An Indiana man who admitted he spiked his wife’s Coca-Cola with cocaine and other drugs in hope of killing her and running off with his stepdaughter was sentenced to four years in prison, court documents say.
Alfred W. Ruf, 71, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated battery posing a risk of death. A charge of conspiracy to commit murder was dismissed as part of a plea deal, court documents say.
Authorities began investigating the case in 2022 after Ruf’s wife, Lisa Bishop, told police conducting a welfare check at their Richmond home that she had been hospitalized several times and believed Ruf was trying to kill her, a probable cause affidavit says.
Bishop gave officers a pill bottle containing a white powdery substance and told them that Ruf had been putting the powder into her drinks without her knowledge, the filing says. Bishop also gave officers a Coke can she drank out of and cut open. At the bottom was the powdery substance, according to the affidavit.
Bishop was taken to a hospital, where she tested positive for cocaine, MDMA — commonly known as molly or ecstasy — and benzodiazepine, a class of depressant drugs, the affidavit says. She denied using drugs.
An attorney for Ruf said that the pair had a volatile marriage and that Bishop had run Ruf over with a car and “beat him bloody” about a year before his arrest.
The probable cause affidavit says that Bishop and Ruf were known to officers and that police were frequently called to their home because of domestic violence issues.
“She wasn’t prosecuted. Maybe none of this would have happened if some prosecutorial action had been taken when she did those things,” attorney John L. Tompkins said Wednesday. “It was a mutually destructive relationship, and it’s just unfortunate. And what she did to him doesn’t excuse what he did.”
The affidavit alleges Ruf told detectives that his wife’s daughter from a previous relationship would give him a white powdery substance to put in Bishop’s drink.
“Alfred stated that the substance would then make Lisa go to sleep for approximately thirteen hours or so,” it says. “Alfred stated that he would do this to eventually kill Lisa.”
The affidavit says the daughter and her friend “would call him and tell him to give the substance to Lisa.” The daughter and her friend would then come to the house and give Bishop “more of an unknown substance.”
Ruf told investigators he was in a sexual relationship with the daughter and friend, the affidavit alleges. But Tompkins said that wasn’t true.
Ruf alleged that the daughter mentioned a life insurance policy Bishop had and instructed him to “get mom out of the picture,” the filing says. The daughter’s friend is alleged to have hinted at wanting to marry him “after they took care of Lisa.”
According to Tompkins, the daughter has denied being involved in the attempted poisoning.
Ruf told authorities he gave Bishop the powdery substance about 12 times from the beginning of September 2021 to the end of December 2021. Ruf said he took his wife to the hospital about six times because of reactions she had to the drugs, according to the affidavit.
Bishop told police that she had been suffering from headaches, drowsiness and lightheadedness but did not know what was wrong with her, the filing says. In one incident, Bishop said, she felt she was going to pass out and cut open a can of Coke she had drunk from.
When she saw a powdery substance at the bottom, she confronted Ruf, who admitted drugging her, the filing alleges.
“Alfred kept going back and forth about what his intentions were for giving his wife the substance,” it says. “He would state that he knew it would kill his wife. … But then Alfred would explain that he would give his wife the substance just to make her pass out so the other two females would come over so he could have sex with them.”
Ruf was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by five years of probation.
When Ruf was arrested in 2022, police said they were still investigating two other suspects, WXIN-TV of Indianapolis reported.
The daughter and her friend have not been arrested or charged.
Source: NBCNews.com