A Salt Lake City man pleaded not guilty to murder charges alleging he killed his ex-wife.
49-year-old John Brickman Wall, a pediatrician practicing in Utah's capital city, insisted he did not kill his wife Uta von Schwedler since she was found dead in her bathtub in September 2011.
According to the Associated Press, the doctor was not formally charged until April this year. A Utah state judge decided in September 2013 that the court had assembled enough information and evidence to bring the case to trial.
During his arraignment on Monday, a judge announced Wall's charges: first degree murder and burglary. According to AP, the judge then asked for his plea, to which he responded firmly, "Your honor, I am not guilty."
Von Schwedler and Wall's oldest son Pelle Wall, 10, sat in the front row with his adopted mother and von Schwedler's boyfriend. They've previously expressed their relief at the fact that this case is going to trial, which is slated to commence mid-2014. Fred Metos, the defendant's attorney, told AP that Wall will most likely turn down the opportunity for a plea agreement.
Following an autopsy report, a medical examiner announced that von Schwedler's cause of death was drowning, in addition to drug overdose from a fatal amount of Xanax. During initial hearings, Dr. Erik Christensen said he could not make an official comment on whether von Schwedler committed suicide, but did say that the cuts found on her body were not consistent with marks coinciding with suicide. Additionally, the excess levels of Xanax antidepressant in her body led him to rule the reason for death as undetermined.
Third District Judge Robin Reese announced to the court that she decided to send the case to trial after seeing Wall's strange behavior following von Schwedler's death. Witnesses stated that Wall had a particular hatred for the mother of his four children, after the two were locked in a bitter divorce and custody battle for years.
Another Utah doctor, 57-year-old Martin MacNeill, is also being charged with murder in the death of his wife, the Associated Press reported. The Pleasant Grove resident allegedly killed his ex, a former beauty queen, by feeding her prescription drugs. Prosecutors said that MacNeill reportedly gave his wife drugs so that he could continue having an affair with another woman.
