- Kathryn Restelli testified against her mother Tracey Grist at the beginning of her murder trial, saying her husband's killing was her mom's plan.
- She admitted to conspiring with her mother and brother to kill her husband, Matthew Restelli, on July 12, 2024.
- Prosecutors pointed to evidence of a plan, while Grist's attorney said the story prosecutors presented was "beyond belief."
PROVO — Kathryn Restelli wiped tears from her eyes as she testified Tuesday against her mother, bringing handcuffed hands into the view of the jurors who will decide her mother's fate.
After listening to a phone call she had with her estranged husband to lure him to drive to Utah, she said her voice faltered because she realized what she was doing: "Planning his murder, setting him up for failure."
She said she felt conflicted.
On the day of the killing, after her mom and brother returned from getting sushi and planning the death, Kathryn Restelli said she looked her mom in the eyes from the top of the stairs and said, "Mom, I don't want to do this anymore," and her mom responded, "I don't care. I'm doing it anyway."
"I realize I should have, I should have done more to stop it," Restelli testified.
Kathryn Restelli and her brother, Kevin Ellis, are both in prison for murdering Restelli's husband and conspiring to murder him with her brother and mother. Now, their mother, 60-year-old Tracey Grist — who has previously been referred to by prosecutors as the "mastermind" — is on trial for the next three weeks.
Grist is charged with murder, a first-degree felony; conspiracy to commit murder and obstruction of justice, second-degree felonies; and two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, a third-degree felony.
Playing the 'good wife'
Kathryn Restelli said her role in the plan was to "play the good wife" and lure him to their mother's house in American Fork, under the ruse that he was going to take her and their two children back to California.
Matthew Restelli, 34, was shot and killed on July 12, 2024, just after he arrived at Grist's home. Investigators say his death was then staged to make it appear that he was shot in self-defense.
During her testimony, Kathryn Restelli blamed her mother, saying Grist "posed it as the best idea" and planned it.
On Jan. 13, 2024, she texted Grist and said, "We've been fighting so much! I want out!"
Later in that conversation, Grist texted, "I'll just drive nine hours and strangle him."
Kathryn Restelli initially said she understood the texts as just talk, but during cross-examination, she said, on some level, she didn't think it was a joke — her mom wanted to harm the son-in-law.
She said plans to kill her husband started around a week or a week and a half before he drove up to Utah.
"It was a conversation between me and my mother, we were trying to figure out how I could get out of this marriage. I was fearful that I was going to lose my children," she said.
She said it started out as a joke, but as they discussed it more, the killing became a real plan. After Matthew Restelli decided to drive up, Kathryn Restelli texted her mother and went to tell Ellis in his bedroom.
"I was very tearful, and he knew what I meant, and he knew what was going to happen," she said.
Kathryn Restelli said she told her husband the front door was always unlocked and asked him to come inside — "so he would just come in" and "so my brother could shoot him." She said she gave her kids a melatonin gummy so they would stay asleep, then went downstairs to see her brother on his laptop and her mom doing dishes.
Later, she was upstairs scrolling on her phone when she was "99% sure" her husband had rung the doorbell, but no one answered. He came inside, and then she heard gunshots.
She talked about walking past her husband's body and described it as "very traumatizing."
"I wanted to fall to the ground screaming, but I knew that if I did that, I ran the risk of being shot myself because the officers don't know what they're going into," she testified while crying.
'She wouldn't be persuaded'
Deputy Utah County attorney David Brown said in his opening statement that the jurors will be tasked with determining whether Grist's actions led to Matthew Restelli's death, if she reached an agreement with others to kill him and if she took actions to hinder the investigation into his death.
He said on June 16, 2024, a few weeks before Matthew Restelli's killing and a few days before his wife left California for Utah, Grist searched for Utah gun laws and divorce procedures.
Brown spoke about Kathryn Restelli's family creating a Facebook chat the day she left California to monitor a tracking device she left in her husband's truck.
Just hours before Matthew Restelli's death, Grist searched for an "It's happening" meme, Brown said. He also said the family made arrangements for the killing, including sending Grist's younger children, who lived in her home, out for the night, covering couches with blankets to prevent blood stains, moving toys from the living room and taking down a mesh screen door.
Brown said Grist didn't call 911 until eight minutes after shots were fired — giving time for a knife to be placed poorly, in his nondominant hand with a backward grip. He said bloodstains are consistent with his arm being moved after he died.
"Both Kate Restelli and Kevin Ellis tried to talk Tracey Grist out of this, but she wouldn't be persuaded. You will hear that they failed to persuade her to not go through with this, but they also failed to stand up to her," Brown said.
'The messiest conspiracy'
Defense attorney Dana Facemyer said investigators found a narrative and stuck with it, rather than listening to the evidence.
"They never allowed for their evidence to speak for itself, and then determine what really happened," he told the jurors in his opening statement.
He told them that as the evidence is presented, they will find "this is the messiest conspiracy" they have ever seen. Facemyer called it a "tragic story" that is "beyond belief."
The attorney told jurors there will be evidence that makes them feel like it was a crazy moment of weakness.
He pointed out that Ellis and his sister come from a family of divorces, with Grist having been divorced three times — twice while in California — and said the family knew divorce was an option.
