Police Interview Shown in Case of Slain DC Writer

Jurors in the trial of a German man charged with killing his 91-year-old wife were shown bloody crime scene photographs Monday and a portion of an interview with homicide detectives in which he referred to the couple’s relationship as a “marriage of convenience.”

Albrecht Muth, 49, also describes in matter-of-fact fashion how he found the lifeless body of his wife, Viola Drath, in a bathroom of their home but decided that it would be futile to even try to resuscitate her.

“The obvious was obvious,” Muth can be heard telling the pair of detectives.

Muth is charged with first-degree murder in the August 2011 beating and strangulation death of Drath, a German journalist and socialite. He faces life in prison if convicted.

The interview, recorded in a cramped police interrogation room in the days between the discovery of Drath’s body and her husband’s arrest, gave jurors their closest look yet at the defendant: Muth has been absent from the trial, participating passively through videoconference, after doctors said his self-imposed starvation made him too weak to appear in court. He has been fasting off-and-on for what he says are religious reasons.

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