Falater grilled on specifics
(Phoenix) AZ Republic 18Jun99 L8
By Jerry Kammer and Richard Ruelas: Arizona Republic

LDS Church member Scott Falater, on trial for murdering his wife, continued testifying Thursday, but under cross examination from prosecutors, he couldn't explain many details about the night his wife was murdered. "I don't honestly know where those gloves were on that particular night before all this happened," he told Maricopa County prosecutor Juan Martinez.

The gloves are a gap in the defense's case, which claims that Falater was sleepwalking at the time. Falater admitted, when pressed by the prosecutor, that the gloves may have been in a pile of clothes in the garage. "That meant that you had to go and sort of match them up," observed Martinez. He was making the point that Falater's actions were too purposeful and complex for him to be sleepwalking. Defense attorneys counter that if Falater had committed premeditated murder, he would have put the gloves on before the murder.

Under questioning by the defense, Falater recounted his memory of the events of the day, indicating that his wife had fallen asleep watching ER. Falater then tried to fix a defective pump on the family's swimming pool, but gave up, shook his wife awake and went to bed. He says the next thing he remembers is people shouting and dogs barking in the back yard. When he went down stairs, a police man pointed a gun at him and ordered him on the carpet.

The prosecution also made a point about Falater's removal of his garments, which were later found streaked with blood in Falater's car. The prosecutor claims that Falater doesn't usually remove his garments in the garage, further bolstering the idea that Falater wasn't sleepwalking.