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| Tracey Grist Now: Where Is Matt Restelli’s Mother-in-Law Today? |
Tracey Grist is now serving a 15-years-to-life prison sentence in Utah after being convicted over the 2024 killing of her son-in-law, Matthew “Matt” Restelli. The case, explored in NBC’s Dateline: The Family Plot, centres on a family dispute that escalated into a murder investigation after Matt travelled from California to American Fork, Utah, expecting to collect his estranged wife, Kathryn “Kate” Restelli, and their two children.
The journey ended with Matt being shot inside the home of his mother-in-law, rather than with the family reunion he had apparently expected. Investigators later connected Tracey, her daughter Kathryn and her son Kevin Ellis to the events surrounding the killing, with prosecutors ultimately portraying Tracey as the person who orchestrated the plan.
According to the case presented in court, Tracey had been aware of the problems in her daughter's marriage and had encouraged Kathryn to stay with her in Utah. A text exchange in January 2024 became particularly significant to investigators, after Tracey reportedly told her daughter she would drive to California and “strangle him” following another argument between Kathryn and Matt. What might initially have sounded like an angry remark became considerably more serious once detectives began piecing together what happened months later.
Investigators also found that Tracey had searched online for Utah gun laws and divorce procedures on June 16, 2024. Prosecutors argued that these searches, combined with other evidence, pointed towards preparation rather than a spontaneous confrontation. Tracey was also accused of involving Kevin in the plan.
On July 12, 2024, Kathryn brought Matt to Tracey's American Fork home after he was led to believe that his wife and children were ready to return to California with him. Prosecutors alleged that Tracey had prepared the house before his arrival, including covering furniture. Tracey later maintained that she had simply been cleaning because the house was in poor condition. It was, to put it mildly, a rather unfortunate detail for the defence to have to explain.
Matt was shot after arriving at the property. Investigators subsequently concluded that a knife had been placed in Matt's right hand, despite it being his non-dominant hand, in an apparent attempt to support the claim that Kevin had shot him in self-defence. Prosecutors attributed the staging of the scene to Tracey and Kevin.
Tracey did not immediately call 911. According to the case details, roughly eight minutes passed after the shooting before she contacted emergency services, shortly after a neighbour had already reported the incident. As investigators continued examining the scene and the family's communications, Tracey's alleged role became a central part of the investigation.
She was eventually arrested and charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, obstruction of justice and domestic violence in the presence of a child. Tracey pleaded not guilty and maintained that she had not participated in a plan to kill her son-in-law.
The case went to trial in April 2026, and one of the prosecution's most significant witnesses was Tracey's own daughter. Kathryn testified against her mother as part of a plea agreement, telling the court that Tracey had encouraged her to proceed with the plan even after she began having doubts about killing Matt.
The prosecution also returned to the condition of Tracey's house before the shooting, arguing that the furniture coverings were evidence she knew something was about to happen. The defence offered a very different explanation, maintaining that Tracey had merely become involved in covering up Kevin's actions rather than planning Matt's death herself.
Tracey also took the stand and denied involvement in the murder plot. She told jurors that she had been cleaning her home because it was “a disaster”. The competing accounts left the jury to determine whether Tracey was an organiser of the killing or, as the defence maintained, someone who became involved after the fact.
On April 21, 2026, after more than five hours of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict. Tracey Grist was found guilty of first-degree felony murder, second-degree conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree obstruction of justice and two counts of third-degree domestic violence in the presence of a child.
Her sentencing followed on June 10, 2026. Matt's mother, Diane, and his younger brother, Jonathan, addressed the court and asked for the maximum sentence. Jonathan told Tracey that her actions had taken away countless family moments from Matt's children, while Diane spoke about the lasting effect of Matt's death on the family.
The judge ultimately imposed a 15-years-to-life sentence for the murder conviction, alongside one-to-15-year terms for conspiracy and obstruction of justice and up to five years for each of the two domestic-violence convictions. The judge described the case as one of the most senseless crimes before the court and said Tracey's actions had led to the death of a man who believed he was travelling to Utah to collect his wife and children.
As of 2026, Tracey Grist, 61, is incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City. Her whereabouts are therefore no longer a mystery of the sort usually associated with a Dateline episode: she is serving the sentence handed down after her conviction. The case leaves behind a particularly complicated family story, with a marriage breakdown, competing accounts from relatives and a murder that ultimately resulted in multiple family members becoming part of the criminal proceedings.
What makes the case especially striking is how an apparently private family dispute developed into a criminal investigation involving preparation, conflicting testimony and an allegedly staged crime scene.
The prosecution's version portrayed Tracey as the central organiser, while the defence attempted to separate her from the killing itself. The jury ultimately accepted the prosecution's case, but the contrasting accounts show just how much of the trial turned on who knew what, when they knew it and what they did afterwards.
My take is that the most unsettling part of the story isn't simply the murder conviction itself, but the way an already fractured family became increasingly tangled in the aftermath. The allegations described in court suggest a situation where personal arguments stopped being ordinary family drama and became something far more serious.
The furniture-covering detail, the alleged knife staging and the conflicting explanations about what happened inside the house make the case particularly difficult to digest. There is also something grimly ironic about Matt travelling to Utah believing he was collecting his family, only for that journey to become the event that permanently changed both families.
Whatever viewers make of the competing testimony, the verdict and sentence provide a clear legal conclusion. Do you think the trial evidence changed how you viewed Tracey's role in the case? Share your thoughts on the case and the Dateline episode in the comments.