Archive for the ‘night’ tag
Utah Endangered Missing: Ethan Stacy
05.13.10: Ethan's Injuries
Original Post: May 11, 2010 | I read the story this morning about little Ethan going missing in the middle of the night from his mother’s and step-father’s home. According to his mother, Ethan had just arrived ten days ago to visit for the summer. He normally resides with his father in Virginia. His mother also told police that Ethan had a habit of “running off” and had done so at least five times in the last ten nights. She had gone after him on those prior occasions and had been able to locate her 4-year-old, but not last night.
There was just something not right about the story. I knew he was already dead. I didn’t write about Ethan’s disappearance. I checked the news this evening to see if Ethan had been located, and was met by the following headline:
4-Year-Old Layton Boy was Murdered, Police say
According to the article police believe Ethan was murdered by his new stepfather and then of course, he and Ethan’s mother tried to cover up the crime by burying Ethan’s body in a remote area thirty miles away. The happy couple just tied the knot May 1. *note sarcasm*
Nathan Sloop, 31, was arrested for investigation of aggravated murder, child abuse, obstruction of justice and desecration of a corpse. Stephanie Sloop, 27, was arrested for investigation of child abuse, obstruction of justice and desecration of a corpse.1
Now, instead of Ethan’s father looking forward to welcoming him home at the end of the summer, he has to plan for his son’s funeral. I just wonder what Ethan could have done to deserve what he got.
Updates
May 12, 2010
The preliminary information released today regarding what happened to Ethan Stacy at the hands of his stepfather and mother is horrifying to say the least. I will never understand the absolutely heartless and truly barbaric ways people can treat their another person’s child let alone their own child or allow someone else to harm their child.
According to the new accounts I have read, the stepfather, Nathan Sloop, began abusing Ethan almost as soon as he arrived to stay the summer in Utah. Police confiscated pictures from the cell phone of Ethan’s mother, Stephanie Sloop. Those photographs show the progression of Ethan’s injuries over a period of a week. Why she was taking pictures of her son’s injuries instead of taking him the hell out of harm’s way is something I just can’t understand. According to police reports all of this abuse was done in the name of discipline.
The injuries resulted from the stepfather, Nathanael Sloop, “engaging in a systematic and progressively more violent pattern of abuse toward Ethan,” detectives wrote in interview summaries. The documents say Sloop was angry with the child and “tried everything” to discipline him; however, they don’t say why the boy was being disciplined.2
Sloop told police that he had hit Ethan and caused his face to swell. One would think that at that point Stephanie would have done something to save Ethan. No, what she did on May 6 was to lock Ethan in a bedroom for a few hours so they could take a 10 mile trip to get married. Yep, she locked her injured little boy in a room and left him alone to go get married to the brute who was beating her son. She said she didn’t take Ethan with them to get married because she was afraid people at the courthouse might ask questions about Ethan’s injuries. Can you imagine how badly beaten he must have been to make her worry about what people would say if they saw his little face all swollen and bruised? It gets worse.
Ethan died on Saturday night, they found him dead in his bed Sunday morning. According to Stephanie Sloop, Ethan had been vomiting, laying around and refusing food three days before he died. So that would have been starting on Wednesday or Thursday. On Friday she found Ethan badly burned from his feet to his buttocks apparently from being scalded in the tub – she told police she thought Nathan was responsible. I don’t understand this part. They forced Ethan to drink two 16-ounce bottles of water, a 16-ounce bottle of Kool-Aid, and a glass of orange juice over a two hour period of time. They did try to treat his pain and swelling with Motrin and Benedryl.
It wasn’t enough for Nathan Sloop that he had killed Ethan. Of course he did not want to pay for his actions so he had to hide the body and then make up some sort of story. So this is what they did:
…used a hammer to disfigure his face and teeth before burying his body in the mountains…to delay, prevent identification…wrapped his body in plastic…
Stephanie Sloop told investigators she bought two cans of lighter fluid for Nathanael Sloop to burn the body before it was buried. The reports didn’t say whether that was actually done. 3
What a horrific ending for this little boy’s short life. The saddest thing of all is he didn’t want to go visit his mom. According to family members he never even wanted to talk to her on the phone when she called. At least Utah has the death penalty, I hope it is sought for both of these monsters. Of course there will probably be a plea arrangement where she will agree to testify against him in exchange for a punishment which will amount to a slap on the wrist.
Sources
Pat Reavy, Layton Police Search for Missing 4-Year-Old Boy, Deseret News, Last Accessed: 05.11.10
- Pat Reavy, 4-Year-Old Layton Boy was Murdered, Police Say, Deseret News, Last Accessed: 05.11.10 [↩]
- Utah Man Beat Boy to Death, Disfigured Him, ABC3340.com, Last Accessed: 05.13.10. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩]
Aaroné Thompson Dead?
11.11.09: Aaron Thompson sentenced to 114 years. Read about it at
That night Aaroné did not return home during that bitterly cold night. I believe the temperature dropped to 12 degrees. She did not return home on Tuesday, or Wednesday. It snowed Tuesday night. Police called off the search for Aaroné today saying that they had searched every place a child that young could have gone. Aaroné is only six-years-old. When police began searching on Monday afternoon they made comments to the media indicating that the family was not being too cooperative with the search. They were reluctant to discuss what problems they were having with the family because they felt the investigation might turn into one of a criminal nature later on and they did not want to jeopardize the investigation. One thing police did mention was that they were unable to obtain a recent photo of the girl; the only photo provided to law enforcement was 1 1/2 years old. That is the photo at the top of this blog entry. Police believe the girl has been dead for at least 1 1/2 years and the request for help for her recent disappearance was fabricated. Search warrants have been served on the home and the father and the live-in girlfriend are being looked at as ‘persons of interest’ in the death of six-year-old Aaroné. Seven other children live in the home. They have been removed from their home and placed in protective custody with Child Protective Services. The family is upset with how they have been treated. They feel that they have been treated unfairly and have hired a family friend to be their spokesperson. They are considering hiring an attorney. I believe it may be a good idea to get an attorney at this point, but not for the reasons they want to hire an attorney. Other information learned during the investigation was that the girl did not attend school. Her mother lives in a woman’s shelter in Michigan. She told reporters she could not afford the cost of travel to come and look for her daughter. Perhaps they are innocent of any wrong-doing. In my last blog entry I wrote of how we have had at least one child murdered each month this year in the United States. So far, if Aaroné was murdered this month instead of a few years ago then that will be a total of two murdered children for the month of November. I wonder when will it end, the slaughtering of our children. The police are pretty confident that Aaroné Thompson was murdered in her home at least 1 1/2 years ago. They cite some interesting reasons; there were no pictures of Aaroné in the home older than 4 1/2 years and she had never been enrolled in school. It is as if she had fallen off of the face of the earth. They also received a tip from someone close to the family indicating that Aaroné most likely is deceased and has been for some time. According to law enforcement officials, interviews conducted with the children indicate they have acknowledged that Aaroné has been gone from the home for a considerable length of time. If this is true, Aaroné was not the only victim. It is a horrible thought that these children have had to keep that secret. I wonder what the effects on their psyches will be in the years to come. Thus far Aaroné’s father and his live-in girlfriend have not cooperated with the investigation. Time will tell if Aaroné was murdered or if she in fact walked out her door on Monday, November 14, 2005 never to be seen again. Much has happened over the past few years with this case. Aaron Thompson and his live-in girlfriend Shelly lost permanent custody of their children. Shelly died sometime last year from a heart condition. Aaron was indicted earlier this year and will stand trial November 3, 2008. It is interesting because the deceased former live-in girlfriend was also named in the indictment. I will be covering this trial on my other blog, The End of the Story.
Aaroné Thompson was reported missing Monday afternoon from her home in Aurora, Colorado by her father Aaron Thompson. He told police that there was some sort of disagreement about discipline and she walked out of the house. I don’t recall reading information about how long she was gone before her father went to look for her, but he claims he searched for her and then called police.I am trying to understand why a parent who had murdered a child would report that child as missing 1 1/2 years after the fact. It would seem to me that a secret like that kept for so long would be kept as a secret and taken to the grave.
Again, I wonder why someone would fabricate a story of a missing child for one that they knew was murdered. The only excuse I have come up with that is logical to me is that someone was coming to visit the family. Aaroné’s birthday was approaching on November 30th. Perhaps this person, a relative was particularly interested in seeing Aaroné. There was no way of getting around her not being there unless she was reported missing, possibly a victim of a kidnapping. This would bring sympathy for the family and it would also get them off the hook as being involved in their child’s murder; at least for a while until they could dispose of the body in a remote location. Could the murderer be that ignorant to the fact that law enforcement, once finding the remains would be able to pinpoint just how long she had been deceased?
