ETHAN STACY - 4 yo - (2010) Layton (N of Salt Lake City) UT

DA not ready to file formal charges against Sloops

May 14th, 2010 @ 11:52am

FARMINGTON -- The Davis County District Attorney's Office announced Friday it was not ready to formally file charges against the couple suspected in the murder of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy.

Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said they are still in the middle of the investigation and will gather the evidence needed before pursuing the harshest charges possible. Because there is the potential for the death penalty, prosecutors want to first make certain they have a solid case.

"It would be a disservice to Ethan, his family and all who are seeking justice in this case if we jumped the gun and made premature decisions and premature filings," he said.

However, Rawlings said once they have built a strong case, they will come down hard.

"It's the intent of the Davis County District Attorney's Office to file the most serious charges and seek the maximum penalties that the facts and law will allow us to do against Nathan and Stephanie Sloop for the death of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy," he said.

Rawlings said he believes there is probable cause to seek aggravated murder charges against both Nathaniel Sloop, 31, and his wife and Ethan's mother, Stephanie Sloop, 27. Before Friday, only Nathanael Sloop had been held on suspicion of aggravated murder.

"At this time we believe there is probable cause that both suspects in this case, Stephanie and Nathan Sloop, committed the crime of aggravated murder," Rawlings said.

Both are being held in the Davis County Jail without bail. Rawlings said along with the aggravated murder charges, his office is looking at a slew of other charges against the couple.

"We're looking at child abuse, a second-degree felony. We're looking at obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. And we're looking at desecration of a dead body, a human corpse, a third-degree felony," he said.

Rawlings said he spoke with Ethan's father, Joe Stacy, Friday morning to explain why charges would not be filed yet. He said Stacy was supportive of the decision.

"He actually was appreciative of that because we explained to him in a lot more detail that I can't go into today," said Rawlings. "He said, ‘My interest is that you get it right so there are no mistakes and things can't come back on appeal and there's problems with the case if you pursue it.' So he appreciated the information and he was on board with this decision."

The couple's first court appearances are scheduled for Friday and security will be tight, said Deputy Davis County Attorney David Cole.

People are expected to picket outside the courthouse and call for the harshest penalties possible. On Facebook, the group "Justice for Ethan Stacy" is approaching 15,000 members.

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.

The charges stem from the days leading up to Ethan Stacy's death and Nathan and Stephanie's cover-up attempt afterward.

A probable cause statement details the timeline of the criminal acts:

• Around May 1, Ethan arrived in Utah from Virginia to visit his mother.
  
• May 4, a cell phone time stamp reveals Stephanie took a picture of Ethan with swelling and bruising on his jaw.
  
• May 5, Stephanie says Nathan beat Ethan, leaving him with head wounds.
  
• May 6, Stephanie and Nathan get married at the Farmington courthouse. They locked Ethan in his room while they were gone. In the days leading up tohis death, Ethan didn't eat well; he was burned in a hot tub and received no medical attention.
  
• On May 9, Ethan was found dead in his bed. That's also the day Nathan and Stephanie buried him.
  
• The night of May 10, Stephanie reported her son missing.
  
• Early morning on May 11, the search to find Ethan began.
  
• At 11 a.m. on May 11, police interviewed Nathan and Stephanie again and find out about the burial site.
  
• Around noon on May 11, the search moved up Ogden Valley to Powder Mountain. At 5 p.m. on May 11, teams discovered Ethan's body.
  

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=10769121&autostart=y

Sherry Durst
didn't know Ethan Stacy -- few in Utah did. But Saturday, she felt drawn
to his memorial near the apartment where his short life brutally ended.

"I come out here every day, just to see," Durst, 44, of Syracuse,
said. "You have to feel it. If you have a heart, you have to feel this."

Davis County prosecutors claim the 4-year-old boy died May 9
following four days of abuse by his stepfather and mother. He had
recently arrived in Utah to spend the summer with his mother as part of a
child custody agreement.
His death has struck a chord in thousands of people. By Saturday,
three Facebook pages dedicated to his case had a combined total of
nearly 32,000 fans. Davis County attorneys have been flooded with
e-mails offering both sympathy for Ethan's family and demanding swift
justice for the crime.
The abuse started May 5, when 31-year-old Nathan Sloop dealt a
brutal beating to the boy's head and face, according to police
documents. Ethan's 27-year-old mother Stephanie Sloop did nothing to
stop the beating, and might have had a substantial hand in the abuse,
prosecutors said Friday. The couple married one day after the beating,
locking the injured boy in a bedroom and going to the Davis County
Memorial Courthouse.
Ethan got no medical attention and suffered further abuse, including
burns to his feet and legs, before his death, police said. After he
died, the couple allegedly disfigured his face and buried him near
Powder Mountain ski resort. They reported him missing Monday, but their
story unraveled about 12 hours later.
Both are now being held in the Davis County jail without bail. If
prosecutors file anticipated aggravated murder charges against them
later this month, they could both face the death penalty.
Several days after Ethan's death, strangers continued to pay their
respects at a memorial a few feet from the apartment where he died.
They left candles, flowers and handwritten letters along with dozens
of stuffed animals and balloons. An elementary school group signed two
large posters and pasted them next to pictures of the blond,
bespectacled little boy. There were kites and water guns with the image
of his favorite superhero, Spider-Man, and notes to Ethan's father, Joe
Stacy, who lives in Virginia.
Many mourners said they have never been so affected by a news story.

"There's a picture of him sitting in a pool, and he just looks
completely vulnerable ... he was helpless," Chris Gagnier, 42, said
through tears. "I just can't imagine laying hands on my child the way
they did."
Courtney Fulmer, 20, heard about the crime from her boyfriend's
parents. For her, it's a reminder that a tranquil city is not
necessarily immune to shocking crime.
"We always think that we're kind of a safe haven, especially in
Layton, but we're not," she said from behind the counter at the coffee
shop The Daily Rise.
For others, Ethan's death is a call to action. Valleri Lyngle,
general manager at the Iceberg ice cream shop in Syracuse, has been a
foster parent to six children and adopted one boy who had been abused.
She is organizing a Teddy Bear Drive, slated for May 29, to collect
stuffed animals for firefighters and police officers to give to children
in traumatic situations.
"I really want people to stop and think about [Ethan's death]," she
said. She hopes it increases awareness about child abuse. "People need
to take action."

Ethan Stacy: Dealing with the Feelings

Posted on May 15th, 2010 by Valhall

Excerpt:

I have not been so devastated in quite some time because of events that have no real physical connection to me as I currently am over the horrific account of what little Ethan Stacy went through in the last few days of his short life. And I am also overwhelmed with grief at the thoughts of what his loving father must be enduring this time. I am filled with anger, an urge for vengeance (which I normally don’t have), and an over-whelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness at the plight of children who are in abusive situations. I could not sleep well last night because of the thoughts of these small innocent angels in our midst who at this very moment may be enduring atrocities we can’t even imagine (and I don’t want to imagine them).


READ MORE: http://www.thehinkymeter.com/2010/05/15/ethan-stacy-dealing-with-the-feelings/

Joe Stacy will lay his
4-year-old son, Ethan, to rest Wednesday in the small mountain town
where he wanted to boy to grow up.
Ethan will be buried in Richlands, Va., less than three weeks after
he arrived in Utah to spend the summer with his mother, Stephanie Sloop,
who along with her new husband is a suspect in the boy's death.
A public service will be Tuesday at the Grundy Funeral Home in
Grundy, Va., with a funeral to follow Wednesday. He will be buried in
Clinch Valley Memorial Cemetery in Richlands.
Ethan had been in Utah for one week when, police say, on May 5
Nathan Sloop severely beat the child on the head and face.
Nathan and Stephanie Sloop married at the old memorial courthouse in
Farmington the day after the beating, leaving the boy locked in a
bedroom without medical attention, according to a police probable cause
statement. Investigators say Ethan was also badly burned by Nathan Sloop
before his death four days later.
The Sloops allegedly disfigured his body and buried him off a trail
near Powder Mountain Ski Resort, then reported him missing. Authorities
say the couple admitted to the location of his body after a 12-hour
search.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said his office is waiting
autopsy results and testing of other key evidence before filing charges
against the Sloops.
Rawlings has urged the public "not to treat the probable cause
statement like the Bible" because dozens of pieces of new evidence have
since surfaced. The involvement of Ethan's mother, initially told police
she was scared of her husband, could be enough to justify aggravated
murder charges against her in addition to her husband, Rawlings said.
In Utah, aggravated murder charges can carry three penalties: the
death penalty, life in prison without parole, or 25 years to life in
prison with the option of parole. Prosecutors now have 60 days to decide
which option to pursue.
Second District Court Judge David Connors on Friday ordered the
couple held without bail until May 28, by which time charges should be
filed.

One week ago, officers from Layton and Weber County dug up the body
of 4-year-old Ethan Stacy.
Critical incident stress debriefing sessions will be held later this
week to help officers, investigators, dispatchers and other police staff
cope with what they saw and heard during the search and investigation,
officials said.
Layton police Lt. Garret Atkin said the death of Ethan Stacy has been
difficult on officers, dispatchers and the support staff at the
department.
"We consider our police department as a family," Atkin said. "We went
through this together and hopefully we will heal together."
Atkin said the debriefing sessions are not mandatory, but it helps to
get together with peers to discuss what they are feeling.
Officers cannot or do not want to always discuss with family members
what they have gone through in cases like Ethan Stacy's, Atkin said.
Cases involving children can be extra hard not only on officers but
on dispatchers and support personnel who are behind the scenes and do
not always know what is going on during the investigation, he said.
Dispatchers are the ones who receive the 911 calls of a missing
child, Atkin said. Then, as the investigation goes on, they are the ones
who handle the hundreds of calls from people who want to help or to
complain.
"They also see the officers who come in and are struggling a little
bit with what is going on," Atkin said.
Layton City, like other agencies, offer employee assistance, where an
officer or other employee struggling with the incident can receive
counseling one-on-one without a report going to city officials, he said.
Law enforcement "officers do not see the horrors of war, but they see
a lot of cruelty imposed on humanity and it takes its toll," said Jack
Rickards, director of the Weber State University Law Enforcement
Academy.
Rickards said he knows military personnel go through a lot, but law
enforcement does to and it is rarely recognized.
Public-trained safety personnel, communications officials, medical
officials and mental health workers will be on hand during the
debriefing sessions to help those involved discuss the feelings and
emotions they are going through.
Weber County Sheriff's Capt. Klint Anderson said if officers do not
get help they can become like a pressure cooker with emotions and images
they do not know what to do with.
"Everyone copes differently, so we let them know it's OK to vent,"
Anderson said.
Also, officers keep an eye on each other in case someone is not
coping well, officials said.
Davis County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Bob Yeaman said supervisors at
the jail where Stephanie and Nathan Sloop are booked are watching
corrections officers to make sure they are coping well.
The Sloops are accused of the murder of the 4-year-old boy. Formal
charges have not been filed yet.
It's not the first time the jail has housed defendants accused of
killing a child, he said.
The jail has two professionals from Davis Behavioral Health, Inc., on
hand who talk, when requested, to deputies who are in charge of the
Sloop case about what they are going through emotionally and mentally,
Yeaman said.
Also, deputies who work in the jail are told during their briefing
sessions, before their shift begins, to remember to be professional,
Yeaman said.
"Sometimes it's hard to be professional, but we force ourselves to do
it," Yeaman said. "We talk about thinking about what you're going to
say and what you do before you do it. And, if you need guidance to talk
to your supervisor, we'll get you help."
Officers receive basic training either at WSU's law enforcement
academy or at the state's Police Officer Standards Training on how to
cope with stress.
Staying physically fit is one way to cope with stress instead of
grabbing "a fifth of Jack Daniels" said Lt. Wade Breur with POST.
Those going into law enforcement know they will see their share of
mangled body and horrific crime scenes, but nothing really prepares them
for reality, Breur said.
"So when you're stressed out, it's good to hit the gym," Breur said.

Ethan Stacy's mother, Stephanie Sloop, may face aggravated murder
charges along with her husband in her 4-year-old's son's gruesome
murder, according to Utah prosecutors.
Searchers dug up Ethan's badly beaten and disfigured body May 11, about
10 days after he arrived in Utah for a summer visit with his 27-year-old
mother.



Police said Stephanie Sloop initially told officers her son had
wandered away from her Layton, Utah apartment and the couple reported
him missing soon after.But court documents filed by prosecutors paint
a very different story.According to probable cause statements, Nathanael
Sloop, the boy's stepfather, acknowledged beating the boy for days
before his May 9 death and Stephanie Sloop did nothing to stop it.After the boy died, Nathanael Stoop used a hammer to disfigure the
boy's face and teeth to keep him from being identified, then buried the
body in a canyon, according to the papers.The couple were
arrested, but prosecutors delayed charging them in order to prepare for a
potential death penalty case.

"We're not going to file charges before all of our ducks are
in a row
and we're ready to go, but we intend to get there," Rawlings said.On
Friday, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said both Stephanie and
Nathanael Sloop will likely be charged with aggravated murder. The
Sloops may also be charged with felony child abuse, obstruction of
justice and desecration of a corpse, Rawlings said. At Friday's
hearing, both separately agreed to waive their right to be bailed out of
jail until at least their next court appearance on May 28. Nathanael
Sloop kept his head low and wept softly during his court appearance.
Stephanie Sloop appeared withdrawn and showed no visible emotion during
the twin hearings that together lasted less than 15 minutes.

My heart goes out to the Stacy family. I hope neither of the Sloops ever walk among us again.

Davis County prosecutors began going over evidence
today in the case against Nathanael and Stephanie Sloop, accused of
killing 4-year-old Ethan Stacy. The medical examiner is conducting tests on tissue samples taken
from Ethan Stacy's body. The FBI is also involved, conducting forensic
tests on cell phones and other electronics.

Prosecutors are considering leveling aggravated murder charges against
the Sloops. They would bring them under "Shelby's Law," which made child
abuse that leads to death, a potential death penalty crime. It was
prompted by the murder of 10-year-old Shelby Andrews in 2006. Police
said Shelby was abused so badly, she eventually died inside the Syracuse
home of her father and stepmother. Shelby's biological mother, Kim
Hale, said she was tortured.

"What could a 4-year-old, or even a 10-year-old, do to deserve anything
like this?" Hale asked.

Hale said the similarities between Shelby's case and Ethan's case are
striking. Shelby's father, Ryan Andrews, and her stepmother, Angela,
were both convicted of murder, but Davis County prosecutors were
frustrated that they couldn't seek the death penalty. That led to
"Shelby's Law."

"As to what it does for Ethan, is it allows for the dad and potentially
the mother to be charged with a capital homicide," said Rep. Paul Ray,
R-Clearfield.

The case against the Sloop's is the first time Shelby's Law could be
used.

"It's gratifying to have it in place so that when a monster performs
these acts that happened here, you have the ability to go after them
now," Ray remarked.

As horrified as they are by Ethan's death, Shelby's mother, Kim, and
stepfather, Guy, say they believe her death was not in vain.

"It's bittersweet," Guy Hale said.

"We knew that Shelby was put on this earth for a purpose," Kim Hale
said. "We just didn't realize that her death was going to be the purpose
for everything."

Funeral services for Ethan Stacy are scheduled for Wednesday in Grundy,
Va.

As mourners gathered
Tuesday evening to give their condolences to Joe Stacy over the loss of
his 4-year-old son, Ethan Stacy, the grieving father said he understands
why charges have not been filed yet in the boy's death.
Ethan's mother, Stephanie Sloop, and her new husband, Nathan Sloop,
are in Davis County Jail on suspicion of child abuse and aggravated
murder for Ethan's May 9 death. The prosecutor has said he is awaiting
more evidence before seeking charges.
"I don't want any mistakes made at all," Stacy said. "I don't want
them getting out of this in any sort of way. They need to pay for taking
my son away from me."
Asked whether he supported prosecutors seeking the death penalty
against the couple, Stacy said, "death penalty if they can."
He said he plans to attend the trial in Utah.




The boy's death has sparked outrage across Utah, where Ethan came to
spend the summer with his mother as part of visitation in his parents'
divorce decree. Joe Stacy had hoped Ethan would grow up in Virginia, in
the small mountain burgs where his father spent his youth.
Instead, his son has come back under the saddest of circumstances.
Hundreds of people are expected to attend Tuesday's public service
in Grundy. The Grundy Funeral home has had 7,000 page views on its
website in the past four days, funeral director Curtis Mullins said. The
site usual garners 3,000 views a month.
Stacy said he has gotten "many, many condolences" from people online
and is starting to receive letters, cards and donations from all over
the country.
"It's a wonderful feeling there are so many good people out there,"
he said.
Mullins said there have been more than 450 condolences posted on the
funeral home's website, and he plans to have them printed in book form
and given to the family.
The funeral home sits in two rectangular red-brick buildings on Main
Street amid the lush green Appalachian Mountains that tower over the
coal town of about 1,100 people. The Levisa Fork River, which has
flooded nine times since the town's inception, is again barely contained
in its tree-lined banks.
The public service will be followed by Ethan's funeral tomorrow. He
will be buried in Clinch Valley Memorial Cemetery in Richlands.
Ethan had been in Utah for one week when, police say, on May 5
Nathan Sloop severely beat the child on the head and face.
Nathan and Stephanie Sloop married at the old memorial courthouse in
Farmington the day after the beating, leaving the boy locked in a
bedroom without medical attention, according to a police probable cause
statement. Investigators say Ethan was also badly burned by Nathan Sloop
before his death four days later.
The Sloops allegedly disfigured his body and buried him off a trail
near Powder Mountain Ski Resort, then reported him missing. Authorities
say the couple admitted to the location of his body after a 12-hour
search.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said his office is waiting
autopsy results and testing of other key evidence before filing charges
against the Sloops.
Rawlings has urged the public "not to treat the probable cause
statement like the Bible" because dozens of pieces of new evidence have
since surfaced. The involvement of Ethan's mother, who initially told
police she was scared of her husband, could be enough to justify
aggravated murder charges against her in addition to her husband,
Rawlings said.
In Utah, aggravated murder charges can carry three penalties: the
death penalty, life in prison without parole, or 25 years to life in
prison with the option of parole. Prosecutors now have 60 days to decide
which option to pursue.
Second District Court Judge David Connors on Friday ordered the
couple held without bail until May 28, by which time charges should be
filed.

A former close friend of Stephanie Sloop says their friendship fell
apart when Sloop split from Ethan's father, Joe Stacy.
But in the emotional crisis surrounding Ethan's death, Sloop apparently reached out to her former friend for help.
Carla Jones, who lives in Florida, says she's
turned over to police as potential evidence, recordings of Sloop's
voice messages. Jones blames herself for not reacting in time to save the little boy she calls "Pumpkin."
Photos document years of friendship between Jones, Ethan and his parents.
"We were very, very close," Jones said. "We did a lot of things as families and as couples."
When the couple's marriage fell apart, Jones said Sloop forced her to choose between her and Joe Stacy.
"I love Joe and Ethan. They are extended family to us," she said.
Jones said she's infuriated by claims that Sloop was a nurturing mother.
"Stephanie is a very conniving, manipulating and deceiving person," Jones said. "She would sell her own mother if it
was going to get her something.
"She was not a fit mother. She was not a fit
wife. She had a personality disorder. She had anger issues. She should
have never had that child," she said.Jones said she believes Sloop took custody of Ethan for the summer
and brought him to Utah "so she could hurt Joe."
"She knew the only way she could hurt Joe was by getting Ethan," she said.
Three nights before Sloopand her new husband, Nathan Sloop, reported Ethan missing, Jones said
Stephanie Sloop left her a series of frantic voice messages.
"She left … messages while she was crying, 'Ethan, he's crying. He won't stop crying. He just
wants mommy. I don't know what to do. Please, please, call me. I don't
know how to handle it. I don't know what to do,' " Jones said.
The final message, Jones now believes, may have come after Ethan died.
"It was absolutely hysterical sobbing to where I couldn't understand what she was saying,"
she said. "If I had to look deep into my heart, yeah, I would probably
have to say that Ethan probably was dead, if not close to being dead at
that point. And it was her grief reaching out."
Now, Jones wishes she'd called Ethan's dad or the police.
"I actually feel terrible, and I have tremendous guilt," she said.
Jones said the death penalty would be too good for her former friend and her new husband.
She'd like to see Nathan and Stephanie Sloop locked up for life,
surrounded by pictures to remind them of what they did.

The father of a 4-year-old child killed in Utah wrote in divorce
papers that the boy's mother was unstable and had abandoned the
youngster, though the judge said she never read that.Police dug
up Ethan Stacy's badly beaten and disfigured body from a Utah canyon
Tuesday, nearly two weeks after a Florida judge finalized a divorce that
required the father to share custody.Ethan's mother, Stephanie
Sloop, has been jailed along with her new husband, both implicated in
the boy's slaying 10 days after he arrived in Utah.
Divorce papers obtained by the media show that Joe G.
Stacy, of Tazewell, Va., was worried about his son."The mother
has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take him
and I'll never see him again," Joe Stacy, who then lived in Apopka,
Fla., wrote in the November custody petition filed in the Orlando
Circuit Court. "The mother is unstable."But in the divorce
settlement, Joe Stacy finally agreed to share custody of the boy. Ethan
was to spend the school year with his father and summers with his
mother.The agreement was approved by Judge Maura T. Smith of the
Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Orlando, who said Thursday
that the divorce was a "cut-and-dried" uncontested settlement.Smith
said she had not read Joe Stacy's initial petition and simply approved
the final divorce and custody agreement."He should absolutely not
blame himself at all," Smith told The Associated Press. "No parent
should ever blame themselves for the unpredictable failures of another
parent."Joe Stacy appeared alone April 28 for the 10-minute
hearing, one of hundreds of divorce cases the court handles a week,
Smith said.The couple divided their personal property, and she
gave up claims to a Florida house that fell into foreclosure in
December, according to court files.Joe Stacy was an oil-rig
worker who expected a sum of money from a 2008 accident. He offered to
share the settlement with Sloop, who insisted on full custody of the boy
if the father didn't collect the money, but the judge ruled that
condition was unenforceable.Sloop didn't wait long to get
remarried. She 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 away for the
ceremony, police said.Nathanael Sloop acknowledged beating the
boy for days before his death, and Stephanie Sloop did nothing to stop
the abuse, according to police interview statements used to hold the
couple in jail.Detectives wrote that Nathanael Sloop used a
hammer to disfigure the dead boy's face and teeth before burial in order
to make it harder for anyone to identify the body.Nathanael
Sloop was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder. He and the mother
face additional charges of desecration of a corpse, along with felony
child abuse and obstruction of justice, police said.The Sloops'
first court appearance is scheduled for Friday and security will be
tight, said deputy Davis County attorney David Cole.Stephanie
Sloop initially told officers that Ethan wandered away from their
apartment complex in Layton late Monday. But that was just a ruse aimed
at covering the couple's tracks, Lt. Garret Atkin said.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.Utah State Courts
records show that between 2000 and 2003, Nathanael Sloop had several
convictions, including for criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and
drug possession. No criminal history was found for Stephanie Sloop.

The father of a slain 4-year-old boy reflected on the good times, and
the good in people, at his son's funeral Wednesday in southwest
Virginia.
Joe Stacy, his family and friends paid final tribute to Ethan Stacy,
whose disfigured body was found on a Utah mountain last week. Utah
authorities allege Ethan died of abuse and neglect by his mother,
Stephanie Sloop, and stepfather, Nathanael Sloop. They've been jailed on
suspicion of aggravated murder but have not been charged.
"I'm remembering all the good times," Joe Stacy said, without
mentioning his son's violent death. "There were no bad times at all."
He also commented on the national outpouring of sympathy,

"You never realize how many good people are out there until something
bad happens," Stacy said.
Stacy, 35, said he reluctantly agreed to send Ethan to visit his
mother and stepfather in Utah on May 1. Ethan was found dead 10 days
later.
Pastor Mike Rife compared Ethan's death to a stone breaks the surface
of still water, sending ripples and touching the lives of people across
the country. Some in the crowd of about 100 at the funeral did not know
the family.
Mourners viewed a DVD chronicling Ethan's life in photos: In a
diaper, relaxing in a swing, posing with his father in front of a
Christmas tree, in a bathtub with soap-spiked hair.
Some mourners wore pins with a navy and yellow ribbon. Tammy
Childress of Princeton, W.Va., the sister of Joe Stacy's fiancee and
creator of the ribbons, said the navy symbolizes child abuse and the
yellow is for remembrance, so that whenever someone asks, she will tell
Ethan's story.
"I didn't want another child to die the way he did," a tearful
Childress remarked. "I don't want them to forget. They
forget about these things. It gets out of the news."

Greg Croft knew his
half-sister, Stephanie Sloop, was high-strung and excitable, but nothing
prepared him for the sickening news that she may have watched her
4-year-old son, Ethan Stacy, slowly die after being beaten and burned.
"I never got the impression she would be capable of something like
this," says Croft, 35, who first met Sloop, 27, three years ago when she
found him on the social networking site MySpace. "I just keep asking
'Why? Why did it have to come to this?'"
Croft and Sloop have the same father, who Croft described Wednesday
as "a rolling stone" who had little involvement in either of their
lives.
Both are natives of Michigan, though Sloop moved as a young child
with her mother to Florida. Except for a short stint in Florida as a
boy, Croft, a computer systems support engineer and part-time
photographer, has always lived near Detroit.
Sloop and her husband, Nathan Sloop, 31, are in the Davis County
Jail on suspicion of child abuse and murder in the May 9 death of Ethan
Stacy. The youngster had been with the couple for just over a week, the
start of a summer in his mother's custody, which was the result of a
divorce agreement.
Ethan was buried Wednesday in Richlands, Va., near the hometown of
his father, Joe Stacy.
Croft said he is still trying to absorb the news of his nephew's
death and the authorities' belief that his sister was complicit in the
boy's death and its cover-up.
"I know I could not sit back and allow anyone, including my own
spouse, to abuse my children," said Croft, who has been married 12 years
and has two children. "A part of me wants to say she had nothing to do
with this, but the reality is a whole different thing."
When Croft thinks back to that day in 2007 when Sloop first left a
message for him on the networking site, he remembers it as "a pretty
joyful experience."
He always knew he had a younger sister and that she lived in
Florida, but he'd seen her only once when she was an infant.
Just the year before, he had lost his beloved mother. "For a long
time, I felt alone because I'm an only child."
After a few messages back and forth, Sloop gave him her phone
number. They talked through the night, hanging up around 7 a.m.
Soon they were visiting each others' homes, including Thanksgiving
week in 2008 when the Stacy family of five, including Joe Stacy's two
teenagers, stayed with the Croft family in Michigan.
Croft and Sloop even tracked down their father and for the first
time met their half-brother, a teen who lives with their father in
Michigan.
Sloop apparently met her former husband Stacy while the two were in
the U.S. Army, Croft said. She was no longer enlisted in 2007.
By all appearances, she loved her son, he said. She often captured
photos and occasionally videos of Ethan acting silly and texted them to
her brother, he said.
"Ethan and the other two kids seemed to have a pretty strong bond
with her," he said.
In mid-2009, Sloop said she and her husband were having trouble. She
moved to Las Vegas to find work.
It was apparently there that she hooked up with Nathan Sloop, who
Croft believes is the older brother of one of her high school
classmates. By mid-October, Sloop told her brother she was in Utah with
her new beau.
Not long after that, Sloop made enthusiastic postings on Facebook
almost every day, counting down the days until her marriage, which was
to have been July 4 in Colorado.
Her postings struck her brother as "too much." She mentioned Nathan
Sloop's fight to see his daughter and her own inexplicable loss of
twins, a pregnancy, she said, that could have taken her life.
"It was overkill," said Croft.
Croft said he wasn't clear how the couple supported themselves,
though at one point Sloop told him she'd lost her job when a Blockbuster
store closed.
The last time Sloop contacted her brother was on May 5. She texted
him that she and Nathan Sloop were going to a courthouse the next day to
get married so that they could apply for food stamps, Medicaid and
other public assistance, he said. Their "real" wedding in Colorado was
still on, she told him.
In probable cause statements filed with the court, Layton police
said the couple did indeed get married at the Davis County Courthouse on
May 6, after locking Ethan into his bedroom for fear his bruises would
alert authorities to abuse.
Croft says he hasn't decided whether he will ever speak again to his
sister.
"I don't know how I could justify that with my own children," he
said. "This is a big mess she's a part of and she needs to atone for it
one way or the other."

A photo that shows a
possibly bruised Ethan Stacy has been circulating on the Internet and
now is the subject of police investigation.
In the photo, Ethan is sitting with his stepfather, Nathan Sloop,
who is suspected of murdering Ethan on May 9. The photo appears in a
screen image of a "Nathan Stephanie Sloop" Facebook page.


It reportedly is the page of Ethan's mother, Stephanie Sloop, who
was also arrested in the 4-year-old's death.
The photo's caption reads, "My two favorite boys playing video games
together." In the picture, the child's jaw appears darker than the rest
of his face.
Layton police Sgt. Todd Derrick said detectives are trying to
determine whether the picture is authentic. He would not say whether
they have confirmed Stephanie Sloop's connection to the page or whether
the discoloration of Ethan's jaw is the result of an injury.
"We aren't going to release any information because it is evidence,"
Derrick said. "It is part of the case."