This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Draper • Asked by a prison parole hearing officer why he stabbed a Salt Lake City defense attorney 20 times one summer night in 2012, Matthew Christopher Wall didn't have much of an explanation.
Wall doesn't remember the July 5, 2012 attack, he told hearing officer Don Blanchard on Tuesday, because a high dose of the drugs Adderall and Lorazpam had left him in a hazy blackout that night.
The 29-year-old prison inmate said he didn't know Stephen B. Killpack, and didn't know what caused him to become so agitated that he attacked the defense attorney and stabbed him 20 times along his head, cheek, chest and hip. Only after being booked into the Salt Lake County jail that night did he become coherent enough to realize what he had done.
"I really don't remember what I did," Wall said Tuesday during his parole hearing at the Draper prison. "I was really messed up. I know I did what I did, and that's why I pleaded guilty."
Blanchard said that even today, there were "some perplexing things" about the accounts from that night, when Killpack found Wall in his Salt Lake City home, located at the corner of 1200 East and 200 South, taking down pictures from the wall and disconnecting computer wires.
Wall said Tuesday that he had never met Killpack before — and didn't know that he was a lawyer — but had simply gone inside the Salt Lake City home because, while in his drug-induced state, he saw a side door that was open.
Blanchard said reports indicate that after Killpack found Wall inside his home, he asked for the intruder's identity, a family member's phone number and his attorney's phone number. Killpack called Wall's mother, leaving a voicemail on her work phone that she would find hours later when she went to her office.
But for some reason, Wall became agitated after Killpack called his mother, and attacked the defense attorney. Wall couldn't answer why he stabbed the man so many times.
"I wish, sir, that I could tell you," Wall told Blanchard. "It's something I wonder about daily."
Wall was sentenced in September to two consecutive two to 20 year prison sentences, after he pleaded guilty in 3rd District Court to second-degree felony counts of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury and burglary.
Blanchard told Wall that parole guidelines recommend he be released in 2018, but the final decision will depend upon the parole board. Wall asked that he be sent to Odyssey House — a drug rehabilitation program — rather than be put on parole and released directly back into society.
"I feel I need to do time," Wall told Blanchard. "My crimes, there's no excuse for them. They're horrendous. I wish I could give a reason why."
Killpack, 64, did not attend Wall's hearing Tuesday. Blanchard said that beyond acknowledging his injuries and the $37,000 worth of treatment he had to receive to recover from the wounds, Killpack has had no contact with the parole board, nor has he asked for a specific prison term length.
Twitter: @jm _miller