April 23—Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday in the murder case against an Edgewood man accused of stabbing his adoptive mother to death in 2021.
Brian Farley, 53, told the judge he did not want to take a stand in his own defense and his attorney said the defense will not introduce evidence or other witnesses in the case. That leaves only closing arguments — scheduled for Wednesday morning — in the trial before jurors begin their deliberations.
Since the trial began April 18 in District Court, jurors have heard from about a half-dozen state witnesses, including several police officers who testified that they responded to a 911 call from Farley saying his mother had hurt herself with a knife. They arrived to find Felita Marlene Farley, 87, dead on the floor of one of the home’s bathrooms.
Jurors saw dozens of gruesome photos from the crime scene, including images of the dead woman’s body, clad only in underwear, face down on the floor near the toilet with smears and blood splatter on and around her body. She had been stabbed about 15 times in the torso, arms and hands, according to photos of her body taken after it was turned over to the state Office of the Medical Examiner.
The state also showed the jury photos of what prosecutors said was the murder weapon: a 12-inch kitchen knife found covered in blood in the sink.
While the photos may have given jurors an idea of how Felita Marlene Farley was killed, little evidence was presented at trial as to why her adoptive son might have killed her. After the state rested its case, Farley’s attorney Jonathan Schildgen asked the court for a “directed judgment,” arguing that the state had failed to present evidence of premeditation.
District Judge T. Glenn Ellington denied the motion after Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long introduced testimony in part that Brian Farley was about to inherit his mother’s home — where they both lived — and the 10 acres of land on which the house sits ‘clearly shows motive.”
“Deliberate intent can be inferred from all the facts and circumstances of the murder,” Long said. “The number and nature of the injuries inflicted on the victim were of a personal nature.”
Long said, stab wounds, unlike gunshot wounds, must be inflicted at close range.
“She had five stab wounds to the torso,” Long said. “One broke a rib. There were ten other cuts on her arms and hands, all defensive.”
Felita Farley and her late husband, Matthew Nicholas Farley — to whom she was married for 65 years before his death in 2020 — adopted Brian Farley and his two brothers in 1977, according to testimony Tuesday. Brian Farley would have been 7 or 8 years old at the time.
Brian Farley told police that his mother shot him and that a shotgun was found in his home. But the weapon fell apart in the hands of the officer trying to collect it as evidence, Long said, and several officers, including one who was a firearms instructor, were unable to put the weapon back together.
An FBI agent testified that the agency was later able to reassemble the weapon and that it was functioning.
Prosecutors pointed to a lack of bullet holes in the house as evidence that the gun had not been fired and suggested that Farley planted it on his mother’s bed to give the impression that he killed her in self-defense.
However, Schildgen noted that some shotguns fire cartridges that contain buckshot – many small projectiles – as opposed to a single bullet, meaning the lack of bullet holes was not evidence that the weapon had not been fired.
