Prayer Vigil Used to Elicit Soldier’s Confession to Wife’s Murder

Military detectives and Navy chaplains staged a prayer vigil for a missing Navy corpsman’s wife in an unusual strategy to get the man to confess to her murder.

During a sentencing hearing Monday at Camp Pendleton for Petty Officer 2nd Class David Tate, investigators disclosed the use of the tactic last July. Tate was later found guilty of murder, adultery, conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements and sodomy.

The sentencing hearing continued Tuesday. Prosecutors are seeking life in prison without parole.

The 30-year-old Navy veteran confessed to the February 1999 slaying of his wife, Cynthia, a few days after the prayer service was held.

Tate, of Colorado Springs, Colo., had told investigators that his wife disappeared after leaving a note saying she had gone to Las Vegas with friends. The Naval Criminal Investigative Services doubted that story and decided to stage the prayer vigil after running into a dead end.

Special Agent James Lofstrom said he had hoped the service would “awaken [Tate’s] conscience to the deed and the wrongfulness of it,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Authorities also discovered Tate’s affair with Andrea Bart, a petty officer, and tried sending Tate flowers from a “secret admirer” to rouse Bart and compel her to cooperate with their investigation.

Bart, of Midlothian, Va., has been sentenced in a plea bargain to two years’ imprisonment for hiding evidence of the affair.