94-Year-Old Killer Says He Is Sane, Seeks Release

Ventura County’s oldest convicted killer may soon be released from custody if a judge agrees that 94-year-old Alfred Pohlmeier has regained his sanity and no longer poses a risk to the community.

Pohlmeier, who turns 95 next month, was found guilty of second-degree murder two years ago for strangling his 86-year-old wife, Lidwina, in their Fillmore mobile home Sept. 13, 1995.

But the jury also found that the retired postal worker was insane at the time, so he was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County.

After about a year, Pohlmeier was transferred to a supervised outpatient facility in Ventura County. He is now pushing for a release and hopes to be returned to his family.

“He has been out in the community living in a board-and-care home,” said Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson. “The question is whether the judge and parties involved feel he should be off supervised care and let his family just care for him.”

Prosecutors have not taken a position on Pohlmeier’s proposed release. Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen O’Brien said Wednesday she was waiting for a psychiatrist’s report before making a decision.

By law, a judge would have to find that Pohlmeier no longer poses a risk to the community and has regained his sanity for the release to be granted.

“The bottom line is [Pohlmeier] has to show that in an unsupervised environment he will continue to medicate himself and treat himself,” O’Brien said. “The burden is all on the defendant at this point.”

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for this afternoon in Ventura County Superior Court.

Pohlmeier, a frail, gray-haired man who sat hunched over in a wheelchair throughout his 1997 trial, is not expected to appear.

Pohlmeier admitted to police that he strangled his wife of 62 years with his bare hands. He said her incessant coughing was making him “nuts.”

According to court testimony, Lidwina Pohlmeier had suffered from a number of ailments, including a chronic cough. Despite feeding her Popsicles and painkillers, Alfred Pohlmeier told investigators her “hacking” was keeping him up at night.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that the slaying was premeditated. They cited Pohlmeier’s statement to authorities that he had been thinking about killing his wife for “a couple of days.”

But Olson argued that her client choked his wife to death in a moment of desperation, calling the slaying “a misguided act of love.”

The jury determined it was murder.

But after a weeklong sanity hearing that followed the trial, the same panel determined Pohlmeier was suffering from brain lesions that caused him to “snap” when he killed his wife.

Olson argued that the injuries probably had been caused by an earlier stroke, which she said affected Pohlmeier’s ability to tell right from wrong.

Olson said Wednesday that Pohlmeier remains in fairly good health considering his age. She said two of his five adult children, who provided emotional support to their father throughout the trial, want him released to their care.