A Utah courtroom fell silent Friday as Mia Bailey was sentenced to what could amount to the rest of her life behind bars for killing her own parents inside the family home.
On Dec. 19, Bailey, 30, received two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life for the murders of her parents, Joseph Bailey, 70, and Gail Bailey, 69, along with up to five additional years for aggravated assault. The sentencing followed her guilty plea last month, in which she admitted she intentionally shot and killed both victims.
Prosecutors said the violence unfolded on June 18, 2024, after Bailey broke into her parents’ Washington City home. Once inside, she allegedly shot her father twice in the head and her mother four times, killing them both. The attack did not stop there.
Authorities said Bailey then moved downstairs and fired shots through her brother’s bedroom door while he and his wife were barricaded inside. According to police, Bailey later told investigators she did not care if the gunfire killed her brother.
She was arrested the following day and originally charged with 11 felony counts, including the double homicide and attempted murder.
In court, defense attorney Ryan Stout urged the judge to impose concurrent sentences rather than consecutive ones, arguing that Bailey had no prior criminal record and suffered from severe mental illness. He told the court she had been diagnosed with autism, schizophrenia, psychosis, ADHD, OCD and possibly bipolar disorder, conditions he said left her functioning “at the cognitive and emotional level of a young child.”
Bailey’s brother Dustin also addressed the court, acknowledging her mental illness while offering his own view of what contributed to the tragedy. He said powerful medications and hormones prescribed during her transgender treatment intensified her instability, though he stressed his family’s support for LGBTQ rights.
“This has nothing to do with identity,” Dustin said, according to reports. “Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper safeguards is reckless.”
Bailey spoke briefly before sentencing, telling the court she was “sincerely, deeply sorry” and that she could not live with what she had done.
While the judge imposed the maximum structure allowed under the plea agreement, the ultimate length of Bailey’s incarceration will be decided later by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, which will determine if she is ever released.
For now, the sentence closes the criminal case but leaves behind a permanent void: two parents dead, a family shattered, and a daughter facing a lifetime defined by one night of irreversible violence.
