SANTA PAULA : Wife’s Cough Led to Slaying, Jury Told

A 90-year-old man accused of killing his wife of 62 years told his doctor and investigators that he strangled the 86-year-old woman because her persistent cough kept him awake at nights, grand jury transcripts unsealed Thursday showed.

“You don’t understand what I’ve been through,” Dr. Jon Schrock quoted Alfred Pohlmeier as telling him hours after his unconscious wife was rushed to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital on Sept. 13. “The last three weeks have been terrible and I haven’t had any sleep in three nights.”

Lidwina Pohlmeier died two days later without regaining consciousness.

Grand jury testimony showed that Lidwina complained of a chronic cough the last two years and that doctors were unable to find its cause, though they did not consider the ailment life-threatening.

“Doctors were unable to give her any medication that would stop the cough and Mr. Pohlmeier became convinced that the cough was simply something in her head,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald Glynn told the grand jury in successfully arguing for a murder indictment.

“Well, on the 13th of September about 5:30 in the morning, Mrs. Pohlmeier woke coughing and her cough awoke Mr. Pohlmeier and he decided at that time he was going to kill her,” Glynn testified. “He strangled her with his bare hands and held onto her neck until her heart stopped beating.”

Pohlmeier called paramedics shortly afterward to the two-bedroom mobile home he shared with his wife, investigators said.

He at first told rescue workers and a deputy sheriff that he did not how his wife became unconscious. But when Schrock asked Pohlmeier about bruises and scratches on his wife’s neck, Pohlmeier said, “I might as well tell you, I choked her,” grand jury testimony showed.

Schrock told the grand jury that he was shocked by Pohlmeier’s statements because “this was a very attentive man who seemed to have a sincere care and concern about his wife.”

The doctor called Lidwina Pohlmeier a “difficult patient” and at one point told her “you’re very lucky to have this man be your nurse because there would be a lot of men who couldn’t do what he does for you.”

Pohlmeier remains jailed in lieu of $250,000. He is scheduled to stand trial on Dec. 18. If convicted of first-degree murder, Pohlmeier faces a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison.