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WENDOVER — Mick Moore had just gotten off work and decided he might try to help in the search for a missing 16-year-old girl.
Less than an hour later, Moore discovered a shallow grave thanks to good instincts and a little luck.
Moore was the man who ended the search for Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo, who had been missing at that point for nearly a day-and-a-half after failing to return home from school.
I moved the bushes back a little bit. It looked like it had been dug up ... and that's when I seen it.
–Mick Moore
Kody Cree Patten, 18, has been charged in Elko Justice/Municipal Court with one count of open murder, a first-degree felony, with the use of a deadly weapon. Court officials say "open murder" is essentially the same as a first-degree felony murder charge in Utah.
According to court documents, Patten claimed he twice pushed Micaela after driving her out to a desert area about five miles outside of Wendover. She hit her head and she went into "some sort of seizure," according to Patten. He then told investigators he panicked and hit her in the neck with a shovel that he had with him. Patten and Micaela had reportedly dated at one time.
Moore said when he got off work at 9:30 a.m. on March 5. He wasn't part of the organized search effort, but decided to check out some areas away from where the main search was happening.
"I came across some tracks," he said, referring to what appeared to be fresh tire tracks in the dirt. "I seen them pull off the road into this pile of brush and I thought it looked suspicious."
I was hoping it wasn't her. I was hoping it was a buried dog. But my gut reaction was it probably was. It was just kind of shock. I couldn't believe I found it.
–Mick Moore
The area was full of sage brush and near a set of railroad tracks. Moore got out of his vehicle and spotted what appeared to be an area of the ground that had been disturbed.
"I moved the bushes back a little bit. It looked like it had been dug up ... and that's when I seen it," he said.
Moore said he never actually saw Micaela's body. But he saw some blood in the dirt, and he knew the tire tracks were fresh.
"I was hoping it wasn't her. I was hoping it was a buried dog. But my gut reaction was it probably was," he said. "It was just kind of shock. I couldn't believe I found it."
Moore had only been searching for 30 to 45 minutes. He left the area undisturbed and went to get the detectives who were searching in another area. He believes eventually they would have found the shallow grave on their own because of the type of grid search they were conducting.
Micaela's family was expected to meet with Moore on Thursday to thank him for finding their daughter's body and start the process of getting justice. He said he wasn't sure what he was going to say.
"I just couldn't imagine (what the family is going through). It's devastating for the family. I just can't believe it happened here," he said. "I'm just glad I could help."
Moore said because they live in a small town, everyone knows everybody. His daughter, he said, knew both Micaela and Patten, although she was not close friends with either.
The girl's death has been "devastating for the whole community," Moore said. "It's scary."
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Story written with contributions from Pat Reavy and Sandra Yi.
