Formal charges expected in death of Utah boy

[May 14, 2010]  SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Formal charges are expected Friday against the mother and stepfather of a 4-year-old boy whose badly beaten and disfigured body was found wrapped in plastic and buried in a Utah canyon.

Nathanael Sloop, 31, is being held on suspicion of aggravated murder in Ethan Stacy's death. He and Stephanie Sloop, 27, also face charges of desecration of a corpse, felony child abuse and obstruction of justice, police said.

Both remain jailed. Their first court appearances are scheduled for Friday and security will be tight, said Deputy Davis County Attorney David Cole.

Attorney Richard Gallegos, who has represented Nathanael Sloop in previous criminal cases, has not returned messages seeking comment. It was unknown if Stephanie Sloop had an attorney.

Police unearthed Ethan's body Tuesday, less than two weeks after a Florida judge finalized a divorce that required the boy's biological father to share custody.

The father, Joe G. Stacy of Tazewell, Va., wrote in a November custody petition that Ethan's mother was unstable and had abandoned the youngster, though the judge said she never read that.

Joe Stacy, who then lived in Apopka, Fla., eventually agreed to share custody of the boy, with Ethan spending the school year with his father and summers with his mother, according to divorce papers obtained by The Associated Press.

The divorce settlement was approved by Judge Maura T. Smith of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Orlando. Smith said Thursday the divorce was a "cut-and-dried" uncontested settlement.

She said she had not read Joe Stacy's initial petition and simply approved the final divorce and custody agreement.

Joe Stacy appeared alone April 28 for the 10-minute hearing, one of hundreds of divorce cases the court handles a week, Smith told the AP.

The couple divided their personal property, and Stephanie Sloop gave up claims to a Florida house that fell into foreclosure in December, according to court files.

She didn't wait long to remarry. Stephanie and Nathanael Sloop exchanged vows in a courthouse wedding in Utah eight days after her divorce.

The Sloops locked a badly beaten Ethan in his bedroom while they drove 10 miles for the ceremony, police said.

Police said Ethan died Sunday and Stephanie Sloop reported him missing late Monday, saying he had wandered away from the family's apartment complex.

Police said they searched the complex and neighborhood until the couple revealed the location of the boy's body Tuesday. The search then shifted to Wolf Canyon, which borders the Powder Mountain ski resort, about 40 miles northeast of Salt Lake City.

According to police interview statements used to hold the couple in jail, Nathanael Sloop acknowledged beating the boy for days before his death and Stephanie Sloop did nothing to stop it.

Detectives wrote that Nathanael Sloop used a hammer to disfigure the dead boy's face and teeth before burial to make it harder for anyone to identify the body.

[Associated Press; By PAUL FOY and JENNIFER DOBNER]

Associated Press Correspondent Michael Schneider in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

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