Son: Utah doctor harbored hatred for ex-wife after divorce


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SALT LAKE CITY — In the last year of his mother's life, Pelle Wall remembers the outdoorsy biologist as being her energetic, happy self.

Wall smiled from his seat on the witness stand as a picture of his mother, grinning in a colorful outfit, was displayed in court.

In all of Wall's life and right up until the time of her death, Uta von Schwedler had never seemed depressed or suicidal, Wall testified. He had never known her to have a prescription for depression medication.

The last conversation he had with her was by text message, both in English and German, as she playfully scolded him for forgetting his laundry at her home.

Wall, now 21, took the stand Wednesday in the murder trial against his father, recounting the tense relationship that existed between his parents at the end of their marriage and following their divorce, including recent efforts by von Schwedler to adjust their custody arrangements. Like his sister previously testified in the case, Wall recounted his father's erratic behavior following the woman's death.

JJohnny Brickman Wall, 51, is accused of killing von Schwedler in her Salt Lake home. She was found dead in her overflowing bathtub, with cuts to her body and a dangerous level of Xanax in her system, on Sept. 27, 2011. The Utah doctor has pleaded not guilty.

A jury will decide whether the death was suicide or murder, a determination a medical examiner in the case could not make. Pelle Wall had long been part of a public campaign calling for his mother's death to be investigated.

The oldest of the couple's four children, Pelle Wall was in elementary school when his parents divorced. "I don't remember a whole lot, but what I do remember is mostly fighting and contention," he testified.

That continued after the marriage was dissolved, evident as the children moved between parents. Initially, they spent most of their time with their father, but through the years the time between mother and father was more equally split, Pelle Wall said.

Johnny Brickman Wall listens to testimony during his trial on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, in Salt Lake City. Wall, a former Utah pediatrician, is accused of killing his ex-wife, Uta von Schwedler, at her Sugar House home in 2011. (Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune/Pool)
Johnny Brickman Wall listens to testimony during his trial on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, in Salt Lake City. Wall, a former Utah pediatrician, is accused of killing his ex-wife, Uta von Schwedler, at her Sugar House home in 2011. (Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune/Pool)

In the days following the divorce, Pelle Wall said his father was depressed and "in disbelief." But as time went on, that sadness turned bitter, "more toward anger, hatred."

Johnny Wall would tell his son "Uta's a bad parent" or "Uta's making my life difficult," sometimes alone and sometimes in front of other people, Pelle Wall said. He would often complain about money, saying von Schwedler owed him, and would make rules like not allowing the children to use their ski equipment on trips with their mother because he had paid for it.

Von Schwedler, on the other hand, was frustrated, Pelle Wall said, complaining that her ex-husband wouldn't communicate with her so they could coordinate things for their children. On the last night his father picked up the children from their mother's home before she died, Johnny Wall rolled up the car window and drove away as she was trying to speak with him, Pelle Wall said.

The next morning, Pelle Wall said his father was nowhere to be found. After returning from school that afternoon, he said his father had a bloody cut on his eye that he claimed was a scratch from the dog, and he was wearing a pair of glasses he didn't often use.

When he woke Pelle Wall in the night, his three younger siblings in tow, to tell them that their mother had been found dead, Johnny Wall was distraught, the effect of what defense attorneys have called an aggressive interrogation by police.

"Uta's dead and they think I did it," Pelle Wall recalled his father saying.

His father sat on the bed, rocked back and forth and muttered things like, "Am I a monster?" and "What if I killed her and I don't remember?" Pelle Wall testified.

The son's testimony also addressed the tension that remained after his father returned from six days in a state hospital, as Johnny Wall forbade his son from talking to von Schwedler's relatives. When he turned 18, Pelle Wall moved out after an "aggressive, intimidating" confrontation with his father about what he had been told about his mother's death.

Prosecutors are expected to rest their case Thursday, with the six-man, six-woman jury expected to deliberate the case next week.

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McKenzie Romero

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