WASHINGTON COUNTY, Utah – A 30-year-old woman who broke into her parents' home and fatally shot them both before firing through her brother's locked bedroom door will spend at least half a century in prison, a Utah judge ruled on Dec. 19, 2025.
Mia Bailey received two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life for the murders of her father, Joseph Bailey, 70, and mother, Gail Bailey, 69, along with an additional consecutive term of up to five years for aggravated assault, according to the Washington County Attorney's Office.
The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will ultimately determine the exact length of her incarceration following the sentencing.
The attack unfolded on June 18, 2024, when Bailey forcibly entered her parents' Washington City residence and opened fire.
Bailey shot her father twice in the head and her mother four times. She then proceeded to the lower level of the home, where her brother and his wife had locked themselves inside a bedroom for safety, and fired a round through the door.
She was arrested on June 19, 2024, the day after the shootings, when she surrendered to police near the St. George Temple.
Before she surrendered, officers had located her in the area of Horseman Park and River Road in St. George, at which point she reportedly pulled a firearm from her waistband, held it to her own head, and walked away from law enforcement.
This led to a temporary loss of visual contact, but she was later sighted and apprehended as seen in the bodycam footage below.
During interviews with detectives, Bailey admitted to entering her parents' home with the intent to kill them because they wanted to sabotage her transgender transition.
She also added that she returned upstairs after the initial shooting to confirm they were deceased, expressing no remorse for her actions.
In November 2025, approximately 17 months after the crime, Bailey entered a plea of "guilty and mentally ill" to two counts of aggravated murder, first-degree felonies, and one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, as part of a negotiated plea agreement.
She had initially faced 11 felony counts, including three counts of aggravated murder, seven counts of felony discharge of a firearm, and one count of aggravated burglary.
During the sentencing hearing before 5th District Judge Keith Barnes, family members delivered emotional statements that reflected the complex and painful nature of the case.
Bailey's brother, Dustin Bailey, spoke at length about his parents' character. He described them as hard-working and dedicated individuals who remained persistent in their support of Mia despite her significant mental health challenges, which included severe autism and schizophrenia.
Dustin Bailey attributed the killings to what he characterized as years of escalating instability and repeated failures within systems intended to provide mental health care.
He specifically raised concerns about medications prescribed during his sister's transgender treatment, claiming that powerful hormones acted as an accelerant to her psychiatric crisis.
He emphasized that the family's position supported LGBTQ rights fully and that his comments were not about identity but about what he considered reckless prescribing practices without adequate psychiatric safeguards.
Bailey had filed a name and gender change petition in Utah's 5th District Court in 2023, changing her name from Collin Troy Bailey.
Another brother, Corey Bailey, addressed the court as well, expressing that no true justice could emerge from the situation given that the family had lost both parents and, in many ways, a sibling as well.
He described the outcome as fundamentally unfair for the entire family regardless of the sentence imposed.
The defense, led by attorney Ryan Stout, argued for concurrent rather than consecutive sentences, pointing to Bailey's absence of any prior criminal history and the severity of her documented mental illness.
Stout noted that Bailey had voluntarily committed herself to a hospital approximately 10 days before the killings, reporting paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations, but was discharged after only three days.
He quoted from victim impact statements that described Bailey's actions as stemming from severe psychiatric dysfunction rather than calculated evil.
Bailey herself issued a statement read by her attorney during the proceedings in which she expressed deep regret and sorrow for her family, as reported by PEOPLE.
She acknowledged that she was not in a stable mindset at the time of the killings and stated that she could not live with herself following the atrocity she had committed.
Judge Barnes, before handing down the sentence, read a statement from a granddaughter of Joseph and Gail Bailey who recalled watching sunsets with her grandparents and feeling their love through the quality time they shared.
The judge described the ripple effect of Bailey's actions as reverberating through many lives and characterized the acts committed that day as very chilling.
Washington County Attorney Eric Jaeger acknowledged the difficulty of the case for his office and for the Bailey family personally.
Following the sentencing, Jaeger stated that the day was not about the defendant but about Joseph and Gail Bailey, two individuals whose lives were cut tragically short, and expressed relief and gratitude for the judge's ruling that consecutive sentences be imposed.
For more true crime stories and updates on other high-profile cases sign up for our free newsletter here.
Comments
Post a Comment