Woman dies after longtime boyfriend choked her, police say
Joseph Frohlich told Las Vegas police he “felt compelled” to choke his longtime girlfriend while she slept early Tuesday morning, his arrest report shows.
What could have brought on the rage is unclear.
By Wednesday, 79-year-old Frohlich was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on an open murder charge. His girlfriend, 63-year-old Christine McQuade, was dead.
The couple, who had been together 30 years, spent a final “nice evening together” Monday, Frohlich said in his arrest report, made public Wednesday. They ate dinner, then McQuade watched TV from the couch while he paced the kitchen kitchen floor.
After that, they went to bedroom, police said. McQuade wanted to be intimate, but Frohlich didn’t.
McQuade went to sleep, the report said.
Around 3 a.m for reasons he did not explain, the report said, Frohlich felt the need to choke McQuade before smashing her head against a piece of furniture.
Police got involved when Frohlich’s sister called Metro at 12:17 p.m. Tuesday, asking for them to check on her brother. She’d stopped by his house in the 1600 block of Cookson Court, near Nellis and Lake Mead boulevards, earlier in the day, the report said. But he wouldn’t let her in.
Her brother suffered from depression, the sister told police.
But he said something else to his sister, the report said, that would later prove chilling: Something had happened to his common law wife.
When police go there, the report said, Frohlich told them McQuade was dead.
Police found her on the floor of the master bedroom with a puddle of blood under her head, the report said. She was pronounced dead at home.
This is Metro’s 35th homicide investigation in 2015.
Anyone with information on this incident should call Metro’s Homicide Section at 702-828-3521. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or www.crimestoppersofnv.com.
Contact reporter Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find him on Twitter: @ColtonLochhead. Contact reporter Cassandra Taloma at ctaloma@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find her on Twitter: @CassandraTaloma.
