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Brenda Emile and Miller Costello were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on February 3, 2023, after pleading guilty to aggravated murder in the death of their 3-year-old daughter, Angelina Costello, in Ogden, Utah. Emile was then 28 and Costello 30. In July 2017, Emile was 22 and Costello 25. Police and child welfare workers removed two other young children from the couple's home after Angelina's death.

Emergency crews responded to the family's home in the 2800 block of Grant Avenue on July 6, 2017, after a report of an unconscious child who was not breathing. Officers found Angelina dead, wrapped in a pink blanket on the floor of an empty room. She weighed about 13 pounds. Charging documents listed bruising, lacerations, burns, open sores and abrasions on her face, hands, legs, head and neck, and a large burn on her chest. The autopsy found old and new burns on her face, apparently from cigarettes, covered with makeup.

At the February 2018 preliminary hearing, prosecutors said Angelina died of blunt force trauma, burns, starvation and malnutrition. An assistant medical examiner could not single out one injury as the cause, said starvation weakened her ability to survive the others, and ruled the death a homicide. Photos and videos from the parents' phones, dated from July 2016 to May 2017, showed Angelina growing thinner and more bruised while her two siblings stayed healthy. In one, Emile offers her a forkful of eggs and pulls it away. Charging documents described another video showing Costello using an infant's feet to kick Angelina in the face. They also said Emile told Costello she did not want the girl seen by a doctor because she feared a police investigation and losing the children.

Ogden City Police booked Emile and Costello into the Weber County Jail on July 7, 2017, on suspicion of killing their daughter. Charging documents released on July 11, 2017, charged each with aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, and summarized their statements to police. Both pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors filed notice on July 10, 2018, that they would seek the death penalty.

In the police interview, according to charging documents and hearing testimony, Emile said Angelina had been healthy apart from a 2015 C. difficile infection. She said the girl was tired, had diarrhea and would not eat in her last days. Emile called the injuries "minor little dings" and "nothing serious," suggested the bruising came from a fall in a bounce house and the burns from sparklers, and denied ever harming her children. She admitted applying makeup so the injuries "didn't look as bad." In his own interview, played in court on February 9, 2018, Costello said Emile became angry when he tried to feed Angelina and that he knew her health was failing.

Emile pleaded guilty to aggravated murder on August 19, 2022, in a deal dropping the death penalty. Costello pleaded guilty to the same charge on October 5, 2022, also avoiding the death penalty. Just before Emile's sentencing hearing was to begin on October 17, 2022, her attorney said she wanted to withdraw her plea. She later testified that her son had been threatened before she pleaded; prosecutors said the jail calls they reviewed contained no threats. On January 6, 2023, Second District Judge Michael DiReda denied her request, finding her testimony not credible and the evidence for her claim lacking. At sentencing, DiReda said the court had never experienced "this level of depravity, this level of cruelty and this level of evil."

Costello appealed his sentence, arguing that the judge double-counted aggravating factors, gave too little weight to his mitigating evidence and imposed a disproportionate term. On April 3, 2025, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the sentence in State v. Costello, 2025 UT App 44, finding no abuse of discretion.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Miller Costello was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on February 3, 2023, after pleading guilty to aggravated murder in the death of his 3-year-old daughter, Angelina Costello, in Ogden, Utah.

Angelina was found dead in the family's home on July 6, 2017. Costello was 25. He pleaded guilty on October 5, 2022, in a deal that took the death penalty off the table. Her mother, Brenda Emile, was also sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on February 3, 2023.

In a recorded police interview played at a February 2018 hearing, Costello told a detective he knew Angelina's health was failing and that Emile became angry when he tried to feed her. Told he knew the right thing to do, he answered "I knew," and later said, "I didn't do it."

On April 3, 2025, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed his sentence, rejecting his arguments that the judge double-counted aggravating factors, overlooked mitigating evidence and imposed a disproportionate term.

[chris]

Part 2 of 2 of Miller Costello Questioned in Daughter's Death.