Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A woman charged in the death and mutilation of her 4-year-old son is seeking an annulment from her new husband.
Stephanie Sloop, 27, filed the annulment petition Friday in Farmington's 2nd District Court. She married Nathanael Sloop on May 6 -- five days before her son Ethan Stacy's disfigured body was discovered by police buried on a northern Utah mountainside.
She claimed in the court papers that the marriage "was not voluntary, and was the result or product of physical duress by" the 31-year-old Sloop.
Nathanael Sloop could fight the petition, which does not detail how he may have coerced his bride.
Mary Corporon, Stephanie Sloop's defense attorney, declined to comment on the annulment petition.
A wedding website said the couple had been engaged for several months and had planned an Independence Day marriage ceremony at a relative's home in Golden, Colo. But in a call to her half-brother on May 5, Stephanie Sloop said she and Nathanael Sloop would marry in Utah the next day so that they could qualify for public aid.
The couple was married at Farmington's old memorial courthouse.
Police say the Sloops left Ethan Stacy alone and locked inside a bedroom in their Layton apartment during the ceremony.
On May 10, Stephanie Sloop reported the boy missing to police. A search was called off within hours after the story the Sloops had told police began to change during questioning.
The Sloops face charges of aggravated murder and other feloniesrelated to the boy's death. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.
The couple remained held without bail in the Davis County jail.
Stephanie Sloop's annulment petition also asks that her name be changed to a previous surname. No specific surname is indicated, but she formerly used the name Stephanie Stacy.
Ethan Stacy's father, Joe Stacy, of Richlands, Va., said Friday that he did not want his ex-wife using his surname.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
