Transcript of Episode 363

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

All I know is I heard shooting upstairs and then my mother yelling and screaming.

I want to say I have to thank you guys. Some of you are so nice. You really are. I had mentioned something briefly about an illness that I suffered over the last couple years, and so many of you reached out and said, you know, you were praying for me, that you hoped I got better, that you were curious about what it was. I don't want to put certain parts of my life out there in the public.

Just—

it's just not a good idea. But, um, I do want to thank all of you for the kind words. You know, I was really thinking about maybe this being the last season of Sword and Scale ever, because we're kind of in a transitional period and a lot of the audience has dropped off, probably due to some of the politics of some of the themes we cover here. But I took a couple weeks to just clear my mind and I don't think I'm gonna do that. I don't think I can do that. This show is now firmly part of me, and we're just gonna keep making it better. Police move through a developing Utah complex in full tactical gear. Their rifles up in place, shields forward, boots scraping over dirt and construction dust. Their eyes dart back and forth, past fresh block walls, unfinished houses, open lots, and weeds tall enough to perhaps hide someone. Someone named Mia Bailey. They've been looking for her since the previous evening through a dry creek bed near River Road, under bridges and around a golf course. They're searching with drones, a helicopter, and a canine dog tracking through the dark.

SWAT teams are poised. Officers have gone house to house asking neighbors what they saw. Whether they know Mia, and whether they have any idea where she might have gone. By morning, the search has shifted into this new subdivision, where officers have to clear backyards, check unsecured houses, and try to keep residents out of the line of fire. From above, the scene is all angles and movement. Patrol cars blocking new streets, officers posted at corners. Other deputies move alongside yards and unfinished walls, all of them watching the same rough field behind the homes. Mia is armed and she's desperate. Police believe she has already killed 2 people.

Mia, this is the St. George Police Department.

We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up.

Mia, this is the St. George Police Department. If you come out with your hands up and comply, you will not be injured. Again, come out with your hands up. You are under arrest.

This is a new neighborhood. In a way, it seems post-apocalyptic or dystopian. The sun is glaring, bullhorns blaring, but the landscape is barren and dry.

My name is Courtney Sinagra. I'm a deputy Washington County attorney. I'm a prosecutor, and I'm also our office's public information officer. And I was involved in the Mia Bailey case from the night of the incident. Any of the experiences that I share are my own personal experiences, my own personal opinions, and not necessarily reflective of the Washington County Attorney's Office. This is a nice neighborhood in our county, more affluent. In fact, one of our top attorneys lived just across the street from the scene. And so she came out, she was gardening, she was like trimming her rose bushes, and all these cop cars are there responding.

Behind the houses, the land opens into a rough dirt field dotted with dry brush and tumbleweeds. In places, the weeds are high enough to hide a person. Officers move car to car, wall to wall, trying to hold a perimeter around it. Some of the homes have residents and some are still under construction. Every open door, every backyard, every unfinished garage is another place Mia could be hiding. No one wants to be that officer who accidentally walks past her. They clear what they can. They watch their angles and they call out warnings. They talk over the radio about crossfire. The helicopter overhead is noisy, making it hard to hear each other. Then finally, someone gets eyes on her.

Should I tell her we have the helicopter and we can see her and they can fly?

Huh?

Hold on, hold on. That's going to be us, El She's 30 yards out.

From here?

Yeah, on the ground under a berm.

Okay.

Mia, we can see you on the ground laying down.

We need you to put your hands up, stand up, nothing in your hands, and comply with officer command to walk towards the headlights. She's low to the ground, hidden under a patch of dried weeds about 15 feet from a tall block wall. In one hand, she has a handgun. Most of the time, she keeps it pressed to her temple. From an upstairs window, officers watch the scene below them. Mia in the dirt, the gun at her head, rifles pointed in her direction. Negotiators trying to reach her from the other side of the wall.

Mia.

This is Tyler with the St. George PD. Can you hear me?

Mark units are in the field close enough. I need some conversation.

I can't hear.

Turn your radio off.

Mia, this is Tyler with the St. George PD. Can you hear me? Okay, Mia, I'm here to talk to you. I'm here to help you through this. I know that you're going through a rough time right now, and that's okay. I'm here to help you out. We want to definitely come to a peaceful resolve. We don't want you to get hurt. We don't want any of us to get hurt.

Making contact isn't easy. Mia is hidden behind a wall. Officers are spread out around the field and a drone overhead is drowning out her voice.

Okay, Mia, we want to help you. We don't want you to do anything to yourself. We don't want you to do anything to us. So we want to come up with a plan on how we can help you. Okay, Mia, I heard that you said okay, but I couldn't hear the rest. I need you to— need you to put the weapon down and put your hands up in the air so we can know that we can talk safely. Okay?

Can't do that.

Okay. Why can't you do that, Mia?

The whole neighborhood is on lockdown. Tensions are high, and this is a volatile situation. Mia shouts something about her "last hope" and then makes it clear she doesn't want to talk to the police. She wants someone else. They always want someone else. I need to contact the prosecutor.

I just want to talk to the prosecutor. You said that you want to talk to the prosecutor? Okay, Mia, we can help you talk to a prosecutor. We can help you talk to an attorney, but obviously in this situation where you're at right now, they're not going to come out to where we're at because it's not safe.

Once the officer has positioned himself and can hear better, he realizes that Mia is shouting about a last chance and a nuclear option. It was clear they were dealing with someone who was desperate. The officers in that field weren't starting from zero. They were negotiating with a killer, trying to keep her alive and make sure no one else in the proximity or broader community would be hurt. But before police ever found Mia in that field, her phone had already called 911. Not because she had called for help, but because she'd thrown it from her car and the phone thought it had crashed.

Hello, can you hear me?

This is 911.

The owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash and is not responding to their phone.

Almost at the same time, another call came in from the neighborhood that Mia had just fled.

911, what is the address of the emergency?

Um, my neighbor just came running down the road yelling, "Call 911 for gunshots!" And there's a yellow Kia Soul that just drove away from their house. I don't know what's going on. Go in the house! Go in our house! Run inside, grab a towel! So in the house, um, they just drove up the street.

Okay.

I'm not even sure where my neighbors went. They just came screaming, yelling that, and they ran.

Yeah, I don't know if we're getting other calls about it as well.

But I don't know what happened. He tried to come in our front door, but it was locked.

The neighbor told dispatch what they heard from outside. Gunshots, panic, and a yellow Kia Soul leaving the area. But there was another call coming directly from the survivors, and they were able to tell dispatch exactly what they had lived through.

911, what is the address of the emergency?

I need an officer to 1039 East Chinook Drive. There's gunshots.

Okay, is somebody shot?

I think so.

You think somebody is shot?

Yes.

Can you see the person?

No.

Okay, did you hear gunshots?

Yes.

Okay, it looks like we've gotten a couple other calls about this and we're getting help on the way right now. Can you see anything that's going on?

No, we just ran from the house.

Okay. Please, we've got help on the way right now, okay? I want you to stay on the line with me and let me know what you hear and what you see, okay? Don't do anything that you feel like puts you in danger. Was something shot at your house?

Yes, I think my parents are shot upstairs.

You think your parents were shot upstairs?

Yes.

Okay. Have you been upstairs to check?

No, we just ran.

Did someone come into your house to shoot?

Yes. Uh, we were downstairs and I started hearing gunshots and screaming upstairs.

Okay, were you able to hear anybody upstairs?

Just gunshots and screaming.

Just gunshots and screaming, okay.

But it wasn't over after the gun was fired upstairs. The caller heard footsteps pounding on each step as the shooter headed towards the basement. Cory and his wife had no choice but to flee out the window, even as shots were being fired through the door. And after making it to the neighbor's house, they had no idea what condition their parents were in. Were they alive? Or were they dead?

We do have officers in a loose perimeter in the area. That's their biggest priority before sending medical units in to help your parents, okay? It's just to make sure that the scene is safe, but as soon as they secured the scene, medical will go in to help your parents, okay?

Okay.

Okay.

That's definitely not what you want to be told after hearing multiple gunshots, screaming, and then silence from upstairs when you know your parents were up there going about their evening routine. You don't want to hear anything but sirens and emergency personnel, not, "We have to clear the scene first. It might take a while." By the time Deputy Attorney Courtney Sinagra arrived, the house wasn't just the scene of an emergency. It was a bloody crime scene.

Our office has what's called a death phone. And by law in Utah, anytime there's an unattended death, in the jurisdiction, a county attorney needs to be notified. And so I was working late at our office, actually. It was like 8 PM. I was a brand new prosecutor. I've been working about 6 or 8 months. And 2 of our other attorneys were also there. And one of them had the on-call phone and came down and said, hey, "Hey, there was a double homicide. Do you want to go on scene?" So, of course, I was like, "Yes." I mean, I was hesitant. I was like, "Oh, can I handle this? This sounds gruesome." But I did want that experience for my job. And so, the 3 of us went over to be on scene.

The chaos had passed by the time Courtney arrived. Mia's brother Corey and his wife were safe at the neighbor's house. Officers were at the scene and were also tracking the killer. But an eerie calmness now filled the Bailey home. The ordinary details were still sitting exactly where Gail and Joseph Bailey had left them.

But something that stood out to me where it did feel just very eerie is when you walked in, the first thing I noticed was we walked into the hallway and there was a living room and MSNBC was on, on the TV. And there, there's two dead bodies in the living room area. Um, Joseph was actually down the hallway, but Gail was in the living room. And I just thought, wow, these people were just having a normal night. They're watching the news.

That's the kind of image you can't shake from your brain. Not just the stark faces of death, but The reminder that they were just alive, just a minute ago. The television is still on, still filling the room with disembodied voices, but nobody's listening anymore. The furniture is still in place, seats cooling where a body had just sat. It was an ordinary evening, the kind we all picture because it's the kind we all live every day. You're just sitting at home, half watching the news, thinking there will be a tomorrow, and suddenly there isn't.

When I did see Joseph, he was laying face up, and there was a little, a little bit of blood coming from his head. What I remember most is his glasses were split in two. He had worn like spectacles, and it was clean shots to his forehead right where his glasses had been. But the mom was just off the sofa. I don't know if she was sitting down. I don't know if she had stood up, but she was found face front near the sofa, shot in the back of the head.

But Mia didn't stop with just her parents. She was out for blood. And there was more blood to shed in the basement where her brother's family was staying.

Then we went downstairs and there were children's toys everywhere in this downstairs living room area. Little kids' toys. And that gave me the chills because what if these kids who were Mia's nieces and nephews had been home.

By the time investigators finished walking through the house, they know what Mia did, but they just can't imagine why a daughter would come home and turn on her own family like a wounded coyote. And this is a story that can only be told by Mia. By this point, it is the night of June 18th, 2024, in Washington City, Utah. Investigators are on a manhunt for 28-year-old Mia Bailey. On the evening of June 18th, 2024, she stormed into the family home and executed both of her parents. When she heard her brother's voice in the basement, she went for him and his wife, too. Thankfully, they escaped through a bedroom window before the bullets could reach them. And when investigators walked through the house afterwards, the horror wasn't only upstairs. Downstairs where Mia's nieces and nephews might have been, children's toys were still scattered across the room. Police could clearly make out what happened at the scene, and besides, casings were left behind. Mia, however, had vanished into the dark in a yellow Kia, armed and desperate. The question would follow them through the night: From the quiet, bloodstained house in Washington City to the streets of nearby St.

George, the chase would come to a head in a half-built neighborhood on the edge of town where Mia would finally be found in a patch of weeds with a gun to her head. Before the standoff ended, before Mia was brought into the interview room, investigators were already working backwards. While officers in St. George tried to keep her alive, other investigators were calling the people who had seen her, heard from her, or knew what had been happening in the days and hours before the shooting. They were trying to build a picture of Mia before the field, before the gun, before the house. And one of the first pieces of that picture came from someone Mia had only recently started dating. And even in that short time, he had already seen signs that Mia was not okay.

How did you meet Mia?

I met her at Howie's, the place where I work, uh, about maybe like a week and a half ago.

Okay.

And she just seemed nice. I asked her if she had Facebook, she said yes, and then that's kind of how we, uh, how we got to know each other.

So you've only known her for a week and a half?

Yeah, yeah, I can tell that she wanted to progress things fast, you know.

Yeah.

Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend, or what, or you're just starting dating?

Yeah, just kind of starting.

Okay, but nothing was official?

No.

Okay. Well, she put on her Facebook that he was her boyfriend.

Yeah, that surprised me.

And then I said to Corey, how did you feel about that? You know, because he hasn't even known her.

So she made that decision on her own?

Okay.

Um, Yeah, I just got out of a relationship before and I was heartbroken over, so I wasn't looking to jump into anything right away.

A week and a half isn't very long, but it was long enough for him to notice two things. Mia wanted the relationship to move faster than he did. And underneath that, something was off.

Yeah, I just, I just started to get to know her like a couple of weeks ago. Okay. I don't know her very well.

Okay.

I think I know that she was kind of depressed, and I could tell that she told me she used to cut herself. And, uh, as far as where she is, I, I really don't know.

He didn't view her depression or even her fast pace as a red flag, though. They were starting out as friends and even had plans that evening.

When was the last time you talked to her?

Yesterday. Well, I Well, this morning when I, I texted her, um, we were going to arrange like, you know, like a game date night, and that's, um, she said she had to get her, her stuff at, I guess, her family's home. And, uh, that's the last I heard from her. She's like, be sure to— I said, be sure to tell me what other games you have. Um, I like board games and She said she has to grab it, you know, there, there. And then I said, "Bring your A game, you know, just be funny." And then that's the last I heard from her right there.

That was a version of Mia he knew that morning. It was someone making date night plans and talking about board games. Someone who was normal. It was true Mia was in the middle of moving out of one place into another, and away from the people who had been letting her stay with them.

She said she was in the process of moving, but I don't—

are you aware of her renting like any U-Haul trucks or anything like that?

No.

Okay.

Did she say where she was moving to?

She said she was applied at a few different places. She says she tried Jewel Plaza and then she said it fell through, and then I don't, I don't know why they denied her, but That's all I know.

Okay. Do you know of any other friends she has? Have you ever hung out with any other friends with her or anything like that?

I've seen her with her cousin and that's all who I've seen her with.

She seems—

Do you know who her cousin is?

Yeah, Jay.

Jay? J-A-Y.

The cousin was Jay and the house Mia had been staying in belonged to Jay's mother. Mia's Aunt Jenny. So investigators called Jenny next. She had seen Mia that afternoon, just hours before the first 911 calls came in.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello, this is Jenny.

Yeah?

Hey Jenny, this is Detective Jondo with the Washington City Police Department.

Yeah.

Hey, so you got a second I can talk with you?

Put your belt on.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm trying— I'm here at on scene trying to gather some more information.

Okay.

And so I just wanted to kind of talk with you real quick and see when the last time you talked, uh, with Mia was.

And 5:47.

5:47. That was almost exactly 1 hour before Mia shot her parents. Surely Aunt Jenny would have some clues.

I called her because her mother had called my mom, our mom, and They have not had a great relationship. And after Mom talked with my sister, I called Mia because she had been at the house earlier to pick up her things out of the garage because to move them into a storage area.

Out of your house or this house up here?

Pardon?

From your house or this house here?

No, from my house. She came to our house in Highlands because she's been storing her things there, some of her things. Okay, so She texted me earlier in the day and said, I'm gonna come by and get my things. I said, that's fine, but you're welcome to leave them here. And she said, no, I want an air-conditioned unit. And I said, okay, because whatever. So she showed up, and I don't know what time you think it was, 4:30, about 4 o'clock, and got her stuff. My husband was in the garage with her. She was fine.

Okay, so nothing— she wasn't Mia wasn't acting super crazy or upset? Anything that would make you concerned that something like this was going to happen?

No. Rick said in the garage she seemed perfectly normal. Thank him. Calm. I mean, no idea where she got a gun, when.

Jenny said Mia was fine. But "fine" can actually be a complicated word. Fine for the moment? Fine for the hour? What exactly does fine mean? Are you fine? Am I fine? I don't know. Because only weeks earlier, Mia definitely didn't seem fine.

I know she's at times heard voices. That was kind of new to me 3 weeks ago. Whether that was happening in the last few days, I don't know. If they had a run-in, I have no idea.

So You say Mia's been hearing voices?

I don't know. A couple weeks ago she was, and she went into the hospital to get her meds fixed around.

Mm-hmm.

And she came out, but she's always been very docile around us.

Aunt Jenny's call gave investigators the only version of Mia she knew. Calm enough to move her things, familiar enough enough with the family to sound docile, but unstable enough that she had recently checked herself into a hospital due to hearing voices. Then another witness came forward. This was someone with no family history, no context, and no reason to read danger into what she saw. But danger isn't what grabbed her attention. Something else did.

I, uh, my husband and I were at the, the old St. George Temple.

Okay.

We just finished some ceilings and we were coming down to the first floor. And when you enter that temple, before you go, you know, to the front desk, to the left there's a— they call it a family room, like a waiting room in there.

Okay.

And so when we were coming out that girl came out of the family waiting room and was starting to exit the temple. Okay. And I was behind her, and when I first saw her, I thought, oh my gosh, she had a— this skirt on that was about like 4 inches above her knee, and it was like shooting out like a ballerina skirt, you know.

Okay.

But she had called cowgirl boots on at the same time, and it just caught my attention, you know. Okay. But I thought it's probably a family member that's waiting, you know, maybe somebody got married or something. And so as we exited the temple, this thought came to my mind, show her the love of the Savior.

Right.

And because it's somebody's daughter, you want them to know, you know, they're different. But so I said, hey, young lady, I love those cowgirl boots. I had a ranch for 30 years. And I notice any really cute cowgirl boots always.

Right.

And she turned around and she said, "Why, thank you." I said, "But I have to admit, I'm older now and I can't wear what we used to call—" and I said the letter S—

"S-kickers," because it kills my toes. It was the kind of trivial conversation that people forget 5 minutes later. A compliment. A quick laugh. Nothing that sounded like a warning. Nothing that sounded like someone was about to snap, about to flip out and destroy the lives closest to them in a matter of hours. Until she realized that what she was seeing wasn't really what she was seeing.

So she, she raised her leg to show me, you know, it just had a little tiny square at the end of these white boots. And she says, well, you just have to learn to get them to fit a certain way. And when she did that, I had in my mind, I thought, this is a guy. Oh, right there I knew, with hairy legs and guy's legs. And, uh, you know, she was taller than me. I'm 5 foot 8. She was tall, taller, but— and then I just realized his voice. I mean, it wasn't like a low voice, but it was different. And, um, anyway, I said, uh, I said, well, they are really cute boots. And so, so we started walking. I said, well, you have, uh, enjoy this beautiful day, because it was cooler that day. I said, enjoy this beautiful day.

They both went their separate ways, and this lady thought nothing of it until she turned on the news that night and saw a manhunt. Or should I say a woman hunt? That sounds stupid.

He told me that I should call and let you guys know what happened when I talked to that guy. Okay. Which I thought was a girl. On, um, it was Tuesday around 3 PM. Okay. My son-in-law also told me you should remain anonymous because you don't ever want that guy to have your name.

So I said, "Okay." Back in the field, negotiators keep Mia talking. The conversation goes on for almost an hour. She asks for a prosecutor and talks about wanting the death penalty. She asks, "What kind of deal can be made?" But eventually, the lead detective gets her to agree to a surrender plan. Mia puts the gun down, keeps her hands visible, and walks towards the tactical team. Officers take her into custody and no one else is hurt. Mia finally gets the conversation she's been asking for. She is taken to an interview room with detectives and a prosecutor to explain.

I'm not so much curious as far as what happened, but I'm kind of curious kind of what led up to it.

Well, let's see. Uh, a whole bunch of backlash from community. I can't go anywhere. I can't go on walks without, uh, people saying trap. To heartbreaker to a bunch of nasty other stuff.

Mia, born Collin Bailey, was obviously leaving out the kindness of the woman from the St. George Temple, who complimented her boots and treated Mia like the woman she wanted to be.

Let's see, uh, being homeless after my family's abuse several times and Uh, being $20,000 in debt. What does that come from? Well, it comes from my loans because my brother's. This comes from credit cards. It's expensive to be a single woman and trans on top of that, so.

Okay, so what kind of— like I said, I'm not— I don't know all the all the ins and outs of it. What kind of expenses do you have doing that?

Well, it's like $512 a month just doing, uh, the trans stuff. So that's like getting laser treatments and medication.

It was getting expensive being the woman she wanted to be, that is. Laser treatments for hair removal, hormone replacement therapy, who knows what else. As for homelessness, Mia's cousin kicked her out because he was afraid she was "crazy." She made an allegation saying a neighbor pointed a gun at her. Emotions apparently escalated and Mia said her cousin just didn't understand. That allegation, by the way, wasn't verified. We brought in Dr. Stephen Levine, a psychiatrist in the Cleveland, Ohio area. To talk about gender dysphoria, mental illness, and surgery as a last hope. Dr. Levine is also a professor at Case Western University. He's known for his thesis that gender dysphoria is usually caused by psychological issues that should be treated as such, rather than with gender-affirming care. Dr. Levine was among the earliest in his field to recognize the need for research in this area. In 1974, he co-founded a gender identity clinic through Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Dr. Levine has obviously had a lot of pushback given his research in the field and his unwillingness to bend to the current politics surrounding this ever-changing issue.

The social cultural shift, uh, has, has to do with the human need to reinterpret how to live one's life, how to combine the male and female interests that all of us have into a way of being a man and woman. So we are redefining the ways of being a man and woman, but the internet has led to a lot of young people who are having distress in their lives thinking that the problem, the cause of their distress is not the ordinary psychiatric causes of distress of family dysfunction and personal difficulties, but it's due to the fact that they didn't understand that they were a trans person. And some authority figure, some process on the internet seems to have influenced young people dramatically into thinking that maybe they're trans. And so adolescents are now experimenting a great deal with differences in orientation and differences in gender expression.

When someone is already depressed, isolated, autistic, suicidal, or desperate, the internet can sometimes hand them a simple answer: This is why you hurt. You are trans. But for Levine, This is not the same as a stable transgender person living an ordinary life. That person, he says, is not a psychiatric patient. The real concern is when the identity is tied to serious suffering. When the person isn't just saying, "This is who I am," but "I can't survive unless my body changes." Mia was a perfect example of someone who not only had preexisting mental health conditions, but her desperation became dangerous. And the detective wanted to know how she got to that point.

What led up to it was, well, I got a call from my social worker from the hospital. And, uh, I apparently kind of broke an hip in a way. They shared the details at the hospital, but the worst one of us all was my mother contacting them to say no on the surgery.

And, uh, well, so your mother contacted the hospital?

Yep.

And so I knew I could probably appeal it with just— if that— but she wouldn't. Just say I was very furious and I asked her, like, I don't want to hear it I don't want to hear excuses. I want to hear, like, you know, an explanation and "I'm sorry" and "I'll do something about it." Anyway, uh, she can't say sorry to save her life, apparently.

Whether Mia meant it this way or not, this was a literal statement. Her resentment was palpable. Her mother was dead. By Mia's own hand. Because her mother wouldn't say sorry? Mia felt like she was holding on by a thread. During the standoff, she repeatedly shouted, "This was my last hope," meaning the final surgery to remove her male genitalia. And she placed all the blame on her parents, especially her mother. So you might be thinking, "Oh, those mean parents. That unwoke mom who ruined her her child's life. But according to everyone except Mia, the family was as supportive as they could be.

The surgery was canceled, but our impression was that it was not canceled because her parents were simply not supportive of her transitioning or her being transgender or how she chose to identify, but because they were concerned more broadly about her mental health. From what I understood, her family was very supportive of her and her decision to, to transition. And she also struggled with other, other diagnoses. And I'm not a medical expert, so I don't want to get into those, but I believe that they were supportive of her in those as well. There was a prior protective order where I think the family just at some— at one point just had to act to protect themselves because they felt that she was a danger and a threat to them. But I think that was a last resort. I do think they tried to support her as much as they could.

Mia didn't just suffer from gender dysphoria. She had a host of other mental health disorders and diagnoses ranging from ADHD to autism to potential schizophrenia. So her parents didn't feel like it was wise to go ahead with such a serious and life-altering surgery. Because the fact was, this was not going to cure her mental illness. And it may just make it worse. Dr. Levine says this is often the danger. When somebody is already carrying serious depression, anxiety, instability, or other psychiatric issues, surgery might change the body without touching the deeper source of suffering. His evidence comes from a recent Finnish study, if you want to look that up.

So we have some evidence that even the permanent care for the vast majority of people, two-thirds in this case, uh, do not stall their unhappiness. You see, the unhappiness is usually presented as suicidality, depression, anxiety, sometimes drug addiction, sometimes suicidal thoughts. So we realized that, that among the majority of people who are seeking the trans solution to their unhappiness, the majority of those people may still be unhappy after they make all these changes to their body. And so people like me are saying to people before they have these kind of medical interventions, let's pay attention to what is troubling you. What is the source of your depression, anxiety, your eating disorders, whatever, whatever the situation is, and let's pay attention to that. You're in charge of your gender, not me. I'm not trying to change your gender. What I'm trying to do is improve your mental health. And that doesn't have to do with gender, and that has to do with these overwhelming symptoms of self-harm, suicidality, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and sometimes the drug dependence.

For Mia, every aspect of her mental suffering was blamed on being in the wrong body. But you know that old chicken and egg analogy? Which came first? Mia thought that everyone, was against her. Her parents didn't support her, and she was bullied by the community at large.

I would say that Mia probably subjectively felt bullied and harassed, but I couldn't— I don't have all the facts. I don't know her life story. From what I observed, I don't know that the objective harassment was to the degree that maybe she believed.

Dr. Levine says there's another layer to all of this. Beyond diagnosis, beyond treatment, there is the social question: How do the people around someone respond when that person's identity changes? We gave him an analogy. Is it like an agitated schizophrenic, for example, who might try to convince you that you're under immediate attack based on his own delusion? Do you go along with it just to be safe? And is it kindness to use the name and pronoun someone wants you to use, or is it an obligation? And what happens when people feel pushed to accept something they don't believe is true?

Well, that's a political question. That's a, that's a social manners question. If I think I I am some other gender, some atypical gender, and I prefer to be called they rather than he or she. Do I have the right to impose upon you my sense of reality that I'm a they, even though you, who don't have gender dysphoria or trans identity, you have learned all the days in your life that they is a plural and this is a, a see other person, and that's the wrong language. So, so the question is, if I consider myself to be something that offends your sense of reality, do I have a right to demand that you conform to my sense of reality? And so that's the social debate that's going on. The only thing I could say about that is that when one transitions, either in a binary or non-binary fashion, your sense of reality is different than the common person. And, and so this is the price that one pays for being a trans or either a gender-diverse person. We can use that phrase. The, the price that these people have to pay is that their sense of reality is different than the majority of human beings that they interact with.

Mia was upset because her surgery had been scheduled for September 9th, and she managed to move it up to July 9th. That would have been 2 weeks from the time of the murders. But remember, Mia had just checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. She knew she wasn't stable. But in the interview, Mia was vague about the hospitalization. She claimed it was more or less a prerequisite that her mom had made for them to feel okay about her getting the surgery. Mia reluctantly agreed to that and to some therapy if and only if her parents would help her go through with the sex change. But something went wrong. The hospital only kept her for 3 days. Beyond admitting ADHD and autism, she was vague about her other issues, like psychosis.

Have you been diagnosed with schizophrenia? No, that's what I just went to the hospital for. So as far as any permanent mental illness diagnosis, you'd never have anything like full-on diagnosed with?

Uh, one was like, uh, they were diagnosed, but I knew what it saw that day. The guy was right in there. I know what he said, but, um, nobody believed me. Yeah, I can't remember. It's something to do with like seeing auditory illusions. Oh, gotcha. Like hallucinations or something like that? Yeah, something like that. It's not quite, you know, schizophrenia.

Okay, so some form of psychosis. Regardless, One topic the detective wanted to clear up was premeditation. You could tell in the interview that Mia was pretty lucid. That has to do with being oriented to person, place, and time. Do they know who they are? Do they know where they are? And do they know what time it is? Mia seemed very oriented and grounded. She knew exactly what she did And why?

If you could go back to yesterday, would you change the outcome with your mom and dad?

I don't think there's any way of changing their minds. And they'll— if they change their mind, which I know they're not because they're so narcissistic, I mean, it would be played out completely differently. So their answer was on them. They had their chance.

When they changed their answer to no, that was pretty much solidified their outcome. Yeah. At least in your mind.

Yeah, and you know, basically it's no, we won't do anything about it. No, we won't apologize even, and all this stuff. So I mean, this was like my one last attempt after so many times, but I tried, right? I mean, I gave them so many chances. All my family, my friends, and I can't even count, but I just did it to myself. I just, you know, destroyed myself by giving him too many chances, and that was enough.

Did you say anything to your mom when you walked in though?

No. I was wondering, and that's what— that was actually a question I had, because if, if you— if that was— so you walk through the door, see your mom, there was no option for her to be able to say, okay, yeah, I'll change my mind?

No, because I, I know If I knew if I hesitated, they went to sleep, I would have done it. And then I'd just regret my life more and more and more, get more angrier, and then it wouldn't be just my mom and dad.

So that decision was made to not have any conversation when you walked through the door?

No, that was the decision to kill. Yeah, my decision was done. Like, this is— I'm done with this crap.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Are you seeing a pattern yet? Mia's parents were the narcissists, not her. She gave them every chance—except the one that mattered most, of course. The one that might have kept her from pulling the trigger on them. The detective asked, "Did your mom have any last words?" The answer was no. Because Mia didn't give her a chance. And the next thing she remembered was her dad walking down the hall towards the living room, asking what was going on. So she took him out too. It was all about Mia and all about what Mia wanted. And she had absolutely no remorse.

And so I just want to, I just, I want to just clarify as far as any remorse that you have.

Well, I, the remorse was I didn't want to I didn't want to become the monster that they made me to be. I really wanted to be good. I really did. But like I said, that was a last resort, a last draw.

She says, "I didn't want to become the monster they made me to be." It goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway. I'm Mike. Hi, nice to meet you. No one can make you a monster. You see, there's this thing called choices. It's part of a greater thing called personal responsibility. Should I sound that out for you libtards out there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, leave it in the comments, try to get me banned, whatever, fuck off. But if you're honest with yourself, about the very obvious pattern we keep seeing over and over again, a pattern of always looking outwards, blaming others whenever anything goes wrong. Mia's only remorseful feelings were still about what others had done to her. They made her into a monster, and she regretted that. Which, by the way, I'd hate to be one of those trans surgeons who now has a a perpetual target on their back because they made non-reversible changes to multiple human beings, many of which are unstable and have a perspective of blaming outwards? Some of them might change their mind in a few years and, well, fuck around and find out, I guess. At another point when Mia was questioned again about whether there was anything else they should know, she turned the whole conversation on its head.

I can tell you what I could have done a lot better, and I knew all of it ahead of time, but it still wouldn't have got better. I could have put a silencer on it. I could have cleaned the rounds. So does that gun allow for a silencer? Yeah, you put like an extended or threaded barrel on it, yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah.

And I could have, you know, like I said, clean the rounds, pick up the rounds. I could tell you how I escaped you guys' gaze all last night. 3 helicopters.

I would be more than happy to have how you dodged our K-9 guy last night in that subdivision by where the golf course is.

Not to state the obvious or anything, but she's laughing. I mean, he's laughing. Sorry, Mia, you don't deserve My respect. Yeah.

So when you passed over that wall last night—

Bush is hopping over fences and then is taking breaks. And then this is endurance. Yeah. And then you got to watch the helicopters in there and all that stuff. So, and they're waiting for backup. So it's taking off the main route. You're taking a bunch of different routes off-road all the time. Sometimes main road just to find where you're at and then off-road again. Hopping through. I am so sorry to all the people and plants probably destroyed on accident, or rocks.

You destroyed their planters and their shrubbery?

Yeah, I was like, I'm sorry, I don't want to be here for a moment more. I don't want anything yours, or, you know, and it's like, I apologize, but, uh, Chops up there won't let me quite yet. Yeah, so— The only reason you guys caught me is because it was daytime and, um, I saw your guys' drones up there, but the people there. Yeah. And I was gonna wait till nighttime and then go to do that fun dance again, and then I get the sportsman in my house to hit me one bullet.

Nothing like having a chuckle with police about hiding from helicopters after you've murdered your parents. What a cunt. Mia said the surgery was her last hope. And that was taken from her. She said she was trying to get one more bullet to use on herself. But in the standoff, she already had options. She was the one holding the gun. She had armed officers around her. She'd already talked about the death penalty and specified wanting a firing squad. But according to the police summary about the negotiation, Mia also said: She could have killed herself and didn't, because then they would have won. Instead, she wanted to take everyone down with her. And when detectives asked if there was anything else they should know, Mia didn't talk about Mom or Dad. She talked about how much better she could have done it. Remorse shows up in the interview, but It never seems to land on her parents. She shows more concern for strangers who passed by, for damage that she may have caused to shrubbery, for the mechanics of the chase.

Anything other than her own family. In her interview, when she started to talk about how she was able to evade the police for so long, so she was not remorseful. She was bragging about how well her plan worked. And that was very telling and something we definitely considered when we discussed whether or not we should seek the death penalty.

Before prosecutors could decide whether to seek death, there were other voices they had to hear. Gail and Joseph Bailey were gone. One son barely escaped. And the rest of the Bailey sons still had to decide what they wanted the state to do with their youngest brother, Colin. The one who had murdered their parents because he wanted to be a woman. 28-year-old Colin Bailey, the youngest of 4 boys, believed he was special. Not special like artistic gifted or mathematically brilliant. Special like, "I was born with a dick and I think I should have a vagina and that's my whole personality." Collin legally changed his name to Mia to match what he thought his gender should be. Mia was nearly homeless, living in storage units, relatives' houses, and hotel rooms in Washington County, Utah. On June 18th, 2024, she intruded into her parents' home in Washington City despite a restraining order against her. She gave no opportunity for discussion. She pulled out her 9mm and opened fire. When she heard noises in the basement, she shot at her brother and sister-in-law through a locked door. She then went back upstairs to finish off her dying mother. Her father was already dead.

So when you walk through, she's sitting in the chair, you fire the first round at her.

I pointed the gun and she moved out from the chair.

Oh, she got up from the chair? Yeah. So then you shot, and then what? Then as far as that, how did you, how did you approach your mom from that point?

I just shot her and then I saw my dad and he came out and I shot her.

So you're basically just moving along and shooting at your mom until she went down and then your dad comes out?

Yeah, I'm gonna go downstairs, shoot one round. Down because I was gonna— they want my brother interfering and, um, go back upstairs and do one more round on Dad just in case Mom gets shot. A bunch. A bunch. I do remember actually coming up just in case because I heard her like bleeding quite a bit, like choking. Okay. I meant to shoot her again.

Do you remember standing up close to her?

Do you remember It was about 6 feet away.

So never any closer than 6 feet? No, for both of them. Okay. And then Dad comes around, what's up, what's going on?

Yep. And then right at his head, and it was instant, he just fell backwards.

Okay, so you shot him, and then so just one round with that? Yeah.

And then I—

then you went downstairs, shot one round down there. Do you remember where you shot that round downstairs?

And middle of that top door, middle The door?

Yeah, a little bit middle, but a little towards the left. Was the door closed? It was, it was locked. Could you hear him inside?

Yeah, he barged the door and stuff, and I just like, fuck him, he's not my main target. So what was the— what was the round for then? Uh, the message. Just a message? More so, yeah.

What would you— what would it be like if you would have hit him?

Well, it's an asshole.

That's just a little glimpse into what the world would be like if we all just decided to shoot everyone who we thought was an asshole. A lot of people would be dead. That's why we have morals. That's why we have self-restraint and laws. Mia was arrested the next morning after an hours-long manhunt and taken to an interview room where she told detectives that the sex change surgery had been her last hope. And losing it was the final straw. But Utah is one of 27 states that employs the death penalty. And the prosecutors still had to decide whether Mia Bailey should live or die. During the interview with detectives, Mia was calm and oriented. She never shed a tear and never showed remorse for ending the lives of her parents. Her brother Corey was there. And lived to tell about it.

So Corey, I know this is fucking hardest thing you've ever done, right? I need you to tell me what happened today. So me and my wife were downstairs watching a show. Okay, my mom was upstairs arguing with my grandma about some family drama or whatever, but apparently it pissed off my brother. He's schizophrenic. He's been going through a lot of issues lately and trans— transitioning, but he's, he's been having a lot more issues lately. But you know what they were talking about? Bits and pieces, arguing about money and getting help, taking care of things. Okay, okay. Apparently he was supposed to do some surgery or something. I have— I haven't been keeping up on what's going on with him too much, but it got canceled and he thinks it was their fault. So, and this is the first time he's been to the house in a minute, or— yeah, we have a protective order against him. Okay. Me and my wife. Okay. Does that include that house? Yes. Okay. It was the house me, my wife, and my kids. Okay. All I know is I heard shooting upstairs and then my mother yelling and screaming, and then I locked the door to our room and I started opening the window and I tried— got her out and got myself out.

By the time we were climbing out the window, he was pounding on my door trying to open it, and then I heard gunshots at my door.

Take a minute to just ask yourself honestly: would your brain work that fast? Because some people run towards action. Some people panic. And then some people panic so hard that they can't make a decision at all. Corey had seconds to figure out what was happening, move, and make the right choice before Mia reached the door. At this point, Mia isn't in custody yet. And the shooting has just occurred less than 30 minutes before. The Bailey family still doesn't even have the worst answer yet. Cory knows what he heard. He knows his parents were upstairs. He knows he and Amanda barely got out. But he doesn't know if his parents are still alive. And neither do his brothers. This is my brother.

He doesn't— I just called him. Does he know where Does your brother who did this know where you live?

Can you please tell me if my parents—

what's going on with my parents?

I'm gonna have a seat, man. I'm gonna have a seat. Mike, here, hold on. Okay.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you.

I don't think— They're deceased, both of them. Okay. This is my brother, Michael. I know, and that's the reason I put him on. I'm gonna let you deal with that, okay? Do you need something right now? I mean, we have a victim's advocate we can call out for you. I don't even know where to begin with this. No, I know. Until he's found, I don't know where to go that will be safe at this point. Cory, how long ago did this happen? Like 20 minutes ago.

For Cory, the shock is still immediate. The fear has barely worn off. And the adrenaline is still in his body. The grief is only beginning to catch up. But the legal process moves a hell of a lot slower. Mia confessed that night. In fact, she detailed exactly what she did and why. But she didn't immediately plead. For more than a year, prosecutors weighed what kind of case this was. Not just whether Mia was guilty, Was this straightforward, or were mitigating factors strong enough to take the death penalty off the table?

In Utah, we as prosecutors have a small time frame to decide whether or not to seek the death penalty. We have to declare it at the outset. Some of the factors that we have to consider are past cases where we sought the death penalty. And the facts of the cases need to be similar. So we looked at the two recent— two most recent cases, which again, we don't have very many murders, so, um, we don't have a lot to compare it to. But the cases that we did seek the death penalty on, they involved like a torture aspect. We felt this case was different in that these were quick, clean shots, especially with Joseph. Who was shot in the head, that there wasn't that, that torturous aspect. On the flip side, we did consider this to be premeditated. It was planned out. She had been practicing, and that, that's an aggravating factor that would incline us to seek the death penalty. A lot of our discussion focused on mental health issues, and ultimately we decided not to seek the death penalty because of one, the mental health issues, and two, the fact that in her interview she said she wanted the death penalty.

And we felt like giving her that, what she wanted, was the wrong thing to do. We shouldn't— we didn't want to reward her decision to murder her parents. In fact, she made a motion later on in court asking the judge to impose the death penalty against the advice of her defense attorney. Um, but that's not her decision to make. That's a prosecuting decision and a judge's decision.

It was still all about Mia. She wanted to skip the part of due process that says the judge and jury of your peers get to decide your fate. Mia already got to decide who lived and died because she didn't get her way. And now she wanted the easy way out. And she wanted it Now. But that's just not how it works. And this is the part Mia never seemed to be able to understand. A diagnosis might explain suffering and instability, but it doesn't turn murder into self-defense. Mia had grievances and a whole list of people she thought had failed her. In Mia's version of the story, she was still the victim. Not her mom, not her dad, not her brothers or her nephews or nieces. Just Mia. That's the ugly logic of narcissistic violence. The pain always points inwards, the blame outwards, and the people who get hurt are treated just like obstacles. Not human beings. Mia Bailey was not just someone with gender dysphoria. She was a person who made narcissistic and violent choices that ended lives. And none of her explanations changed what prosecutors were looking at. Two dead parents, a brother and a sister-in-law who barely escaped.

Target practice. A gun. A confession. And a defendant who talked about death like it was one more thing she could control.

Not going for the death penalty was, of course, controversial, but I do believe based on the factors that we have to abide by, it was the right decision and the mental health issues. One of the challenges as a prosecutor is working with victims and working with victims' families, especially in a situation where one family member has victimized the rest of their family. So the defendant is a family member of the victim, which is what we have here. And Mia had 3 brothers, and all of them wanted different things out of this. So some were seeking more of, like, punitive measures, and others were seeking more mercy and saying that their parents wouldn't want Mia to be punished so harshly for these crimes. So as a prosecutor, we have to take into account the victims and what they want, but we also have a responsibility to the community, and we have to take into account the community as well. So trying to find where to land on the justice versus mercy scale was difficult for our team. Aggravated murder carries a minimum of 25 years per count. So we had 2 aggravated murders, one for Joseph, one for Gail, each with a, a sentence of 25 to life.

One of the decisions that we had to make was whether to pursue those sentences concurrently so that they would run at the same time and Mia could potentially be out of prison in 25 years. Or to ask them to be ran consecutively. So that means stacked on top of each other. So Mia would serve 25 years for the murder of Joseph and then 25 years minimum for the murder of Gail, potentially longer, up to life, meaning that that would be a minimum of 50 years. We chose, and it wasn't necessarily, um, an easy decision, but because we did want to be respectful of the family and of the mental health circumstances, but we chose to pursue consecutive sentences. I do think at the end of the day, we did get the family to see where we were coming from and agree with consecutive sentencing, but it was a challenge to get there. And the reason we went consecutive is because we as an office viewed that as two separate lives, two separate people that needed justice. And so we wanted each victim to be represented.

Mia confessed in the interview room, but it wasn't until a year later, after she passed a competency evaluation, that prosecutors offered a plea. On November 6th, Mia Bailey changed her plea from not guilty to guilty but mentally ill. And on December 19th, she returned to court for sentencing.

Bailey in case 2415-01193, to the charge of aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, you are hereby sentenced to serve 25 years to life. Count 2, aggravated murder, first-degree felony, you're hereby sentenced to serve 25 years to life. Count 3, aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, you're hereby sentenced to sentenced to serve 0 to 5 years, always at the Utah State Prison, to run consecutive, one with the other.

And at sentencing, the focus finally moved away from Mia and her selfishness, her surgery, and her blame, back to the people she left behind—her brothers.

Your Honor, we sit before this court as the children, grandchildren, sister, brother, mother, extended family, and friends. The majority of the remaining family that hasn't spoken today of Joseph Blue Bailey and Gail Bailey, two real people whose lives were defined not by how they died, but how they lived. We also stand here as a family to Mia. That dual reality is not something we choose, but it's something that we must carry honestly. Our father, Joseph Blue Bailey, spent most of his working life as a maritime engineer on tugboats. He was gone for months at a time doing physically demanding and often dangerous work so his family would be stable and secure. He believed in responsibility, not excuses. Our mother, Gail, was a homemaker, but advocacy was her life's work. She spent years navigating schools, doctors, and systems that resisted accommodation particularly when it came to mental illness. She did that work without a title, without pay, and without recognition because her children mattered more than anything else. Long before most people understood what autism or schizophrenia meant, she was fighting school systems, attending IEP meetings, researching, calling, pushing, and insisting that her child not be written off because she was difficult or complicated.

The consequences we are asking for are not rooted in hatred or revenge. They are rooted in responsibility, safety, and the reality that you required structure and treatment to survive. What happened cannot be undone, but pretending you are someone you were never capable of being does not serve justice, and it does not honor our parents.

I cannot imagine what this family has gone through. And to be honest, I can't imagine what someone who legitimately thinks they were born in the wrong body feels like either. Must be awful. Always needing external validation to feel normal. It's gotta be hell. And unfortunately, I have to say this because there's a lot of really ignorant people out there, but just because you consider yourself trans doesn't mean you're a homicidal maniac. I've interacted with plenty of trans people, some even in this industry, that are perfectly normal, nice, and a pleasure to be around. Shout out Annie O'Rion from Who Are These Podcasts. But let's stop pretending Like, wanting to cut your dick off doesn't mean you're not fucked up. Guess what? We're all fucked up. We all have issues. We all have trauma. We're all doing the best we can. You're free to make whatever decisions you want to make yourself okay enough to carry on. And unless you're a complete bag of shit, you'll address people by how they want to be addressed. With the same politeness you would use if you had mispronounced their name. I don't have a problem with any of that.

I don't think anyone I know has a problem with that. The problem comes when you start amplifying your so-called solution, start normalizing it, get every media talking head to perpetuate your dick removal miracle cure in movies, TV, social media, you get dumb celebrities to chant your mantras, and create a social contagion that envelops the most vulnerable. Those with severe psychological issues and literal confused children who already feel out of place, not due to sex, but to that magical awkward age where we all feel like social rejects and are doing just about anything to feel special, to feel normal. Then you start attacking anyone who gets in your way. That's where the problem is. When you stop asking if they'll address you by your pronouns and you start demanding that they do. You start demanding that the collective pool of government money funded by all of our tax dollars pays for it. For you to have your little cure. And then you demonize, threaten, and cancel anyone that says otherwise. That is where the problem is. Mia Bailey wanted the world to validate her identity, her pain, and her version of reality. But the law doesn't exist to affirm delusion, excuse narcissism, or turn grievance into permission to kill.

No name change, no diagnosis, no surgery, and no amount of suffering could change what this was: two parents executed in cold blood, a brother nearly killed, and a family torn apart and forced to carry the cost of Mia's self-obsession. Mia Bailey doesn't deserve my or anyone else's politeness, so I will not address it by its pronouns. And if you're listening and you have a problem with that, well, you can suck my dick. 'cause I still have one. It is not a woman. It is not a man. It is a monster. And it will be about 88 years old when it finally gets out of prison.

Well, I can't wait to see what my redneck buddies think of this one. Us being all Pregnant and cis and whatnot here in Texas. I'm really looking forward to the comments over at swordandscale.com, so head on over there and leave one. Would you mind? Would you? Stay safe, guys.