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An Indiana man who poisoned his wife’s Coca-Cola with a cocktail of drugs in an attempt to kill her so he could run off with her daughter has been sentenced to prison.
Alfred W. Ruf, 71, admitted to spiking his wife’s drinks at least a dozen times in 2021 as part of the twisted plot, according to court documents reviewed by WXIN.
He pleaded guilty in Wayne County Court on Monday to aggravated battery posing a risk of death and was sentenced to four years in prison and five years of probation.
Police were contacted in January 2022 by Ruf’s wife, who said she believed her husband was trying to kill her. Over several weeks, she had been hospitalized six times with unexplained headaches, drowsiness, and diarrhea.
The wife tested positive for multiple illegal drugs that she said she did not take, including cocaine, MDMA and benzodiazepines.
When the wife confronted Ruf, he admitted to “drugging” her so that he could sleep with the daughter from a previous marriage and the daughter’s friend, she said.
In an interview with police, Ruf admitted that his wife’s daughter had given him the pill bottle with the white substance and allegedly told him to put it in her drink and wait for her to fall asleep. The daughter and her friend would then allegedly come to Ruf’s house and “put on a show,” he said to police.
Ruf’s wife had provided police with a pill bottle of an off-white powdery substance and a Coca-Cola can with an off-white residue, WXIN reported.
“Ruf stated that the substance would then make [his wife] go to sleep for approximately 13 hours or so,” court docs read. “He stated that he would do this to eventually kill her.”
The scheme was to “get mom out of the picture” and inherit the life insurance policy, and that Ruf and the daughter would get married after they “took care of” his wife, according to the court documents.
“Ruf stated that he knew the substance would eventually kill his wife… and that it was [their] ultimate goal to kill her,” police wrote.
Ruf poisoned his wife’s drink approximately 12 times from September 2021 to the end of December 2021, he confessed.
Two additional suspects are being investigated, but no arrests have been made.
