Prosecutors in the case against Albrecht Muth have argued during trial that Muth married Viola Herms Drath, his wife of 23 years, for financial gain.
Muth, 49, then murdered the 91-year-old Drath in her Georgetown home to accumulate more wealth from a forged inheritance document, prosecutors say.
“We had a marriage of convenience,” Muth said to police after Drath’s death. “We got along contentiously.”
At trial Monday, Connie Drath Dwyer, Viola Drath’s eldest daughter, told jurors that throughout the years Muth pressured her mother for money.
Over the years Muth, Dwyer said, asked for a monthly allowance and eventually got Drath to sign off $60,000 to $70,000 into a personal brokerage account for Muth.
Months before Viola Drath’s murder, Dwyer told jurors that she, and her sister Francesca, began to receive a flurry of emails from Muth with a list of things he wanted to have after Drath would die.
“He had a list of demands of things in the house that he wanted,” Dwyer said Monday. “[Francesca Drath] was insulted because mother was still in good condition. It was ridiculous.”
During trial last week, Ethan Drath, Viola Drath’s grandson, testified that he was not happy about Muth’s marriage to his grandmother, and that he felt like Muth was going to “take the money and run.”
According to Ethan Drath, weeks before Viola Drath’s death she gave him her financial documents to keep safe. When Ethan Drath heard his grandmother had died he drove to her house and met his mother, Francesca Drath, and Muth outside in front of his grandmother’s home.
Ethan Drath said that his mother handed him a one-page document that Muth gave her when she arrived.
“It was asking for $150,000 to be put in Muth’s name,” Ethan Drath said. “I never saw it before that day.”
The case is scheduled to continue tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
