Dad was violent, had multiple personalities, ex-wife said (Salt Lake City, Utah)

The story of Ethan Stacy's horrible murder has received a lot of media attention recently, and the case has thrown a lot of light on the problem of abusive parents getting custody/visitation while judges refuse to protect the children. In this case, the Judge didn't even read the protective custodial father's statement before awarding the mother visitation--that's how bad things have become. In Ethan's case, it was the stepfather who committed the murder, and the mother's role is somewhat unclear. She may have played an active role in the actual murder and abuse, or perhaps not. I have seen both interpretations. At any rate, it does not appear that she actively intervened to save this child. In addition, the evidence does suggest that she was "unstable" and should not have had visitation.

However, one interesting angle to this story that is just coming out is NATHAN SLOOP's history as an abusive biological father. So before we spin this story into morality tale about protective biological fathers (and only protective biological fathers) being stymied by the system, note the Sloop initially got JOINT CUSTODY of his biological daughter after the divorce from his first wife, despite the fact that Sloop's violence and psychological volatility were more than evident at that time, too. The mother was later able to get an order of protection to eliminate unsupervised visitation--but that was just a month before Sloop moved in with the woman who became wife #2 and subsequently murdered her son.

This is one thing we forget. Steps and biological parents are not separate species; indeed, many abusive men are both stepdads and biological fathers. And most do not manage to limit their abusive behavior to just other people's children. Abusers are abusers.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_15083168?source=most_viewed

Nathan Sloop was violent, had multiple personalities, ex-wife said
Ethan Stacy » Before the boy was abused and killed, his biological father sought to keep him from his mother.

By Lindsay Whitehurst
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/14/2010 10:25:29 AM MDT

When "Ghost," one of Nathan Sloop's multiple personalities, took over, he flew into frightening rages and took offense at "any perceived slight or criticism," according to a protective order filed by his former wife.

Jennifer Freeman, of Orlando, Fla., didn't want to leave their 5-year-old daughter alone with him.

"He is too unstable and might hurt [their daughter] to get back at me," she wrote in a petition for a protective order filed in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida and obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune . About a month after the judge finalized a protective order against him, Sloop's new fiance, Stephanie, brought her 4-year-old son Ethan to live with them in Utah for the summer.

But according to divorce papers filed by Ethan's father, the boy's mother was also "unstable" and he didn't want Ethan to spend the summer with her.

"The mother has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take him and I'll never see him again," Joe Stacy wrote in an emergency petition for temporary custody filed in November.

That request was denied. On April 28, Ethan arrived in Layton to spend the summer with his mother and her fiance.

A week later, Nathan Sloop closed a bedroom door and began slapping and beating Ethan around the head and face, leaving him bruised and swollen, according to police documents. Ethan's mother didn't stop the beating, and didn't take him to the doctor.

The next day, the couple locked Ethan in a bedroom and went to the county courthouse in Farmington to get married, documents say. They didn't bring him for fear that someone would see his injuries and call police.

Over the next few days, Ethan would not eat, was lethargic, had a fever and was vomiting, possible signs of a brain injury. On Friday, Stephanie Sloop said she came home to find her son badly burned on his feet and legs. She said she didn't believe Sloop's story about an accident in an overly hot bath, but thought he would hurt her and didn't call police.

Ethan died the next day, Mother's Day. The Sloops disfigured his body and buried him off a trail near Powder Mountain Ski Resort.

Stephanie Sloop reported Ethan missing Monday. After a 12-hour search, the couple's story unraveled, and they admitted where they had buried the body.

They are being held on suspicion of child abuse and desecration of a corpse; Nathan Sloop is also being held on suspicion of aggravated homicide. Charges are expected to be filed today.

They are not allowed near other inmates and are being held alone in cells 23 hours a day, allowed out only to shower and exercise, jail officers said.

Carla Jones, a former friend of Stephanie Sloop from when she lived in Florida, said that last week she received "a few" messages from Stephanie Sloop, but she did not return them because she "was sick of the drama."

"You carry a lot of guilt around when someone calls you hysterical and you don't call them back, but she had cried wolf one too many times," Jones said. "Had I ever known they would have done this to Ethan, I would have intervened."

According to divorce papers, Sloop was abusive in his first marriage. He and Freeman married in 1999 in Florida, when he was 20 and she was 19. The couple moved to Utah and bought a house in Roy. When she got pregnant in 2004, he insisted she stay at home with the child.

He exerted an "unreasonable" and "unhealthy level of control" over her, Freeman claimed in divorce papers. He hit and slapped her, pulled her hair and pushed her into walls, Freeman said. She left him in October 2007 and took their daughter to her parents' home in Florida, according to court papers.

Freeman could not be contacted Thursday for comment.

In court filings, Nathan Sloop denied abusing her and denied being diagnosed with a mental illness other than obsessive compulsive disorder. No domestic violence charges were filed against him in Utah.

In the settlement, the couple shared custody, with the girl designated to spend summers and half of holidays with her father and live the rest of the year with her mother in Florida.

About a year after the divorce was finalized, Freeman filed for a protective order, quoting from a 1½-hour stream of threatening voice mails Sloop had left on Sept. 2 for both Freeman and her boyfriend.

"I don't give a f--- if I gotta spend the rest of my life in f------ prison, f--- you, I'm coming for your f------ throat," he told her, according to the filing.

"I believe he has the ability to carry out these threats," she wrote.

Meanwhile, Nathan Sloop had reconnected with Stephanie Stacy, with whom he had gone to the same high school in Florida.

Carla Jones said she befriended Stephanie Sloop five years ago when she came to the Florida doctor's office where Jones worked. Jones watched Ethan while his mother had her appointments.

She said their families would have dinner at each other's homes and hang out a lot.

When Stephanie left, Carla and her family did their best to be supportive and kept doing activities with Ethan and Joe Stacy before they moved to Virginia.

"We were friends until Stephanie went off the deep end and abandoned Joe and Ethan," Jones said. "It was always all about Stephanie."

lwhitehurst@sltrib.com
Sheena McFarland and Bob Mims contributed to this story.