Ex-Utah doctor convicted of murder now faces new charge of child sex abuse

Johnny Brickman Wall, a Utah pediatrician convicted of killing his ex-wife, Uta von Schwedler, at her Sugar House home in 2011, appears in court March 12, 2015. The inmate was charged Friday with sexually abusing a young patient 15 years ago.

Johnny Brickman Wall, a Utah pediatrician convicted of killing his ex-wife, Uta von Schwedler, at her Sugar House home in 2011, appears in court March 12, 2015. The inmate was charged Friday with sexually abusing a young patient 15 years ago. (Steve Griffin, Deseret News)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Johnny Brickman Wall, a former Utah pediatrician convicted of murder, faces new charges of child sex abuse.
  • Wall, serving 15 years to life in prison for murder, allegedly abused a young patient in 2011.
  • The girl recently reported the alleged incidents to Murray police.

MURRAY — A former Utah pediatrician convicted of killing his wife in 2015 has now been charged with sexually abusing a young patient 15 years ago.

Johnny Brickman Wall, 62, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony.

Wall is currently serving a sentence of 15-years to life at the Utah State Prison for his conviction of murder, a first-degree felony.

On Sept. 27, 2011, Wall's ex-wife, Uta von Schwedler, 49, a University of Utah researcher, was found dead in her Sugar House home, 1433 E. Harrison Ave. It appeared as though she drowned in her bathtub after taking a toxic level of Xanax. A medical examiner could not determine whether her death was murder or suicide.

Prosecutors successfully convinced a jury in 2015 that Wall and von Schwedler's tumultuous relationship reached a boiling point and Wall killed his ex-wife whom he despised. An appeals court upheld the conviction in 2019. His first parole hearing isn't expected to happen until sometime in the year 2043.

According to his new charges, Wall, who worked at Wasatch Pediatrics, sexually abused one of his patients starting in 2011 when the girl was 7 years old. During two visits in 2011 and 2012, Wall "used his position of trust as a family pediatrician to prey upon the victim" and inappropriately touched her, the charges state.

The girl recently went to Murray police to report the incidents.

"We hope that these charges help the victim-survivor understand that her community is here to support her, and as an office, we are committed to fighting for the justice she deserves," said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. "We thank the Murray Police Department for their thorough investigation that helped lead to the filing of these charges."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Pat Reavy, KSLPat Reavy
Pat Reavy interned with KSL in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL or Deseret News since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.
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