew and we were trying to give extra support as well so that he would hopefully graduate. And he had dreams of going into the military and doing some of those things. So that was obviously our push to be able to help him have some type of future.

[Keith Morrison]

But it was all for naught. Cody's some type of future was defined a few hours after his tearful confession when the DA charged him with open murder. Open murder in Nevada is a kind of legal one stop shopping when it comes to homicide cases. It would give the jury a choice. They could convict him of first degree murder or second degree murder or manslaughter. Prosecutors like it because it can often ensure some kind of conviction. But the trial would be months and months away. There were miles to go before any jury would lay eyes on Cody. And meanwhile, more investigating was still needed. There were lots of loose ends. So the day after Cody's confession, Detective McKinney decided to stop by the jail and pay him a Visit. Cody looked exhausted, depressed. Hardly surprising. Reality was setting into a cell with him.

[Cody Patton]

There's a couple things we wanted to clear up.

[Keith Morrison]

First, Detective McKinney wanted to know exactly where did Cody stash Mickey's clothes and her other personal things, Those that weren't with the body, that is. He'd buried her half naked, Remember? In his confession, Cody said he burned them somewhere away from the murder scene. But where? Now, Cody said he'd taken them over the state border to Utah to a big burn pit where the local kids often staged bonfires. It was probably too much to hope that Mickey's cell phone survived the fire. That or the polka dot backpack she always carried. That cell phone could tell them a lot. So the detective asked Cody about it, but he seemed to have only a vague recollection of that part of the awful night.

[Cody Patton]

The last time I saw her cell phone, it was on her. In her. In her pocket.

[Detective McKinney]

Well, we didn't find it at the scene anywhere. Could it have got thrown out, away from the scene somewhere?

[Cody Patton]

I'm trying to think.

[Keith Morrison]

Okay, now, what about the backpack?

[Detective McKinney]

Did she have it with her when she came?

[Cody Patton]

Yeah, I brought the backpack, too. It was in the same spot.

[Keith Morrison]

McKinney made a note of that, knowing they had searched the burn site. Soon, once again, Cody himself had voluntarily provided more key evidence against himself. All right, thanks, Cody.

[Cody Patton]

Appreciate it. I hope you're good. Okay.

[Keith Morrison]

That would be the last time Cody ever spoke to Detective McKinney. Because a few days later, a state appointed attorney came to see him. But this wasn't just any public defender. This one specialized in keeping accused killers off death row. His name, John Olson.

[John Olson]

Tough case. Real tough case.

[Keith Morrison]

Olson was a highly regarded attorney with an impressive pedigree. Stanford graduate, Vanderbilt law. He'd handled some three dozen death penalty cases during his 40 year career. But this case, this case was unlike any other.

[John Olson]

By the time I got in the case, the authorities knew who'd done it. They had the proof of who done it. And the only issue was what they were going to do with him. Cody was not going home. After that interview with the police, he was not going home.

[Keith Morrison]

Olson was in his 60s, with silver hair, a commanding presence, and a keen analytical mind.

[John Olson]

When I first thought about it, I started thinking about how I was going to prevent a death verdict from being entered in the case.

[Keith Morrison]

And a death verdict seemed,

[John Olson]

I think, it was from the prosecution point of view, from a rational point of view, it was a legitimate death penalty case.

[Keith Morrison]

And probably any jury would agree if they heard the evidence presented and what had happened to this young woman being killed and buried in the desert. That's tough stuff.

[John Olson]

Yeah, that is tough stuff. It was the identity of the victim. It was the brutality of the killing. It was the poignancy of some of the photographs in the case of. It would just break your heart. And there were a lot of tough facts on the case. A lot of tough facts.

[Keith Morrison]

And tough fact number one was Cody's confession. Nothing he could do about that. Keeping him off death row could be difficult. No wonder Olson called it a dangerous case.

[John Olson]

I approach every case with the thought that I'm going to try it to a jury, and I start preparing the case for trial without thought to a plea in the case.

[Keith Morrison]

Did you believe the confession that he had given?

[John Olson]

You know, I like to reserve judgment on those things because he generally will get more information from a client later on than you will at the beginning. So I think I held my water on that. What Cody had in mind when he told him that he did the killing, God knows.

[Keith Morrison]

But John Olsen wasn't the only one puzzled by Cody Patton's confession. A lot of people in West Wendover just weren't buying it, especially of all people, Mickey Costanzo's family.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

There's parts of Cody's confession that I can see it being. Cody.

[Keith Morrison]

This is Mickey's mother, Celia.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Like, I am sure that he snapped and I'm sure that he hurt her. There would have to be something somewhere that forced the whole scenario.

[Keith Morrison]

In fact, during the weeks after Mickey's murder, her older sister Christina became convinced Kody's confession was totally concocted. More tall tale than the truth. And she had known Cody for years. Liked him, trusted him.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It's not the person that I knew. He would never hurt Michaela.

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[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Keith Morrison]

It was like the whole town turned out. A measure of Mickey Costanzo's sunny personality. Her sweet goodness that West Wendover's 1,000 seat concert hall was needed to accommodate everyone. At her memorial service, her mother, Celia, felt like Mickey wasn't just her daughter. Felt like she was everybody's daughter.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

This town suffered as a group. It's not just me that suffered. It's not just DJ or Christina or my mom or my brother. This entire town suffered. As if this town was her parent. Every child that was in that school, every teacher in that school lost a part of themselves.

[Advertiser]

We'll always remember you.

[Keith Morrison]

And one by one, they wept as they said goodbye and remembered Michaela, so cruelly murdered as the ideal young woman, the pride of West Wendover high. Vicki's sister, D.J. gave an emotional eulogy.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It really means a lot that all

[Cody Patton]

of you came here

[Narrator/Advertiser]

because we can all see how many people loved her like we did.

[Keith Morrison]

Many of Mickey's classmates also spoke.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

She was many things to many people. A friend, a fellow student, a teammate and an inspiration.

[Keith Morrison]

This was Mickey's father, Teddy.

[John Olson]

I loved her dearly. Someone took.

[Keith Morrison]

Someone had no right to do that. That someone, of course, was Cody Patton. He was the town villain now. In fact, much of West Wendover seemed to have turned against the whole Patton family too. But Cody wasn't entirely alone in his 5 by 7 foot jail cell. His loyal fiance, Tony Fratto, went to see him, wrote to him, called him regularly. The calls were recorded, of course, not

[Cody Patton]

to see you every day and talk to holding my arm or anything. It's hard. Yeah, I know. It's hard for me too. It really is. I love you. I love you too. I'm single. You are? How is that? Because you were always there for me. And I know you still are. Tony. I'm always gonna be here for you. No matter what happens, no matter which way things go, I'm always going to be here for you.

[Keith Morrison]

Tony showered Cody with long love letters, meticulously handwritten, forever faithful, holding nothing back. This the day Cody was taken to jail. Dear Cody, my baby, I miss you so much. I can't wait to see your face. I love you so much. Stay strong. This letter, a week later. Dear Cody Bear. Yes, baby, I'm going to stay faithful. You're the only one for me. My so my cheese to my macaroni, my everything and I'm not going to jeopardize that for the world. And three days later, Dear Cody Googly Bear, just been sitting at home thinking about you. I'm trying my best to stay strong, but it has been so freaking hard. Not seeing you every day just tears me down. I can't be happy until you're back in my arms and that I know you are safe. Tony's parents also kept in touch and even visited Cody sometimes. To provide support. Sure. But also to ask a particular question.

[Detective Burnham]

I said, I don't understand this.

[Keith Morrison]

Why. Why did you do this? Why did this happen? This is Tony's father, Claude Fratto. He just said, I just.

[Cody Patton]

I don't know.

[Keith Morrison]

I can't tell you anything.

[Cody Patton]

I don't know. And Tony has said the same thing.

[Detective Burnham]

She doesn't know why it happened.

[Keith Morrison]

Neither did the police. They were still actively investigating the case. But they were able to locate that burn pit Cody admitted he used to destroy Mickey's belongings. Here's Detective Burnham.

[Detective Burnham]

We decided to dig in that area and see if maybe this is what the area that Cody had burned the items in. And we're luckily to find remnants of that polka dot bag that Michaela had with her at her time of disappearance.

[Keith Morrison]

Was there anything else in there that told you anything about what happened to her or why?

[Detective Burnham]

There was a key that matched her mother's key for her apartment. There was a small charm, was a panda bear.

[Keith Morrison]

That precious little panda bear charm which she always carried with her, even on the last day of her life. More devastating evidence piling up against Cody. Evidence that defense attorney John Olson had to somehow explain in a way that would keep his client off death row. But the more Olsen studied Cody's confession, the more he came to believe, just like Mickey's family did, that something about it just didn't add up. So Olsen hired a seasoned investigator named Bill Savage. Asked him to poke around, see what he could find out.

[Detective Burnham]

I'm a former Secret Service agent. I was an agent in the early 70s.

[Keith Morrison]

One of the people who guarded Lyndon Johnson.

[Detective Burnham]

Johnson, yes. President Nixon, President Ford, and several other foreign dignitaries throughout the country.

[Keith Morrison]

Savage was 60 something, thick brown hair, owlish face, with narrow eyes shining through a set of wire rim glasses. He certainly came with a pedigree. Besides the Secret Service, he'd served the Nevada Gaming Control Board at his own PI firm. Now he set about learning all he could about the murder and that boy's confession.

[Detective Burnham]

Some of the details that Mr. Patton reported didn't quite pass the sniff test to me, and I Wanted to certainly investigate the case under a microscope, so to speak.

[Keith Morrison]

Savage began by taking a long, hard look at Mickey's autopsy report. It wasn't an easy read. All sorts of grim specifics. She'd been cut, stabbed repeatedly, terribly beaten. The signs of that everywhere on her body and her head. The injuries were so severe, in fact, so brutal, they certainly didn't look like they could have been caused by some sort of accident, as Cody had claimed. Or a shovel, of all things, but rather a knife, given all the stab wounds, according to the medical examiner's report.

[Detective Burnham]

I don't know if we'll ever know exactly what happened, but we know that from the autopsy photos. Horrible slicing disfigurement to Mickey's face.

[Keith Morrison]

What does that say to you?

[Detective Burnham]

It indicates to me a great deal of rage by someone to cause those type of wounds to a young lady.

[Keith Morrison]

Disfiguring wounds, yes, it was pretty bad.

[Detective Burnham]

These types of wounds were disturbing.

[Keith Morrison]

So disturbing that Mickey's murder looked like the expression of sheer hate. Except, by all accounts, Cody did not hate Mickey at all. There had to be more to the story, some big secret that Cody was refusing to reveal. Savage and attorney John Olson wondered if Cody's fiance, Tony Fratto, might be able to provide some insight. Tony had already talked to the police during their early routine interviews with some of Mickey's classmates. That's when she first went missing. And Tony was as puzzled as everybody else in town was.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I guess just kind of curious, like, where's Nikki? What's going on? You know, where could she have gone?

[Keith Morrison]

But things were very different now, of course. Mickey was dead and Cody was in jail, having told his alarming story. His incomplete alarming story. Maybe. So no surprise, attorney Olson wanted to follow up to see if Tony had learned anything at all about why her fiance did what he did to Mickey. She'd been talking to him, after all. Oh, and just maybe she herself might have had some sort of connection to the crime. Cody said no, but had to ask.

[John Olson]

And I talked to her in the presence of her parents, in which she said she had nothing to do with it.

[Keith Morrison]

Did she have any idea why he.

[John Olson]

Absolutely not. No idea.

[Keith Morrison]

As Olson wrapped up his interview with Tony, he went off script slightly and offered the Fratto family a friendly little piece of advice.

[John Olson]

I told her parents, I said, if you want to do a favor for this child, get her out of town.

[Keith Morrison]

Well, why would you say a thing like that?

[John Olson]

Because I didn't see any possibility of anything good coming out of a relationship between this young girl and a guy who was in jail and was likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. I thought to myself that this is a young person with a life ahead of her and she needs to disassociate herself with this whole thing.

[Cody Patton]

Yeah.

[John Olson]

Given that she was not involved, how

[Keith Morrison]

did they react to that advice?

[John Olson]

Nodded their heads and left.

[Keith Morrison]

And with that, John Olson waved goodbye and thought that outside of Cody's trial, he would probably never see or hear from that young woman again. And back in the quiet of his office, he thought about Tony Fratto, about what she said to him and the way she said it. Was she as devastated as other people seem to have been?

[John Olson]

I would describe her aspect as deadpan. I would describe her as emotionless.

[Keith Morrison]

How did that strike you?

[John Olson]

Odd. Very odd.

[Keith Morrison]

Now, what was a person to make of that. Next time?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It had been eating at me and eating at me. I couldn't live with myself knowing what I knew.

[John Olson]

We recorded the conversation and it was dynamite.

[Tony Fratto's Family Member (likely Cassie Fratto)]

No one that knows Tony would have ever seen this coming. Just isn't possible.

[Keith Morrison]

Five Miles From Home is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Robert Dean is the producer, Brian Drew, Marshall Housefeld and Meredith Greenstein are audio editors. Molly DeRosa is Associate Producer, Adam Gorfin is co executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio Sound mixing by Rich Cutler.

[Advertiser]

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