A 71-year-old man has confessed to spiking his wife’s soda with drugs in an attempt to kill her and marry her daughter.
Alfred Ruf, from Indiana, pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated battery in July over the attempted poisoning of his wife.
Ruf confessed to officers that he had been spiking his wife’s drinks using a substance which was supplied to him by his wife’s daughter from a previous marriage.
When he was interviewed by deputies in January 2022, Ruf revealed that he had a sexual relationship with his wife’s 31-year-old daughter.
He said that in September 2021 she had given him a pill bottle which contained a powdered substance, before telling him to put the contents in her mom’s drink.
Alfred Ruf attempted to poison his wife in an attempt to kill her. (Richmond Police Department)
Ruf said that the drugs in the bottle would make his wife go to sleep for a period of around ’13 hours or so’.
During that time the daughter and her friend would give him a ‘show’ involving them wearing his wife’s negligees and performing ‘sex acts on each other’.
An affidavit says: “Alfred would then sprinkle some of the white powder in (his wife’s) Coca-Cola can and then wait for her to fall asleep,” the affidavit says. “(The women) would then come to Alfred’s residence and put more of an unknown substance in (Ruf’s wife’s) drink and have her drink it.”
According to court documents the daughter had also reportedly told Ruf that she had wanted to ‘get mom out of the picture’ after she discovered they were selling the home, and also mentioned a life insurance policy her mother had.
Ruf also confessed that he had spiked the drinks in an attempt to ‘eventually kill’ his wife.
He said that he had administered the powdery substance to his wife 12 times between September and December 2021, and had plans to marry her daughter after they ‘took care’ of his wife.
Police found an ‘off white residue’ in the bottom of a soda can shown to them by Ruf’s wife. (Virojt Changyencham / Getty)
Ruf’s wife called the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department and informed them of what he had been doing.
She showed them a pill bottle with the white substance and gave them a Coca-Cola can which she had cut open after drinking to reveal an ‘off-white residue’ at the bottom.
Tests carried out at a hospital revealed that she had MDMA, cocaine, and Benzodiazepines in her system, which she denied taking.
Ruf came clean about his actions because he ‘felt bad’.
Ruf’s defense attorney John Lawrence Tompkins told USA TODAY: “Once the state changed the nature of the offense, he took responsibility for what he did wrong. That’s the appropriate thing to do.”
On Monday, August 26, he was sentenced to four years in prison and five years on probation for the offence, according to court records from Indiana.
