Woman who kept stepson in a 'prolonged death camp' sentenced
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Background: News footage of Nichole Lea Scott in the courtroom for sentencing (KSL). Inset: Gavin Peterson (GoFundMe).

A Utah woman who pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of her 12-year-old stepson faced a judge to hear her sentence.

Nicole Lea Scott, age 50, admitted guilt to the first-degree murder charge of 12-year-old Gavin Peterson, who succumbed to sepsis, malnutrition, and additional ailments in July 2024. Initially claiming innocence, Scott altered her plea following guilty admissions by the boy’s father, Shane Peterson, 47, and older brother, Tyler Peterson, 22, regarding Gavin’s death.

Scott’s authorized mistreatment of her stepson was outlined by prosecutors during a court session on Monday as she anticipated sentencing from 2nd District Court Judge Camille Neider. According to coverage by KSL, an NBC affiliate present in the courtroom, Neider addressed Scott by saying, “There are times people sit in that chair and I wish to, as they proceed to prison, express, ‘Do your best, at some point, you might be released’ — a semblance of hope, a flicker of possibility for them to cling to while incarcerated. Truthfully, I cannot be that glimmer of hope for you. I am uncertain if you will ever get out, and candidly, I hope that you do not.”

The judge sentenced Scott to up to a lifetime behind bars.

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Although Scott evaded a trial through her plea deal, she remained while prosecutors recounted the gruesome abuse Gavin Peterson suffered at the hands of his family, particularly from his stepmother. Prosecutors revealed that Gavin was confined to a stark room with no carpet, confined to a small area demarcated by blue tape measuring less than three feet each way. Surveillance cameras monitored him constantly, and he was required to wear a diaper due to restrictions on leaving the room.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported on charging documents that described some of the security footage of Gavin Peterson, including him “curling up on the carpetless floor” without any bedding or blankets, often with a “saturated diaper.” He was fed 1/2 a glass of water a day with a piece of bread with mustard, if he was fed at all.

In the memorandum read aloud in court, prosecutors said Gavin Peterson was subjected to “nothing short of a prolonged death camp” while in the home.

Prosecutors said that while care and love were showed towards other children in the home, “The only images or videos of Gavin were of him locked in the cell, laying in a dirty diaper, covered in feces and wounds. The only text messages regarding Gavin were of how much [Scott] hated him, how terrible he was, and the torture she and the codefendants enjoyed putting him through.”

One such text was read in court. In a text message Scott exchanged with Shane Peterson in May 2023 after she was told by Gavin Peterson’s school nurse that his fingers were showing symptoms of an infection, Scott texted the boy’s father, “He does this [expletive] for attention and I [expletive] hate it and it makes me hate him more and more!”

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