Forensic Files - Season 9, Episode 30 - Walking Terror - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: In the middle of the night, a man watched in horror as his neighbor committed a horrible crime.
The perpetrator said he had no recollection of the incident. It would be up to a jury to decide
between the forensic evidence or the mysteries of the mind. [theme music] On a brisk January night in Phoenix, Arizona,
a man heard some noises coming from his neighbor's backyard. JUAN MARTINEZ: He actually heard some moaning
sounds coming from over the fence. He thought that perhaps the Falater's were making love,
because that's what the sounds sounded like to him. NARRATOR: He saw Yarmilla Falater on the ground,
and her husband Scott was in the house upstairs changing his clothes. Scott came back downstairs, silenced the dog,
walked outside to Yarmilla, then threw her into the swimming pool and held her head underwater.
The neighbor immediately called police. NARRATOR: The police found Yarmilla floating in the pool.
She had been stabbed and drowned. Scott was inside the house, dazed and confused.
-His reaction was kind of a surprise, what the officers were doing at this location.
DR. CARTWRIGHT: The first question he remembers is, how many people are in the house?
To which he answered, four, immediately, not knowing his wife was dead. Himself, his wife, and his two kids.
NARRATOR: The Falater's two children were asleep upstairs in their bedrooms. They heard nothing during the attack.
At police headquarters, investigators were convinced that Scott would confess, but they were met with a complete surprise.
-[inaudible]. You OK? Cold? -Obviously you think I did it. I don't-- I don't know what makes you think that.
-Well, because you had a neighbor staring at you watching you do it. That's why.
-Jeez! NARRATOR: Scott Falater said he had no recollection of killing his wife. -Neighbors saw me pushing her in the pool?
You've got to be kidding. -That's what I got. -I'm sorry. I don't remember doing it.
NARRATOR: Friends and family told police that the Falater's never fought. JERRY KAMMER: There had never been any eruption
of overt conflict between the mother and father, and that whenever there were disagreements,
they were settled amicably. NARRATOR: At Yarmilla's autopsy, the medical examiner
found 44 stab wounds, as well as water in her lungs. JUAN MARTINEZ: We had the wife, who
had been stabbed multiple times, being thrown in the pool and held down. But we also had a husband, a very devout,
religious individual, telling us that it was not him who had done this. So the decision had to be made-- were we going to believe him,
or were we going to go ahead and charge him? NARRATOR: In the back of Scott's car, in a plastic container,
police found a knife covered with blood. They also found Scott's bloody clothing in the car.
When questioned, Scott's sister believed she knew why Scott was unaware of what happened.
It was because of something that happened between them many years earlier. Scott and Yarmilla Falater had been
married for almost 20 years. Scott was a computer engineer. Yarmilla was a preschool teacher's aide.
JERRY KAMMER: They were high school sweethearts. Yarmilla was the only woman that Scott ever dated,
and I believe it may have been the same in terms of Yarmilla's dating. NARRATOR: When questioned by police,
Scott didn't deny he killed his wife. But he insisted he had no recollection of the incident.
And Scott's sister offered a possible explanation. She told police Scott had a history of sleepwalking.
JERRY KAMMER: She had been attacked by Scott when he was sleepwalking years ago when they were growing up in Illinois.
She had attempted to interrupt Scott as he was walking in the house-- sleepwalking--
and that startled by her interruption, he threw her across the room. NARRATOR: Sleep expert Dr. Rosalind Cartwright
says that there's no doubt that sleepwalking occurs, although it's rare. DR. CARTWRIGHT: Some sleepwalkers, for example,
have jumped out of a window or thrust their arm through a plate glass door, carved up the nice new living
room furniture with a butcher knife, kicked in a garage door. These are all patients of mine.
And some attack a person. The closest person to them is likely to be attacked. NARRATOR: So the question remained, was Scott Falater
sleepwalking when he murdered his wife? To find out, Scott was monitored for four
nights in a sleep laboratory. -So that they could determine the types of brain waves
that were characteristic of his sleeping patterns. NARRATOR: Researchers connected electrodes
from the polysomnograph to Falater's skull to analyze his brain activity during sleep.
The result showed something called hypersynchronous delta waves, a symptom sometimes associated
with individuals who sleepwalk. DR. CARTWRIGHT: Some sleepwalkers will have it. It's a sign of neurological immaturity.
NARRATOR: Scott Falater told police he was trying to fix a broken pump in his swimming
pool on the night of his wife's death. DR. CARTWRIGHT: He didn't finish it before his wife called him
in to dinner and the family assembled, had dinner, told her about the problems at work and said he didn't know what do do.
NARRATOR: The problem at work Scott referred to was the possible cancellation of the computer chip project
Scott headed, which meant his staff would all lose their jobs. After dinner, Scott said he worked at his computer,
then went to bed. He said Yarmilla was downstairs watching TV on the sofa. Dr. Cartwright believes Scott went
to sleep with the unfinished pool repair still on his mind, and while still asleep, got up to finish the job.
He put on his clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and took a knife out to the pool pump to cut a plastic ring.
When Yarmilla went outside to see what Scott was doing, she startled him, prompting the violent attack that followed.
-They start out to do something related to that stressful event, and if stopped,
they have a kind of fight or flight reaction of I've got to do this. NARRATOR: Research shows that sleepwalkers are not
capable of facial recognition, which is why they sometimes attack people they know.
It's embarrassing. You don't even know where you're walking or what you're doing.
NARRATOR: Doug Coldren has had numerous sleepwalking incidents-- some that have included
violence towards his wife. DOUG COLDREN: I was on top of her, choking her. I wasn't aware of I was even doing that.
I could tell that there's something that's drastically wrong once I woke up, but I was in a deep sleep
while I was doing it. I wasn't really aware that I even did it. NARRATOR: People who sleep normally
move from one stage of sleep to the next seamlessly without waking. But for reasons not entirely clear,
sleepwalkers cannot successfully transition from deep sleep into the dreaming stage of sleep.
DR. CARTWRIGHT: They get into a disassociated state. It's not a normal wakefulness.
It's not a complete sleep. It's partially one and partially the other. Part of the brain is functioning as if awake, part of the brain
is not. NARRATOR: If Scott Falater was sleepwalking when he committed the crime, then legally, he wouldn't be responsible.
That's what happened in Toronto, Canada, when 23-year-old Ken Parks was acquitted
of killing his mother-in-law and attacking his father-in-law. JUAN MARTINEZ: Even though he drove approximately 15 miles
over to his mother-in-law's house and had walked down some stairs, opened the door,
and then ultimately had stabbed both of the individuals there. DR. PRESSMAN: Well, I do agree that sleepwalkers
are capable of becoming violent. Probably over 100 published cases by people who were apparently sleepwalking.
NARRATOR: But prosecutors weren't so convinced that Scott Falater was innocent. As investigators searched for a possible motive
in Yarmilla Falater's murder, they learned that the couple's marriage was not as happy as friends and family thought.
Scott Falater was an active member of the Mormon Church, and investigators found evidence that Yarmilla resented
the amount of time Scott spent on church activities. JERRY KAMMER: Yarmilla was considering a divorce.
That she, apparently, was feeling worn out by the demands of the church, while Scott was fully committed to the church.
NARRATOR: Investigators also found evidence that Scott wanted more children and Yarmilla didn't.
JERRY KAMMER: Mormon families typically have a lot of kids. She apparently put her foot down.
Did not want to have more children beyond the two teenagers that they already had.
NARRATOR: There were also unsubstantiated allegations that one of the two may have been having an affair.
Prosecutors hired their own sleep expert, Dr. Mark Pressman, to analyze Scott Falater's behavior on the night
of the murder to see if there was any evidence that Scott had been sleepwalking.
First, Pressman disputed the significance of Falater's original sleep tests. DR. PRESSMAN: I didn't find that the sleep
studies were very impressive at all. Those kinds of waves can be found very commonly
in patients with sleep apnea, for instance. And there's only about 40 million sleep apnics
in the United States, which means this is not specific to sleepwalking. NARRATOR: On the night of the murder,
Falater said he went to sleep with his contact lenses in, then apparently got up, got dressed,
and took a flashlight outside. Dr. Pressman said, true sleepwalkers can't distinguish day from night.
DR. PRESSMAN: That suggests that he knew it was chilly outside and it was dark outside.
And those are both pieces of information that no sleepwalker I've ever heard of would actually know or be aware of.
NARRATOR: The neighbor said he saw Scott inside his house after the stabbing removing his bloody clothes.
Scott put those clothes and the murder weapon into a plastic container in the trunk of his car.
And he also bandaged a cut on his hand. DR. PRESSMAN: Again, shows that he was consciously
aware of the fact he was injured. He knew what he had to do in response to the injury,
and he successfully completed it. NARRATOR: The neighbor also saw Scott trying to calm his dog.
JERRY KAMMER: Scott claimed not to have heard any screaming from his wife, and yet apparently
was aware of the agitation of a pet. -An individual who is sleepwalking does not know that a dog is there.
For him to have quieted the dog meant that he was awake. NARRATOR: But the defense experts
believed there was another explanation for the incident with the family dog. DR. CARTWRIGHT: I'm not at all sure
that Scott quieted the dogs in terms of responding to them barking. They were jumping up on him is the way it was described to me.
So I don't think that the auditory system was functioning. NARRATOR: And Dr. Cartwright says,
Scott may not have gone directly to Yarmilla's body out near the pool before the drowning,
but may have stumbled over her while sleepwalking. She points to the neighbor's first statement
to police as proof. DR. CARTWRIGHT: His first report on seeing Scott stand over the body was that he looked, glazed, staring at this object
that was in his way, and that he rolled it into the pool as if he was just removing something that was in his way.
NARRATOR: In addition, studies have shown that stress and sleep deprivation are both major contributors to sleepwalking.
-It was somebody who'd had a history of sleepwalking in his past. He had no memory of it.
He had no motivation for it. He was bewildered and remorseful. NARRATOR: Sleep experts were at odds
on how to interpret Scott's behavior. The jury would have to weigh the evidence and decide whom to believe.
JERRY KAMMER: I think that of this case was that it was attempting to probe the secrets of the mind, you know?
The last frontier of medical science, perhaps, is the brain. It was also seeking to probe the secrets of a family.
NARRATOR: In 1999, Scott Falater went on trial for the murder of his wife Yarmilla.
He pleaded not guilty. -He was sleepwalking at the time the event occurred. He had no consciousness in his mind operating at that time.
In fact, his brain was, in a fact, asleep. NARRATOR: Sleepwalking has been used as a defense in about two
dozen murder trials worldwide. -She went down, and he continued to stab her. NARRATOR: But prosecutors presented a very powerful case
to the jury-- one that focused on logic as well as science. Prosecutors believe fal Falater made the decision
to kill his wife and to make it appear to be the work of an unknown assailant. When the children went to bed, Yarmilla
was on the sofa watching television. Prosecutors think Falater lured Yarmilla out to the pool,
then stabbed her. He went back upstairs to clean up, and he also bandaged his hand.
He hid the murder weapon and his bloody clothes in the trunk of his car. When he returned to the pool, Scott quieted the dog
and noticed Yarmilla was still breathing, so he dragged her over to the pool and drowned her.
Prosecutors think his original plan was to go back to bed, and the next morning,
let the children find their mother's body outside. JUAN MARTINEZ: One can only imagine that he pretends
to awake, finds that his wife is gone, wakes up the children, is aghast that she is gone, goes downstairs,
and the three of them find her floating in the pool, slain by an unknown intruder.
That was his plan all along. NARRATOR: But those plans changed when his neighbor saw the whole thing.
-That was the only thing that Scott Falater did not predict. NARRATOR: Prosecutors think Scott may have known
about the Toronto case, the man who was acquitted of killing his mother-in-law using a sleepwalking defense.
Dr. Pressman testified for the prosecution and listed 65 behaviors Scott exhibited during the commission
of the crime that were inconsistent with sleepwalking. He said, touching the cold water alone
would have been enough to wake him from a sleepwalking episode. DR. PRESSMAN: I think all the evidence says he was awake,
and all the evidence says his behaviors were far too complicated to be sleepwalking.
NARRATOR: In testifying for the defense, Dr. Roger Broughton said, Scott's actions that night were
not logical for someone who was awake. -It's my opinion that he was sleepwalking.
He would not leave all the evidence there. He would not leave bloody clothes in the back of a car
that he was going to drive. He would not leave a pool full of blood. To me, none of this makes sense.
NARRATOR: Scott Falater took the stand and testified in his own defense. -I assume that I must have gone crazy
or that something in my head had broken. NARRATOR: The jury didn't buy it. -We, the jury, duly empowered and sworn in the above entitled
action, upon our oaths do find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.
NARRATOR: Scott Falater was sentenced to life in prison. -The number of stab wounds, the fact that she was drugged
to the pool and held under-- I can't believe that he was sleepwalking. JUROR: Hiding the clothes and lifting up the hatchback
and scrunching down and getting underneath there and changing clothes several times
and going up down the stairs, I mean, come on. That's a lot of activity. -They said it defied common sense.
It defied their understanding of human behavior. And even though they were willing to listen carefully
to the defense experts, they said that strain of credibility just snapped under the pressure of the testimony
from the next door neighbor. -I never would have thought in my wildest dreams someone
would think that I premeditated and planned to murder my wife. I just can't see how they could have
come to that determination. So I was not expecting a first degree guilty verdict.
-How important was the science? Unfortunately, I think it was not important, as far as the jury was concerned.
It did not get through to them at all. -That couldn't be further from the truth.
They understood it, and they understood it well. They just chose to disbelieve that he
was sleepwalking when he killed her. The science of sleepwalking is a science. But just like every other science,
it is prone to being misused. In this case, that's what was happening. Scott Falater wanted to misuse it.
[theme music]

A neighbor watched as a man stabbed his wife, pushed her into the swimming pool and held her head under water. The husband, however, had no recollection of the crime. A jury would have to decide between evidence and the mysteries of the mind.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Scott Falater was convicted of murdering his wife, claiming sleepwalking as a defense, but the jury found the evidence against him compelling.

Key points

The Horrific Crime. A man witnesses his neighbor commit a shocking act of violence.
The Sleepwalking Defense. Scott Falater claims he was sleepwalking during the murder of his wife.
The Jury's Verdict. Despite the defense's arguments, Scott Falater is found guilty of murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I don't remember doing it.

Scott Falater's shocking claim after being confronted by police.

3:15WatchJan 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.