The August arrest of Albrecht Muth, 47, on charges of killing his 91-year-old wife, Viola Drath, was seamy enough. Then reports circulated that Muth had claimed to be an Iraqi general, walked Q Street NW in uniform, and told reporters he had inside information from Baghdad. He’d faced restraining orders from a male entanglement as well as Drath and insisted his incarceration violated the Geneva convention. A real, live tabloid story in Georgetown! But the tale is compelling for non-tawdry reasons, too. Just how did a phony come to be identified in the Wall Street Journal as someone “known for hosting dozens of the city’s power brokers at outlandish soirées?” Option one: Because Georgetown no longer has gatekeepers to ostracize nobodies. Option two: Because reporters no longer hang out with real socialites, and wrongly labeled the couple as somebodies. Either way, it tells you something about modern D.C.
Muth, Albrecht
The cultural significance of 2011's seamiest murder story