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Man, 80, tells cops he strangled wife, 75, over a suspected affair

Eighty-year-old Rudi Adolph Koos thought his wife was having an affair. She thought that was laughable. But Koos wasn't amused. Outraged when his wife of 52 years, Waltraud, began calling him names, he grabbed his 75-year-old bride by the throat and strangled her in their Souderton, Montgomery County, apartment Tuesday night, authorities said yesterday.

Eighty-year-old Rudi Adolph Koos thought his wife was having an affair.

She thought that was laughable.

But Koos wasn't amused. Outraged when his wife of 52 years, Waltraud, began calling him names, he grabbed his 75-year-old bride by the throat and strangled her in their Souderton, Montgomery County, apartment Tuesday night, authorities said yesterday.

Five hours later, he called 9-1-1 and matter-of-factly ratted himself out: "I killed my wife . . . yesterday evening . . . 9 o'clock or so . . . she's in the kitchen . . . I killed her . . . with my hands . . . she's dead."

Koos was arraigned yesterday on murder and related charges before District Judge Kenneth Deatelhauser, in Souderton. He was held without bail and faces a preliminary hearing Jan. 14.

Koos called authorities shortly after 2 a.m. yesterday to report his crime, according to a joint statement issued by Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and Souderton Police Chief Charles Quinn.

Ferman said that there was no reported history of mental illness or domestic violence during the couple's decades of marriage.

Officers responding to the Kooses' apartment, on Broad Street near Mifflin, met Koos at his front door, Ferman and Quinn said. He let them inside and took them to the kitchen, where his dead wife lay on the floor, covered by a blanket.

Koos told investigators that the incident unfolded shortly after he got home about 9 p.m. Tuesday and went to the kitchen to watch TV.

He said his wife ridiculed him, laughed at him and called him names because he had accused her of having an affair. So he pushed her, and she returned the gesture by scratching him in his face, he told investigators.

Koos said he then "lost it" and pushed his spouse onto the kitchen floor, where he choked her until she "didn't move anymore," Ferman and Quinn said.

"The facts as we know them are quite simple," Ferman said. "Trying to understand how they occurred isn't so simple."

Montgomery County Coroner Walter I. Hofman determined that Waltraud Koos had died of manual strangulation.

Staff writer Christine Olley contributed to this report.