Viola Drath, slain Georgetown woman, had sought protection from husband, documents show

Viola Drath, a popular 91-year-old Georgetown socialite who was found slain in her home Friday, had a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with her much younger husband, court documents show.

Drath obtained several protective orders against Albrecht Gero Muth during their 21-year marriage, according to D.C. Superior Court records. In 2006, Drath told police that Muth had become violent during an argument, attacked her with a chair, sat on her and held her captive in her home, the records show. Drath was 86 at the time; Muth, 42. The case was dropped when Drath decided not to pursue it in court as the trial approached.

 

 

 

Although authorities initially thought Drath had died in her Q Street bathroom of natural causes, an autopsy Saturday determined that she had been killed. Muth said in an e-mail Monday that he thinks he is the lone suspect in a D.C. police homicide investigation: “There being to them no one else who could have done it. . . . I take no issue, [I’m] the first one to look to, so look, and then look beyond.”

As of Monday evening, police had not announced any arrests in the case.

Muth wrote that he found Drath’s body at 8 a.m. Friday. Paramedics were called to the scene shortly thereafter. Authorities said that Drath was found on the floor of a bathroom and was declared dead at the scene.

In e-mail messages to family members that Muth forwarded to The Washington Post, Muth said he was in the couple’s Georgetown townhouse, in the 3200 block of Q Street NW, from 9:45 p.m. Thursday until he found his wife’s body — except for a brief midnight walk and for an hour early Friday.

He said in the e-mails that Drath had died sometime after 7 p.m. In a separate obituary e-mailed to The Post on Saturday, Muth wrote that Drath had “sustained a head injury from a fall.”

In the obituary submission, Muth listed her date of death as “August 11” — Thursday — a day before he said he found her body. Muth said that another member of Drath’s family had included those facts, based on what the medical examiner had told them. Drath’s relatives declined to comment about the investigation or Muth.

A medical examiner ruled the case a homicide Saturday, but the office had not released the cause of death. Police have said that Drath’s injuries were not consistent with a fall and that there was no forced entry to the house.

Police detectives and technicians were at the home Monday and were continuing to interview family members.

In an e-mail that Muth appears to have sent to government officials and forwarded to The Post, he said he was planning to speak with police officials to convince them of his innocence and to get them to “look for the killer . . . and bring all assets at my disposal to their side towards that end.” He communicated with The Post only through e-mail and declined requests for a telephone or face-to-face interview.

D.C. Police Assistant Chief Peter Newsham said that no arrests were “imminent.”

When they married two decades ago, Muth was in his mid-20s, and Drath was about 70. Muth said in an e-mail that it was a “marriage of convenience” with “clear terms.”