A Utah woman will spend decades behind bars for breaking into her parents’ home and fatally shooting them.
According to KUTV, a Salt Lake City judge sentenced Mia Bailey to two consecutive 25-year sentences for the deaths of her parents, Joseph and Gail Bailey, and up to five years for assault.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Bailey shot and killed the couple at their home in Washington City on June 18, 2024. She also shot through her brother’s locked bedroom door, but he managed to contact 911.
Police found Bailey walking near Horseman Park and when approached, she took a gun and held it to her head while walking away. Police lost track of her in a “thick brush in the wash/ravine.” They located her the following morning near St. George’s Latter Day Saints temple.
Officers subsequently took her into custody, with Bailey stating, “I would do it again. I hate them.”
According to an arrest affidavit, a neighbor’s security camera captured Bailey’s arrival and departure in a yellow Kia Soul at her parents’ residence. She later told police vivid detail of the murders, saying “that she entered the house and almost immediately began shooting at her mother.”
“Mia stated that her father … heard the shots and began walking toward her,” the affidavit read. “Mia stated that she shot her father in the head and that he immediately dropped to the ground.”
Court documents indicated that Bailey shot her father two times in the head and shot her mother four times. Police said Bailey admitted she shot her father the second time to “to make sure that he was dead,” according to KSL.
“While doing that, Mia … walked back over to her mother and shot her in the head to make sure that she was dead.”
Bailey later agreed to a plea deal, in which she admitted to both aggravated murder and aggravated assault. FOX 13 Salt Lake City reports she also acknowledged she was mentally ill, which is not the same as an insanity plea.
Bailey stayed quiet during sentencing, while her attorney read a statement, indicating that she had since changed her mind about the killings, and now felt remorse.
“It makes me want to die, because I can’t live with myself,” the statement read. “I am sincerely, deeply sorry to my family that I committed this atrocity.”
One of Bailey’s brothers, Dustin Bailey, told the court that the family supported the sentencing, but highlighted that the defendant had struggled with mental health issues and had not been “stable, safe or adequately supported.”
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[Feature Photo: Mia Bailey/Washington County PD]
