FARMINGTON — Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings is urging the state parole board to never let the mother of Ethan Stacy out of prison. 

Rawlings said on Saturday he has submitted a letter to the Board of Pardons & Parole requesting that Stephanie Sloop, 31, never be released. Her 4-year-old son’s disfigured body was found buried near Powder Mountain in 2010. 

Sloop entered a guilty plea on Nov. 17 to one count of aggravated murder and one count of obstruction of justice. She was sentenced to serve 20 years to life in the Utah State Prison for the aggravated murder conviction. She was also sentenced to serve 1 year to 15 years at the prison for the obstruction of justice conviction.

“We send letters all the time to the Board of Pardons on a lot of cases, but usually no one cares,” Rawlings said. 

Rawlings said no parole hearing has been scheduled yet for Stephanie Sloop, although the board has scheduled a hearing for her husband, Nathanael Sloop, in November 2055. He pleaded guilty  but mentally ill to aggravated murder in February. 

In his Dec. 30 letter to the parole board; Rawlings said even though Stephanie Sloop entered a plea agreement that removed the death penalty and life-without-parole sentences, the agreement did not remove the possibility of Stephanie Sloop spending her “natural life” in prison. 

“It is our hope and expectation that the Board of Pardons never releases Stephanie Sloop,” Rawlings said Saturday. 

He said the letter is a “preemptive strike” in that effort to keep her there.

Rawlings wrote that “Ethan Stacy died because his mother, Stephanie Sloop, was fixated on herself. Stephanie Sloop cared about her own lifestyle.” 

Because she did not care about her son and did not protect him, including seeking life-saving medical treatment, the boy died, Rawlings wrote. 

Rawlings wrote that when Nathanael Sloop told Stephanie Sloop on May 7, 2010, that her son was dead, she “became hysterical. She consumed additional prescription medications and lost consciousness until May 8, 2010.” 

That day she agreed with Nathanael Sloop to bury her son and report the young boy missing, Rawlings wrote. She was the one who went to the store and bought the body disposal items, including a shovel. She later bought lighter fluid to help disfigure her son’s body. 

They burned the boy’s body and used a hammer to disfigure the small boy’s face and teeth, according to testimony at Nathan Sloop’s preliminary hearing in March 2013.

Rawlings wrote that the Sloops married “in an attempt to cover their tracks by a misguided interpretation of the spousal privilege. After Ethan was dead, the Sloops celebrated their own lives by dining at favorite restaurants.” They were married on May 6, 2010, in Farmington, while Ethan was locked inside his bedroom in their Layton apartment. 

Rawlings ended the letter, “For the remainder of her life, factually culpability and justice demands that Stephanie Sloop should only dine in the Utah State Prison.”

Contact reporter Loretta Park at 801-625-4252 or lpark@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @LorettaParkSE. Like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SELorettaPark.