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.
Nichole Lea Scott, 50, entered a guilty plea to the first-degree murder of Gavin Peterson, 12, who died of sepsis, malnutrition, and other illnesses in July 2024. Scott initially pleaded not guilty, then changed her plea after the boy’s father, Shane Peterson, 47, and brother, Tyler Peterson, 22, entered guilty pleas in connection to Gavin Peterson’s death.
Scott’s adjudicated abuse of her stepson was laid out by prosecutors in court on Monday as she awaited her sentence from 2nd District Court Judge Camille Neider. KSL, a local NBC affiliate that was in the courtroom, reported that Neider told the defendant, “Sometimes people sit in that chair and I want to, as they go off to prison, say, ‘Do your best, because at some point you’re going to get out’ — a glimmer of hope, a ray of hope, something for you to hold onto as you’ll be going to prison. Truthfully, I am not going to be that ray of hope for you. I don’t know that you will get out, and frankly, I hope that you don’t get out.”
The judge sentenced Scott to up to a lifetime behind bars.
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While Scott avoided a trial by taking a plea, she still sat while prosecutors described the horrific treatment of Gavin Peterson at the hands of his own family members, specifically his stepmother. According to prosecutors, the boy was kept in a bare room with no carpeting and forced to stay in a spot where “blue tape mark[ed] out a box of less than three feet long and wide.” He was watched by cameras constantly while in the room and was forced to wear a diaper since he wasn’t allowed out of 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!”
Prosecutors said that at the time those messages were sent, Gavin Peterson was 11 years old. He was taken out of school following that incident, and less than a month later, “Nichole and Shane remov[ed] Gavin from the public eye for the last time.” School personnel had begun reported signs of abuse to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services — so the parents apparently made sure school personnel could no longer see him.
On the day Gavin Peterson died, July 9, 2024, prosecutors said that Scott “lied to the police regarding the events of that day,” and delayed getting help for the boy after finding him unresponsive. Court documents obtained by local Fox affiliate KSTU stated that when she called 911, she reported that her stepson had “been ill for several days, experiencing vomiting, and was now not breathing.”
In court, prosecutors said that upon finding Gavin Peterson in such a dire state, Scott first texted Shane Peterson to tell him his son wasn’t breathing. She also spoke on the phone with him for more than 11 minutes. Before calling 911, she and Tyler Peterson “hid surveillance cameras, removed other items from the room and removed and replaced the door knob in an effort to mislead the police and hide the abuse and isolation that had been happening in the home.”
Twenty-one minutes transpired between Scott finding Gavin Peterson and her calling 911.
The boy’s cause of death was reported to be complications from sepsis, with contributing factors including pneumonia, dehydration and untreated infections. His body had also shown signs of starvation and several other physical wounds.
Neider sentenced Scott to 15 years to life in prison for first-degree murder, two sentences of one to 15 years for second-degree aggravated child abuse charges, two sentences of one to 15 years for second-degree obstruction of justice charges, up to five years for third-degree child endangerment, and up to 364 days for the possession or use of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.
As part of the plea agreement, the sentences are to be served consecutively.
