SLEEPWALKING MURDER TRIAL
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PHOENIX (Court TV) — Stressing that he led an exemplary life before the slaying of his wife, friends and relatives of convicted murderer Scott Falater urged a Phoenix judge to spare his life.

Convicted last June of first-degree murder, Falater is trying to avoid the death penalty for the 1997 stabbing death of his wife Yarmila. The Mormon electronics engineer, who has a history of sleepwalking, admitted killing his wife but claimed that he was sleepwalking at the time and lacked the intent to kill. Falater's defense claimed that he was not consciously aware of his actions when he killed Yarmila and had no reason to commit murder.

Yarmila, the defense said, was killed when she tried to awaken a sleepwalking Falater while he was trying to fix a pool water pump with a hunting knife.

Jurors, however, rejected Falater's defense and concluded that he intended to murder his wife when he stabbed her 44 times on January 16, 1997. After stabbing Yarmila, Falater dragged her into their pool and then held her head under water.

Now Falater's fate lies in the hands of Judge Ronald Reinstein, who must weigh three options in the sentencing: the death penalty, life with no chance of parole, or life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. On Friday, several witnesses came to Falater's defense and tried to persuade Judge Reinstein to spare Falater because of his good character before the murder.

Several witnesses said they never saw any signs of strife between the Falaters.

"I thought he was crazy about her," witness Cheri Allen said.

Falater's attorneys, Michael Kimerer and Lori Voepel stressed that their client's life should be spared because his two teen-age children, Michael and Megan, still love him. The children, the lawyers and Cheri Allen claim, have already lost their mother and should not have to lose their father, too.

"Michael and Megan adore this man, and they need him desperately," said Allen, who described Falater as a devoted, loving father.

Another witness, Michael Vines, who was friends with the Falaters when they lived in Illinois 20 years ago, described Scott as the "calm, level-headed one. ... He just had the greatest heart of any man, I think, I have known."

All the defense witnesses said they were bewildered by Falater's murder of his wife. The prosecution tried to discount the defense witnesses' testimony by suggesting that they were only acquaintances of the Falaters and didn't know the couple, particularly Scott, very well. Prosecutor Juan Martinez argued that Falater's murder of his wife meets the death penalty standard because the slaying was especially "heinous, cruel or depraved." Medical examiner Dr. Ann Bucholtz graphically described Yarmila Falater's 44 stab wounds to her upper body. According the Bucholtz, the attack was so savage that two of the wounds penetrated the hilt of the five-inch blade.

Prosecutor Martinez stressed that Falater left his wife to die in the pool while he returned to the house, washed blood from his hands and stashed bloody clothes into the trunk of his car. As he did during the trial, Martinez suggested that the Falaters argued over religion and whether to have more children. Yarmila, he said, resented the Mormon Church and suggested she was considering a divorce at the time of her death.

During the four-week trial, defense attorney Kimerer argued that the Falaters had a loving marriage for 20 years and there was no evidence of significant marital strife at the time of the killing. Kimerer claimed that Falater's killing of Yarmila was so inexplicable that the only logical explanation was that Falater was sleepwalking during the incident.

Prosecutors used expert testimony and the eyewitness account of a neighbor to scoff at Falater's sleepwalking theory. Prosecution experts testified Falater's actions — such as changing his bloody clothes, putting them in Tupperware and placing the Tupperware in the trunk of his car — suggest that he was not sleepwalking at all during the attack and that a sleepwalker could not have performed such complicated tasks.

Testimony in Falater's death penalty hearing resumes Monday.

— Bryan Robinson