Devol, 31, avoided trial and pleaded guilty last month to two counts of second-degree murder in the February 2022 shooting deaths of Mitchell, 32, and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Bryan “Todd” Gray, near Franktown.

Devol also pleaded guilty to one count of felony animal cruelty. 

Other charges, including two counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, were dismissed. 

Mitchell started recording at dinner and for some reason never turned it off.

“She hadn’t stopped the recording yet so the entirety of the murder, him staging and taunting the bodies, him beating the dog with a hammer was all recorded,” said Gray’s sister, Lindsey Bingel.

She said that the recording of the dinner conversation was jovial, but that at some point Devol left the house to get his gun. According to the arrest affidavit, Mitchell was shot in the stomach and was found with a large pry bar lying across her body. Gray had a wound to his head and a plate of food on top of him, “as if he was getting ready to eat,” the arrest document said. 

Gray was the father of two young girls. 

18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said that Jessica may have started recording because “she sensed something was wrong.” Said Kellner, “When no eyewitnesses to these murders existed, a digital recorder device became a voice for the victims.” 

A friend of Gray’s found the bodies of Mitchell and Gray in their garage Feb. 8 when he visited the home to deliver a car title. Surveillance cameras on the property helped Douglas County detectives identify a suspect carrying firearms into the garage and a friend helped identify that person as possibly being Devol. He was arrested in Kansas the day after the bodies were discovered.

Mitchell’s digital recorder containing the “lengthy recording” wasn’t discovered until her autopsy.