Mayor of Castor Ave.' dies before murder trial in death of his wife

Louis Hartdegen may yet be judged for the May 6, 2013 murder of his wife of 52 years but it won't be in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

On Tuesday, the same day Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi set Oct. 27 for Hartdegen's nonjury trial, the 76-year-old Northeast man neighbors once dubbed "the mayor of Castor Avenue" died.

Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore confirmed Hartdegen's death and said his lawyers said he had a heart attack. Hartdegen's attorneys, Thurgood M. Matthews and Catherine Berryman, could not be reached for comment.

Hartdegen had been held without bail in the city's prisons since he was arrested. Prison spokeswoman Shawn Hawes said Hartdegen was in the Detention Center and became ill Tuesday night complaining of heart irregularities. He was taken to Nazareth Hospital where he died.

According to Hartdegen's statement to homicide detectives, read aloud last year during his preliminary hearing, Hartdegen admitted accusing his wife of taking rent money, hit her in the mouth when she denied it, strangled her, and tried to pin the crime on a neighbor.

Police said Hartdegen called 911 shortly before 3 a.m. May 6, 2013 to report that a burglar had broken into their apartment in the 6700 block of Castor Avenue, raped and strangled his wife, and assaulted him.

But Hartdegen's story unraveled in hours after police determined a window screen had been cut with a nearby razor blade and there was no sign of how the burglar got to the second-story window.

Confronted with more questions, Hartdegen admitted lying in his first statement and told detectives, "I may have suffocated her with a pillow."

After the first argument, Hartdegen's statement read, they avoided each other the rest of the day but at bedtime Hartdegen again raised the issue.

"I hit her in the mouth again, and she freaked out," Hartdegen told detectives. He said that his wife was on the bed and that he put a pillow over her face and his hand over her mouth until she was still. Then he strangled her.

Afterward, the statement continues, he undressed his wife's body and arranged it to look as if she had been raped.