Scott Falater Case: Sleepwalking Defense, Verdict, and Appeals

The Scott Falater case is the 1997 Arizona murder in which electrical engineer Scott Falater stabbed his wife Yarmila 44 times and drowned her in the family swimming pool, then told police and a jury he had been sleepwalking and remembered none of it. Jurors didn’t buy it. In June 1999 they convicted him of first-degree murder, and in January 2000 a judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

What Happened on January 17, 1997

Scott Falater was 43, an electrical engineer, and living in Phoenix with his wife Yarmila and their two children. Yarmila, known as “Yarm,” was a preschool teacher and stay-at-home mother. The couple had been high school sweethearts and had been married for 20 years.¹

That night, neighbor Greg Koons looked over the backyard fence and saw Falater drag Yarmila toward the pool, roll her into the water, and hold her head under the surface. Koons also watched him move through the house turning lights on and off, wringing his hands, and pulling on gloves before returning to the pool.²

When police arrived, they found Yarmila had been stabbed 44 times with a hunting-style knife. The chief medical examiner, Dr. Philip Keen, later confirmed that count at trial. Officers recovered bloody clothes hidden in a food container and the knife itself, stashed in the spare tire compartment of Falater’s car.² Those steps of concealment would sit at the center of the case against him.

The Sleepwalking Defense

Falater’s trial opened in June 1999 in Maricopa County Superior Court before Judge Ronald Reinstein.³ Defense attorney Michael Kimerer told jurors his client had been repairing a pool pump with a hunting knife as a makeshift screwdriver, was startled by his wife, and was “fast asleep” throughout everything that followed. Falater, Kimerer argued, killed Yarmila “without any conscious thought,” driven into a sleepwalking episode by extreme work stress and exhaustion.⁴

The defense built the argument on two pillars. First, family history. Falater’s mother, Lois Wilcek, and sister, Laura Healy, described past episodes in which he wandered the house dressed or naked and sometimes appeared “demonic” or aggressive while asleep. Second, expert testimony. Dr. Roger Broughton, described at the time as one of the world’s leading sleep researchers, testified that Falater could have perceived his wife as a threat if she interrupted him during a sleepwalking episode. Dr. Rosalind Cartwright, a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine affiliated with Rush University Medical Center, offered similar testimony that a sleepwalker could unknowingly attack someone who woke them.² Five sleep experts testified in all, three for the defense and two for the prosecution.⁵

Broughton’s testimony had a soft spot the prosecution exploited. On cross-examination, he acknowledged that carrying out so many actions in a single episode was “unusual” for a sleepwalker.²

Why the Jury Rejected It

Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Juan Martinez told jurors the killing was premeditated and the sleepwalking story invented. His case rested on what Falater did after the stabbing: he washed off blood, changed clothes, hid the bloody garments inside a food container, and concealed the knife inside his car. He also quieted the family dog during the incident. “How come he can’t recognize his wife?” Martinez asked the jury. “Because he’s making it up.”⁶ The state’s own sleep expert testified the sequence was too complex and goal-directed to be the work of someone unconscious.²

Prosecutors also floated a motive, pointing to disputes between the couple over having more children and what Martinez called Yarmila’s fading commitment to the Mormon faith. They noted that Yarmila was not wearing her wedding ring when she was found.⁶

The jury returned a guilty verdict on first-degree murder on June 18, 1999.⁶ Jurors later said they could conceive that the initial stabbing might have occurred during a sleepwalking episode, but they could not accept that the subsequent drowning was also involuntary. The pool, in other words, was where the defense broke.²

Sentence and Appeals

On January 10, 2000, Judge Reinstein sentenced Falater to life in prison without any possibility of parole. Falater showed no emotion as the sentence was read. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, reportedly at the request of Yarmila’s family.³⁷

Every appeal failed. On direct appeal, Falater argued the trial court should have given jurors a specific instruction on “somnambulistic automatism,” the legal label for the sleepwalking defense. The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected that argument in a memorandum decision on January 17, 2002, finding the proposed instructions “amounted to improper comments on the evidence” and that the trial court’s general instruction on the voluntary act requirement “did not mislead the jury about the burden of proof.” The Arizona Supreme Court denied review on June 28, 2002.⁸ State post-conviction relief was denied in May 2004, with the state appellate courts declining review in 2005 and 2006.

Falater then went to federal court, filing a habeas corpus petition in 2007 that raised due process, prosecutorial misconduct, and newly discovered evidence claims. Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt dismissed the petition with prejudice on December 2, 2008.⁹

When Sleepwalking Actually Works as a Defense

The theory behind Falater’s defense is not a legal oddity. Under Arizona law, a “voluntary act” is “a bodily movement performed consciously and as a result of effort and determination.”¹⁰ If a defendant was truly asleep, the acts weren’t voluntary, and criminal liability doesn’t attach.

The concept, called automatism, has produced acquittals. The most famous is the 1992 Canadian case of Kenneth Parks, who drove to his in-laws’ home while asleep, attacked his father-in-law, and killed his mother-in-law. Parks was acquitted after presenting substantial medical evidence of his condition and no apparent motive.¹¹ Legal commentary on the defense tends to draw the same line the Falater jury drew: it can succeed with strong medical evidence, a documented sleep disorder, and no plausible motive, and it tends to fail when the behavior looks too purposeful and complex to have been done without awareness.¹²

Falater Today

Scott Falater is serving his sentence at the Yuma Prison Complex in Arizona. In a 2021 prison interview with ABC’s 20/20, he said he still has no memory of the killing. “All I can say is I do not know what happened. I do know for sure I never planned it.” He also expressed remorse: “I think about what she had to go through that night, and the pain and the terror she had to feel. I can’t even fathom.” He said he does not expect to be released. “I really have no plans to go anywhere but here.”²

The Falaters’ two children supported their father through the trial and have kept in contact with him. Their son Michael, who was 12 on the night of the murder, told 20/20, “He is still my dad, and I hope to always have that relationship with him.” He also spoke about his mother, saying he thinks about her every day and wonders “what she could be doing with my kids now.”¹

1
People. Scott Falater Case: Son Speaks Out
2
ABC News. Sleepwalking Killer Scott Falater Wracked With Guilt Over Murdering Wife
3
Los Angeles Times. Sleepwalker Gets Life for Killing Wife
4
The New York Times. Sleepwalking Given as Defense by Man in Killing of Wife
5
American Psychological Association. Sleepwalking, Criminal Behavior, and Reliable Scientific Evidence
6
CBS News. Sleepwalker Guilty of Murder
7
Arizona Mirror. Arizona Courtroom Icon Mike Kimerer Remembered Fondly
8
GovInfo. Falater v. Schriro, Report and Recommendation
9
Justia. Falater v. Schriro et al., Docket
10
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-105
11
PMC. Sleepwalking and the Law
12
Boston College Law Review. Sleepwalking and Criminal Behavior