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Emile admits to aggravated murder of daughter; death penalty avoided

By Mark Shenefelt - | Aug 19, 2022

BENJAMIN ZACK, Standard-Examiner file photos

In this combination photo, Brenda Emile, left, and Miller Costello, right, appear July 13, 2017, in 2nd District Court in Ogden. They have been charged in connection with the death of their 3-year-old daughter.

OGDEN — In a deal with prosecutors that lets her avoid capital punishment, Brenda Emile pleaded guilty on Friday to first-degree felony aggravated murder in the death of her 3-year-old daughter.

Emile, 27, will face sentencing Oct. 17-28 in 2nd District Court before Judge Michael DiReda. The plea bargain between the Weber County Attorney’s Office and defense attorney Martin Gravis keeps the charge as a first-degree felony. But the prosecution dropped its request for the death penalty in return for the guilty plea.

Emile, who has been in the Weber County Jail since shortly after Angelina Costello’s death on July 6, 2017, will be sentenced to either 25 years to life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Emile’s husband, Miller Costello, 30, is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 30, 2023. The death penalty remains in play in his case, although at the defense’s behest, his intellectual capacity is being evaluated by state experts. A U.S. Supreme Court precedent says execution of intellectually deficient prisoners is cruel and unusual punishment banned by the Eighth Amendment.

In charging documents and in a 2018 preliminary hearing, authorities described horrific injuries that were inflicted on Angelina. She had cigarette burns around her body, some dabbed with concealing makeup, and brain-bleed injuries. A medical examiner testified the toddler had signs of starvation. One police detective said the girl’s body reminded her of a Holocaust victim. Her hygiene was described as deplorable.

Early in Emile and Costello’s case, defense attorneys argued against the death penalty, asserting that a public consensus against capital punishment has evolved in Utah.

Utah lawmakers over the years have added more legal factors justifying execution verdicts, defense attorney Randall Marshall argued. But DiReda ruled that the U.S. and Utah supreme courts “have made clear that the clear and most reliable objective evidence of contemporary values is legislation enacted” by state legislatures, not a claimed public consensus against the death penalty.

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