This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Salem man who shot and killed his wife last March was sentenced to prison on Tuesday.
In August, a 4th District Court jury found Tracy Scott, 48, guilty of first-degree felony murder in the death of his wife, 45-year-old Teresa Scott. On Tuesday, Judge David Mortensen sentenced the man to spend 15 years to life in prison for the crime.
At trial, jurors were asked to decide whether Tracy Scott was guilty of murder, or the lesser charge of manslaughter. His attorney, Richard Gale, argued at trial that his client was not a cold-blooded killer and fired his gun as a result of "extreme emotional distress."
Gale told the jury that years of fighting, compounded with the fear that Teresa Scott had a gun and might harm him, caused Tracy Scott's emotional distress.
Deputy Utah County Attorney David Sturgill discounted this story, however, saying it was "self-serving" and "too incredible to believe." He pointed to Tracy Scott's 911 call, where the Salem man calmly tells the dispatcher that he killed his wife.
"Does that sound like a man who has any emotion?" Sturgill asked after playing the 911 recording for the jury. "Does that sound like a man under extreme emotional distress?"
It took about eight hours for the jury to settle on the unanimous guilty verdict.
Tracy Scott took the stand in his own defense during trial, testifying about how he stood in front of his wife and shot her.
"I snapped," Scott testified. "I just seen red. I went storming in [to the bedroom], she's laying on the bed, and she's got her cellphone [camera] pointed at me."
Scott, who heaved and sobbed through his testimony, told the jury that he reached down, grabbed a gun off the floor, cocked it and fired.
Describing his 19-year marriage, Tracy Scott said: "We were two peas in a pod. ... We loved each other."
But Scott also said constant fights and bickering marred the relationship.
"It was bad," he said of their fights in the days before his wife's death. "It was get in your face, yell, scream at each other. Spit flying. It was a lot, lot worse [than it had ever been]."
Tracy Scott testified that the day before the shooting he became fearful after he found a gun safe open in their home and a weapon missing.
On March 23, the gun was missing from the safe again, Tracy Scott testified. He said he decided to confront his wife about it.
When he walked into the bedroom, he said he saw his wife pointing her camera phone at him — likely trying to take a video or picture. It was something they did during domestic disputes as a way to show friends or family that the other partner was at fault for the fights, he said.
That's when he shot and killed her, Tracy Scott testified.
Twitter: @jm_miller