Lucky to Have His Sanity--and Family

In less time than it takes for an attorney to clear his throat, Alfred Pohlmeier was deemed sane Thursday.

It was a singularly undramatic moment.

The county’s oldest killer wasn’t there. At 94, you don’t make trips to court when you don’t have to.

None of his five children was there either. They have never sought a public forum for their pain.

The entire business was wrapped up in less than a minute. Superior Court Judge Steven Hintz had reviewed the medical reports, and the district attorney’s office had chosen not to dispute them.

Wisdom prevailed. It was as decent an ending as I could imagine for a story that defines despair.

It means that Pohlmeier will get to leave a local board-and-care home, and live with a daughter in Northern California. Maybe he’ll even get to celebrate his 95th birthday with her in a couple of weeks.

It means that when his time finally comes--whether it’s in 10 days or 10 years--he’ll be with a family that cares for him, regardless of that night four years ago when he so violently and irrevocably damaged it.

It means we all have a new test for the concept of unconditional love: Would you give Dad--however old and frail he might be--a home after he strangles Mom in bed? Would a finding of “sanity”--however that elusive quality may be defined--even make a difference?

It was Sept. 13, 1995.

Alfred hadn’t slept for days. His wife Lidwina kept coughing, coughing, coughing--as she had, off and on, for more than two years. The doctors couldn’t stop it, or even say for sure what was causing it.

She was 86 and he was 92. Friends said he was unfailingly attentive to her. He had never been known to lift his hand against her. He was gentle and good-humored. They used to dance all night.

But now their outings weren’t quite so joyous.

He would bundle her into the car for yet another late-night trip from their Fillmore trailer home to the emergency room. ER doctors eventually threw up their hands, according to Susan Olson, Pohlmeier’s attorney; they let him know they had no way to stop Lidwina’s cough.

So there he was--exhausted, exasperated, frightened, perhaps angry at his own inability to help his wife of 62 years.

Anyone who has spent time caring for difficult older relatives knows the feeling. Thankfully, most do not snap, as Alfred Pohlmeier did.

For 10 minutes, he choked Lidwina--the woman he had earlier tried to soothe with Popsicles and painkillers.

Prosecutor Donald Glynn called it coldblooded murder.

Olson called it “a misguided act of love.”

A jury split the difference. It found Pohlmeier guilty of second-degree murder, but ruled that brain damage from undetected strokes had rendered him insane at the time of the killing.

He spent a year at a state mental hospital before his transfer to a board-and-care home in Ventura County.

After the hearing Thursday, Olson showed me some photos. She keeps them tacked to bulletin boards on opposite sides of her desk.

On the one side: Alfred and Lidwina together at their 50th wedding anniversary, cutting the cake and laughing. Alfred wears a brilliant blue three-piece suit. He has a huge, bucktoothed grin, and looks as leathery as the Texas farmer he was before becoming a California postal worker.

On the other side: The booking photo of Alfred, taken after he called 911 and told paramedics his story. He is an old, old man with his skin drawn tight across his face. He has the deep hollows of fatigue beneath his eyes, and the haunted, hopeless look of a man who has given up.

In jail, things would get worse. He fell, and needed full-time nursing care after his brain surgery.

“He was so confused,” said Olson. “He sometimes thought he was in a train station. He said the deputies would helicopter him to the woods for parties.”

According to the reports presented in court, medication has helped him. It has eased the effects of the strokes he apparently suffered before that night four years ago, the night that changed the Pohlmeier family forever.

Olson hadn’t yet phoned Pohlmeier’s relatives with news of his officially restored sanity. But she said they knew the hearing was coming and were confident that he would be joining them soon.

Many families have abandoned their old folks simply for being old. Any nursing home worker can point out the ones who never get calls, or visits--except maybe on Mother’s Day, and then oh-so-briefly. And these are people who never snapped, people who have led blameless lives, except for the fatal mistake of senility.

I hope Alfred Pohlmeier knows how lucky he is.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.