Washington City, Utah – A police interrogation tape, kept from public view for nearly a year, has now surfaced, revealing the disturbing details and stated motive behind Mia Bailey's execution-style murders of his parents in June 2024. The footage captures Bailey, a biological male born Collin Troy Bailey, calmly recounting to investigators how he killed Joseph and Gail Bailey inside their Utah home and the subsequent hours he spent fleeing law enforcement.
"I went to my parents to do the deed. Kill them…It was spur-of-the-moment. I don’t regret it. I hate them. That was the last straw." — Mia Bailey, Murder Suspect
On June 18, 2024, Washington City police responded to the Bailey residence on East Chinook Drive at 7:02 p.m., where they discovered the bodies of Joseph and Gail Bailey. No weapon or suspect was found at the scene. According to arrest documents, Bailey initiated the attack by shooting his mother, Gail, multiple times. When his father, Joseph, heard the gunshots and approached, Bailey shot him in the head, causing him to drop immediately. Bailey then fired another shot into his father's head to ensure he was dead before returning to his mother, who was still making sounds, and shooting her in the head as well. Bailey also attempted to shoot his brother and sister-in-law, firing through a locked downstairs bedroom door before fleeing the residence.
During the interrogation, Bailey, then 28, articulated his motive without visible emotion, stating, "I went to my parents to do the deed. Kill them…It was spur-of-the-moment. I don’t regret it. I hate them. That was the last straw." When questioned about remorse, Bailey told officers directly, "I would do it again. I hate them." The central reason provided for the killings was his mother’s decision to block a scheduled gender transition surgery. Bailey explained, "Mental health declining, that’s why I needed that surgery. So much for family. I spent years trying to fix that broken a** family. Eventually, I had to get out, either going to kill myself or kill." He emphasized his mother's interference as the breaking point, saying, "Enough is enough, I’m taking someone with me." At the time of the murders, Bailey was reportedly homeless and carried $20,000 in debt from hormone replacement therapy and other transition-related expenses.
After fleeing the scene in a yellow 2014 Kia Soul, Bailey described in the interrogation how he laughed while running through residential yards and hid from police helicopters in the south St. George area. He also told investigators that he had considered standing on a cliff’s edge, contemplating either a police-involved shooting or a fatal fall. "I actually was going to plan on standing over the cliff," he stated. During his flight, Bailey encountered civilians but chose not to harm them, remarking, "Enough dead people for the day, or for life, I should say." Negotiations ultimately led to Bailey laying down his weapon and surrendering to officers.
The confession concluded with Bailey calling for expanded LGBTQ support and advocating for individuals to face less interference when pursuing gender transition procedures. Bailey had legally changed his name and gender from Collin Troy Bailey in Utah’s 5th District Court in 2023, approximately one year before the murders.
In November 2025, more than 17 months after the crime, Bailey entered a plea of “guilty and mentally ill” to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated assault. This was part of a negotiated plea deal, reducing the original 11 felony counts. Defense attorney Ryan Stout informed the court that Bailey had voluntarily checked into a hospital for "paranoia, delusions and hallucinations," was discharged after three days, and committed the murders ten days later. Washington County Attorney Jerry Jaeger pushed for consecutive sentences, stating after the ruling, "Today wasn’t about Mia. It was about Joseph and Gail, two individuals whose lives were cut tragically short." In December 2025, Judge Keith Barnes sentenced Bailey to two consecutive 25-year-to-life terms for the murders, along with an additional zero-to-five-year term for the assault charge, ensuring a minimum of 50 years before any parole consideration. Bailey is currently serving his sentence at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, where he is housed among male inmates in accordance with his biological sex.
