EVERETT — A 40-year-old Granite Falls man who dismembered his girlfriend’s body a year ago will spend the next 23 years in prison.
Michael Ray Faler on Monday pleaded guilty in Snohomish County Superior Court to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in connection with a December 2006 crime rampage.
Judge James Allendoerfer sentenced Faler after deputy prosecutor Paul Stern and public defender Donald Wackerman agreed on the 23-year prison sentence.
Faler fled to California, where he was arrested Dec. 21 in what police said was a stolen car.
He admitted killing and dismembering the body of Angela Lynnette Bolden, 33. He also admitted stealing a man’s car at knife-point at a Stanwood grocery store.
The slain woman’s mother and grandmother joined the hearing via telephone from San Antonio. Her grandmother asked Faler to answer why he killed Bolden.
Faler refused to say anything.
Over the telephone, the judge told the women: “I don’t believe Mr. Faler has an answer he can give.”
Police began to unravel what happened after a man reported that someone stole his car outside a Stanwood grocery.
At the Stanwood carjacking, detectives found a car belonging to Faler’s parents idling in the parking lot. The defendant’s parents said the car had been stolen from them. They also said they feared Faler had harmed his live-in girlfriend, whom they hadn’t seen for several days.
Faler’s parents told investigators they found the woman’s belongings in a dumpster on their property. They also found bloodstained rags and a rug in the trash, according to court documents.
The parents moved some of the trash bags to a pickup and confronted Faler, who told them he dismembered the woman and threw her over an embankment on the property, according to court records.
Sheriff’s detectives searched the house and found blood on the walls, numerous cleaning supplies and paint. They also found bloody clothes and what appeared to be human remains in trash bags in the truck, documents said.
A police dog trained to find cadavers later located human remains at a location near the Mountain Loop Highway.
Nearly a week later in Fresno, Calif., an undercover police officer spotted Faler leaving a restaurant in a car he reportedly had stolen from a truck stop in Truckee, Calif.
Faler led Fresno police on a short chase, crashed the car into a utility pole and fought with officers before he was taken into custody, police said.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.
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