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FARMINGTON — After months of delay, the case against a Layton woman accused of killing her 4-year-old son is set to move forward.
Stephanie Sloop, 31, is charged with aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; inflicting serious physical injury on a child intentionally, and obstructing justice, both second-degree felonies; and abuse or desecration of a dead human body, a third-degree felony, in the 2010 death of Ethan Stacy.
Sloop's case was put on hold while attorneys investigated information tied to the case of her 35-year-old husband, Nathanael Warren Sloop, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to aggravated murder, a capital offense, and was immediately sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in February.
Stephanie Sloop and her husband were "prolific" writers, and her attorney has had to review "many thousands of pages of handwritten material" from both writers, which has "significantly enhanced the complexity of this case," court documents state.
But Stephanie Sloop's case will move forward with a preliminary hearing Nov. 17-19 in 2nd District Court, where a judge will hear the evidence and decide whether to bind her over for trial.
In 2010, Stephanie Sloop reported to police that her son had run away from their Layton apartment in the middle of the night. Police searched for Ethan and noticed inconsistencies in Stephanie Sloop's story before finding the boy's body buried near Powder Mountain hours later.
His body had been disfigured with a hammer and burned, and his shallow grave had been sprinkled with dog food.
