Sword and Scale - Episode 363

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

A quiet evening in Washington City, Utah, ended in gunfire inside the Bailey family home. Gail and Joseph Bailey were executed. Their son and daughter-in-law barely escaped through a window. What followed was a sprawling manhunt through the desert edge of St. George with drones, SWAT teams, and a suspect hiding in the weeds with a gun to her head.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. All in a lot of us, 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 in the last couple of 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. It's just not a good idea. But 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 Sort and Scale ever, because we're kind of in a transitional period. and a lot of the audiences 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 going to do that.

I don't think I can do that. This show is now firmly part of me. And we're just going to keep making it better. Police move through a developing utility. talk complex and full tactical gear. Their rifles up in place. Shields forward.

Boots scraping over dirt and construction dust. Their eyes dark 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 a 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 two people. 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 officer. This is 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 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. Okay. That's going to be us, L.P. She's 30 yards out.

From here? Yeah, on the ground, under a brum. 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 loaded 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. Maybe you think you can try to start 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 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. 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 his 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 to the emergency?

My neighbors just came running down the road yelling call 911 for gunshots. And there's a yellow Kia hole that just drove up 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. Go in the house.

They just drove up the street. Okay. I'm not even sure where my neighbors went. They just came screaming, yelling at, and they... Yeah, how are we getting other calls about it as well? I don't know what happened. He tried to come in our front door, but it was wrong. Can you hear me?

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. 9-1-1. What is the address of the emergency? I need an officer to 1039 East Chitton Drive. There's gunshots. Okay, is somebody shot?

I think so. Do 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. 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 what's you in danger. Did something shot at your house?

Yes. I think my parents were 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. Oh, 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. Corey 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. 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 Senagra 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. 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 p.m. I was a brand new prosecutor. I've been working about six or eight months. And two of our other attorneys were also there. And one of them had the on-call phone and came down and said, 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 three 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 the TV. And there's two dead bodies in.

the living room area. 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 bit of blood coming from his head. What I remember most is his glasses were split into.

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 18, 24 in Washington City, Utah. Investigators are on a manhunt for 28-year-old Mia Bailey. On the evening of June 18, 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 for, follow them through the night, from the quiet blood-stained 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 about maybe like a week and a half ago. Okay.

And she just seemed nice. I asked her. She had Facebook. She said yes. And then that's kind of 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.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend or? were you just starting dating? Yeah, just kind of starting. Okay, but nothing was official? No. Okay.

Well, although she put on her Facebook that he was her boyfriend. Yeah, that surprised me. And I said to court, how did you feel about that? You know, because she hasn't even knowing her. So she made that decision on her own? Okay. Yeah, I just got out of a relationship before, and that was hard broken 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 started to get to know her a couple weeks ago. 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 as far as where she is, I really don't know. He didn't view her depression or even her fast paces as a red flag, though.

They were starting out as friends and even had plans that evening. When was the last time he talked to her? Yesterday. Well, this morning when I texted her, we were going to arrange, like, you know, like a game date night. and that's she said she had to get her her stuff and I guess her family's home

and that's the last I heard from her she's like I said be sure to tell me what other games you have like war games and she said she has to grab it you know there and then I said bring your A game

and it would 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's 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 to a few different places. She said she tried Jewel Plaza and then she said it fell through. And then I don't know why they denied her, but that's all I know.

Okay. Do you know of any other friends she has? If 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 I've seen her with. She seems... Do you know who her cousin is? Yeah. Jay.

Jay? Jay, Y. And then... 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 John Doe with Washington City Police Department. Yeah. Hey, sir, you got a second I can talk with you? Put your bell on, yeah, go ahead.

I'm here on scene trying to gather some more information. Okay. And so I just want to kind of talk with you real quick and see when the last time you talked with Mia was. 547. 547. That was almost exactly one hour before Mia shot her parents. surely aunt jenny would have some clues 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 mea because she'd been at the house earlier to pick up our things out of the garage because of the moment of a story area out of your house or this house up here from your house or this house here no from my house she came to our house

in I mean, 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 going to come by and get my things. And 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, 430. 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 acting super crazy or upset. Anything that would make you concern that something like this was going to happen? No. Rick said in the garage, she seemed perfectly normal. Thank you, calm. I mean, no idea where she got it done, win.

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 three 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. You say Mia's been hearing voices? I don't know. A couple weeks ago, she was.

and I went into the hospital to get her med sticks around. 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 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 fun.

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 had the old St. George Temple. We just finished some ceilings and we were coming down to the first floor. And when you enter that temple before you go 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, Temple. Okay. And I was behind her. And when I first saw her, I thought, oh, my gosh. She had this skirt on that was about, like, four 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 got my attention you know 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 if some of these daughter you want them to know you know they're different but I had a ranch for 30 years and she turned around and she said why thank you that I'm older now and I can't wear what we used to call and I said oh it was a kind of trivial conversation that people forget five 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. She said, well, you just have to learn a certain way. In my mind, I thought, this is a guy. Oh. Right then I knew. With hairy legs and guy's legs. And, you know, she was taller than me. I'm like a low board.

Okay. And 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,

which I thought was a girl, on it was Tuesday around 3 p.m. I'll also tell me you should remain anonymous because you don't ever want that guy to have your name.

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 has 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 that it kind of what led up to it. Well, let's see.

A whole bunch of this backlash of the community. I can't go anywhere. I can't go and walks without people saying a trap to a heartbreaker or to a bunch of nasty other stuff. Mia, born Colin 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. Being homeless after my family's abuse several times. Being 20 grand and dad. What does that come from? Well, I come from our alums

because my brother's this comes from credit cards It's expensive to be a single woman and trans the top of that. So what kind of... I'm in, like I said, I'm not... I don't know all the insin ounces, but what kind of expenses do you have doing that?

Well, it's like $512 a month just doing the trial 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 cleaver. 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 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 the stress 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 may be 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 in 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 pre-existing 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 for my social worker from the hospital. And like apparently kind of broken HIPAA in a way. They share the details of the hospital,

but the worst one was all was my mother contacting them to say no one in the surgery. And, well... So your mother contacted the hospital? Yep. And so I know I can probably appeal it with, just if that, but she wouldn't to say I was very furious

and I asked her, I don't want to hear, explain, you know, the excuses. I want to hear, like, you know, my explanation and I'm sorry and I'll do something about it. Anyway, 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, culpable. 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 threat. 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 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 transition. And she also struggled with 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 one,

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'd try 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 finish 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 at this case, do not stall their unhappiness. You see, the unhappiness is usually presented

as suicidality, depression, anxiety, sometimes drug addiction, sometimes suicidal thoughts. So we realize that among the majority of people who are seeking the train's 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 trouble of you. What is the source of your depression, society, 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 ease, overrun symptoms of self-harm, suicidality, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and sometimes the drop damage. 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, and 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? That's a political question. That's a simple manner question. If I think 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 in my sense of reality that I'm a they, even though you who don't have gendered dysphoria or trans identity, you have learned all the days in your life that day is a plural and this is a see you or the person and that's the wrong language. 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 in the common person.

And so this is the price that when you pays for a trans or either a gender diverse person. we can use that price. The price that these people have to pay is that their sense of reality is different than a 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 two 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 three 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 was going to the hospital for.

So it's worth of any mental illness diagnosis, you'd never have anything that, like, full-on diagnosed with? One was, like, they were diagnosed, but I knew what it saw that day. The guy was running there. I know what he said. Okay. But nobody believed me. Yeah. I can't remember.

It's something to do with, like, seeing auditory illusions. Oh, gotcha. Life 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 to change 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 know, that was pretty much solidified their outcome. Yeah. At least in your mind. Yeah. And, you know, basically is 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. I mean, I gave him so many chances. All my family and my friends and I came to count, and I just did it to myself. I just, you know, destroyed myself by giving them too many chances and that was enough.

Did you say anything to your mom when you walked in for? No. I was wondering. That was actually a question I had because if you, if that was, so you walk through the doors to your mom, there was no option for her to be able to say, okay, yeah, I'll change my mind. No, because I knew if I knew if I hesitated,

if we went to sleep, I would have done it. And then I just regret my life more and more and more, and 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 to the door? No, the decision was made to kill. Yeah.

Yeah, my decision was done. And, like, this is dumbed down through this crop. 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, become the monster that they made me to be. I really wanted to be good. They really did. But like I said, that was the 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, because 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, Lib Tards 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 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 had a time, but so it got better. I could have put a silencer on it I could have cleaned the rounds So does that gun on the love for a silencer Yeah you put it in a stinted Our threaded barrel on it yeah

Oh really? Yeah And I could have you know Like I said clean the rounds And pick up the rounds I could tell you how I Skip you guys this Gaze all last night Three helicopters

I would be more than happy to How you How you dodged arcaneite 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 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 out the main route. You're taking a bunch of different routes. Off-road all the time.

Sometimes main road. Just take fun where you're out and then off-road again and hopping through. I am so sorry to all the people on plants probably destroyed an accident or rocks. You destroy their planters and they're shrubbery. Yeah. I was like, I'm sorry.

I don't want to be here from my. a little bit more. I don't want anything yours or, you know, it's like, I apologize, but drops up there won't leave me quite yet. And the other reason you guys caught me is because it was daytime and I saw your guys' drums up there, but the people there. And I was going to wait till nighttime and then go to do that fun dance again. And then I get to sports in my house. that gave 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 had 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 four boys, believed he was special.

Not special like artistically 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. Colin legally changed his name to Mia to match what he thought his gender should be. Mia was newly homeless, living in storage units, relatives' houses, and hotel rooms in Washington County, Utah. On June 18, 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 fired the first round at her. Her point of gun and she moved up from the chair. Yeah.

So then you shot, and then as far as that, 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 your mom until she went down and then your dad comes out. Yeah, and then I go downstairs shoot one around and then go down because I was going to do my brother interfering and go back upstairs and do one more around on dad just in case.

Mom gets shot. A bunch, that's. A bunch. I do remember actually coming up just in case because you heard her. I heard her like reading quite a bit, like choking. Okay. I meant to shoot her again. Okay.

Do you remember standing up close to her? Do you remember? It was about six feet away. So I'm never any closer than six feet? No, about them. Okay, and then dad comes around, what's going on? Yep, and I ran his head and it was instant. He just fell backwards.

Okay, so you shot him and then, so just went around with that? Yeah, and then I... Then you went downstairs. shot one room down there do you remember where you shot that room downstairs and middle left top door middle of the door yeah a little bit more but lower towards the left okay was the door closed it was it was locked could you hear could you hear him inside yeah he barged the door stuff and I just like fuck him I need he's not my main target so what was there what was the round for then uh a message just a message more so yeah

What would it be like if you would have hit it? Well, it's an asshole. That's just a little glimpse. 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 hour's 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, watched the 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 transitioning. but he's been having a lot more issues lately but you know what they were talking about

just fits in pieces arguing about money and getting help taking care of things okay okay apparently he was supposed to do some surgery or something I haven't been keeping up on what's going on with him too much it got canceled and he thinks it was their fault And this is the first time he's been to the house in a minute? Yeah, we have a protective order against him. Okay. Me and my wife. Okay.

Is that and through that house? Yes. Okay. Because the house, me, my wife, and my kids. Okay. All in on and on, as 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. 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. 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. Corey 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 he lives? Can you please go in my parents?

What's going on my parents? I want to have a seat, man. Wouldn't have a seat. Mike. Here, hold on. Okay. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. I don't.

They're deceased. Okay. This is my brother. I know, and that's the reason I put him on you. I'm going to 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. Corey, how long to go to this happen? Like 20 minutes ago. For Corey, 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 most recent cases, which, again, we don't have very many murders, so 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'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 to 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 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, 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, her 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 three 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 of 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 two aggravated murders, one for Joseph, one for Gail, each with 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 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 to 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. It's Bailey in case 2415-0-1193 to the charge of aggravated murder. A first-degree felony or hereby sentence to serve 25 years to live. Count two, aggravated murder, first-degree felony, or hereby sentence to serve 25 years to life.

Count three aggravated assault, a third degree felony. You were hereby sentenced to serve. Zero to five 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 is 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're 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. I'm always needing external validation to feel normal. It's got to 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 or Ryan 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 mispronounce 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. You 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 because 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 buddy is think of this one. Us being all ignorant and sys and whatnot here in Texas. I'm really looking forward to the comments over at sorting scale.com, so head on over there and leave one. Would you mind? Would you? Stay safe, guys.