Estranged wife, mother arrested in alleged plot to lure Californian to Utah to kill him

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

AMERICAN FORK — The estranged wife of a man shot and killed inside an American Fork home in July, along with the wife's mother, are now both being accused of plotting his death.

On July 12, Matthew Clark Restelli, 42, was shot and killed just minutes after he drove from California to Utah and arrived at the home of his estranged wife's mother.

Kevin Stanley Ellis, 33 — Restelli's brother-in-law — shot and killed Restelli, claiming it was in self-defense because Restelli had a knife, according to charging documents. But police determined Ellis' story did not add up and Ellis was arrested and later charged with murder.

Now, American Fork police say, after "intensive, time-consuming and meticulous investigation," detectives believe not only was the knife planted in Restelli's hand, but his estranged wife and her mother conspired with Ellis to lure Restelli to Utah for the purpose of killing him.

On Tuesday, Kathryn Restelli, 36, and her mother, Tracey Grist, 59, were each arrested for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, obstruction of justice and two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child.

Police say their suspicions were raised when they learned about a two-minute time gap from when Matthew Restelli was shot and when 911 was called, according to a police booking affidavit. Investigators started going through Kathryn Restelli and Tracey Grist's electronic devices and reviewed their messages as well as internet search histories.

Kathryn Restelli and her husband had been having marital problems, so she and her two young children left California about three weeks prior to the shooting to stay with her mother in American Fork, according to investigators.

After being in Utah for several weeks, Matthew Restelli wanted his wife to get a rental car and return to California, the affidavit states. But after convincing him she couldn't rent a car, he drove to Utah instead.

"Kate talked him into coming out," was one of the messages that police say they recovered.

Restelli, her mother and Ellis then monitored Matthew Restelli's trip using an Airtag in his vehicle. After shooting Restelli, Ellis told police Restelli had shown up at the residence unannounced and holding a knife, the affidavit states.

However, Kathryn Restelli communicated with him multiple times as he was driving, according to the affidavit, as well as the group monitoring the progress of his drive.

After a detective looked at the initial crime scene photo, which showed a knife in Restelli's hand, "it did not appear that Matthew was holding this knife when he was shot. It appeared that the knife was possibly placed into Matthew's right hand after he had been shot dead," the affidavit alleges.

Furthermore, there was no record of Restelli purchasing a knife like the one found at the scene, police say, "but Kathryn's mother had access to one in April."

According to the affidavit, Kathryn Restelli told a friend that after her estranged husband arrived, Ellis "went to the garage and got the firearm from a safe, when he returned to the front door/living room area where he then shot Matthew."

But police say the story doesn't add up with the timeline of events.

"If Matthew barged into the residence holding a knife, while the shooter ran to the garage to collect a firearm from a safe, then Matthew would have been able to get further into the residence rather than where he was found deceased," the affidavit states.

A day after her estranged husband was killed, Kathryn Restelli called a friend who offered her condolences, to which Restelli replied, "It's OK, I'm happy," police noted in the arrest report.

Investigators also learned that prior to the shooting, Grist "researched Utah break-in shootings" as well as the case of Donna Adelson, a 74-year-old Florida woman who allegedly helped arrange the murder of her son-in-law in 2014.

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Pat Reavy

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.