Bradbury Man Guilty of Murdering Wife

A 47-year-old Bradbury man with a history of mental disorders was found guilty Monday of murdering his psychiatrist wife.

A Pasadena Superior Court jury found Corwin Larson guilty of second-degree murder in the Aug. 15, 1992, death of Agnes Larson-Kulcsar, 44. The woman was strangled and her body dumped in a back-yard trash can at the couple’s home on Mount Olive Drive.

Larson, who will be sentenced April 12, could draw 16 years to life in state prison.

During the 3 1/2-day trial, Larson’s attorney, Terry Foster, argued that Larson-Kulcsar’s death was brought about in part from her husband’s worsening mental condition. Larson, a former gift-shop owner, suffers from bipolar disease, which is also known as manic depression.

But deputy Dist. Atty. Nancy Naftel countered that the disease did not prevent Larson from recognizing that killing his wife was wrong. As proof, she pointed out that Larson initially denied to Sheriff’s Department deputies that he knew the whereabouts of his slain wife.

In addition, Naftel played a 45-minute audiotape in which Larson told sheriff’s investigators that he followed his wife into the bathroom to prevent her escape, pulled out a straight razor, and fought with her as she tried to ward him off. Finally, he told police, he grabbed his wife around the neck and squeezed until she sank to the floor.

Married for 13 years, the couple were in the midst of divorcing at the time of Larson-Kulcsar’s death. Larson was unemployed. His wife was a Hungarian native who once headed the adolescent ward at County-USC Medical Center, taught at USC School of Medicine and had a private practice in South Pasadena.