Slain socialite had Nebraska ties

WASHINGTON — A 91-year-old socialite and acclaimed writer with strong Nebraska ties was killed last week in her Georgetown home, and her middle-aged husband stands accused of her murder.

Albrecht Muth, 47, has been ordered held without bail on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Viola Herms Drath. Court documents say Drath died of strangulation and blunt-force trauma.

Muth has denied wrongdoing and wrote an obituary for his wife that said she died of a head injury from a fall. But police said the injuries were inconsistent with a fall, and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

Muth has made outlandish claims about working for the Iraqi army, although police said he had no formal job and was supported by his wife, receiving a $2,000-a-month allowance.

Drath, who had been a widow for several years before marrying Muth, was familiar to various prominent Nebraska elected officials and to administrators at her alma mater, the University of Nebraska, particularly the College of Journalism and Mass Communications in Lincoln.

When Drath was inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame in 2006, Will Norton, then-dean of the journalism college, described her as "one of the most distinguished graduates of the university."

News of Drath's slaying left Norton and others mourning a fascinating, soft-spoken German native who devoted her life to fostering greater understanding and dialogue between Europe and the United States.

"This is a great loss," Norton told The World-Herald on Thursday.

Norton, now at the University of Mississippi, said he sent Drath an email just a couple of weeks ago, saying they should have lunch the next time he was in Washington.

Drath used her connections and funds to sponsor an internship at the Washington Times for a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, although that program fell apart a couple of years ago because of cutbacks at the newspaper.

Charlyne Berens, associate dean at the journalism school, worked with Drath on the internship program.

"Visiting with her was like ... a mini-course in international relations," she said. "She had so many insights into what was happening in the world and on the national level, too."

It was Drath's first husband, Col. Francis Drath, who brought her to Nebraska from Germany. The pair met and fell in love during the 1940s, when he served as military governor of Bavaria. They later moved to the United States. The U.S. Army colonel became director of the Selective Service in his home state of Nebraska, and the couple settled in Lincoln.

Viola Drath received a master's degree in philosophy from NU and wrote for various publications, becoming a recognized expert in trans-Atlantic relations. She was particularly focused on German reunification and was credited with helping to speed reintegration of West and East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called her 1975 biography of former German Chancellor Willy Brandt a "must read."

After more than two decades in Lincoln, she and the colonel headed to Washington.

Several years after her husband's death, Viola Drath married Muth, in about 1990.

They entertained diplomats at their cream-colored row house in the well-heeled Georgetown neighborhood. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., recalled attending elaborate formal events hosted by Drath.

He said Drath took great pride in bringing together military leaders, diplomats and policymakers in a particularly dignified way that evoked the atmosphere of a former era.

"This is very upsetting and shocking," Fortenberry said of her death. "She was an extraordinary woman."

Fortenberry and Norton both said they had met Muth, but they declined to discuss him in detail.

Muth has described his union with Drath as a "marriage of convenience." Their relationship was plagued by infidelity and allegations of violence.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Muth said he found his wife dead Friday morning in the bathroom, called police and didn't try to revive her because he figured it was hopeless. After finding no signs of forced entry and concluding that no one but Muth had access to the home, detectives singled him out as a suspect.

They also say they found "touch DNA" — which requires only small samples of genetic material — linking him to the scene.

Muth initially denied having touched his wife's body, but after being told of the DNA evidence, he told detectives he had kissed her and touched her hand, according to the criminal complaint.

Muth's lawyer, Dana Page, argued that Muth should be released because none of the evidence links him to a crime.

"There's no physical evidence. There's no statements. There's no witnesses," Page said, adding Muth did not pose a threat to the community.

Prosecutor Glenn Kirschner disagreed, saying that while the evidence was circumstantial, it also was powerful. A magistrate judge ordered Muth held pending a Sept. 2 hearing.

"The defendant concedes that he's the only one who had access to, and opportunity to, kill his wife," he said.

Drath was a correspondent for the German newspaper Handelsblatt, wrote columns for the Washington Times and authored several books.

She also developed political connections in the United States. In 2008, she was appointed to the White House Commission on Remembrance, which honors American troops killed in service. The couple hosted gatherings, including a 2005 dinner party marking the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, that were attended by military and diplomatic officials, according to the Washington Times.

But she had a stormy relationship with her second husband, another German expatriate whom she met in the United States in the early 1980s. He pleaded guilty to assaulting Drath in 1992 and was sentenced to a year of home confinement. Muth reportedly became romantically entangled for several years with a man who eventually sought a restraining order against him in 2004.

More recently, Muth was accused of assaulting Drath with a chair and pounding her head on the floor in a fight that began with insults about intellect and social status.

The case was dropped after Drath declined to pursue the charges, and Muth has called the episode a fabrication.

After Drath was found dead, police said, Muth had scratches on his forehead, suggesting a struggle, and a chipped tooth.

Detectives also found a letter, dated April 11, with a signature purporting to be Drath's, stating that Drath's family was to pay Muth $150,000 if she died. The letter said Muth would get an additional $50,000 if the liquid assets in her estate totaled more than $600,000.

Police have determined that the signature was forged. Muth also asked one of her relatives whether he would be able to keep his monthly allowance, police say.

Muth says he lives by a code of Germanic precision and exactitude, able to measure the length of his regular neighborhood walks by the amount of time — 27 minutes — it takes to light, enjoy and extinguish his favored cigars. He says he became a German intelligence officer as a teenager and met Drath in the early 1980s when he helped organize foreign press relations with the Republican Party.

But he also appears to have a record of exaggerating or lying about his past.

He has claimed to be a staff brigadier general in the Iraqi army and proudly displays photographs of himself in a military uniform, including one at a wreath-laying ceremony. The Iraqi Embassy, however, says he has never been part of its army or government.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

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202-630-4823, [email protected]