Claudia Hoerig took the stand on Tuesday in her own defense at her murder trial for the death of her husband, Air Force Reserve Major Karl Hoerig. Prosecutors say that Hoerig murdered him in March 2007, then fled to Brazil before the body was found. Hoerig was extradited to the United States in January 2018.
During a discussion of the Hoerig’s relationship prior to Karl’s death, Claudia Hoerig’s attorney directed the conversation to the couple’s sexual habits.
“You and Karl had an active sex life?” the attorney asked.
“We did,” Claudia answered, “but was not normal sex.”
“He was not able to perform without Viagra or without bondage, or without something weird or me pretending to be dead,” Hoerig continued. “He would not get an erection with normal sex.” She said it wasn’t until after they were married that he revealed that he had any fetishes.
Hoerig went on to describe why her husband apparently had issues in the bedroom.
“He was very nervous about his penis,” she said. “He had a lump in the middle of his penis that he said some woman when he was deployed he went to Germany she sat on his penis, she broke it.”
Claudia Hoerig said that Karl was afraid she would leave him, but she assured him she would not.
“He’s 40. What man doesn’t have emotional baggage?” she said on the stand. “Whatever traumas he has from his past, over time, I’m going to help him overcome these issues.”
Authorities say that Hoerig had previously confessed to killing her husband. In a videotaped interview, she said that Karl Hoerig was abusive towards her, and that she got a gun to kill herself. When he told her to do it in the basement so she wouldn’t make a mess, that’s when she decided to shoot him instead, she said.
Karl Hoerig was found with two gunshot wounds in his back, and another in his head. Hoerig allegedly said that she shot her husband and then he fell down the stairs. Prosecutors have said that evidence suggests that he did not fall down the stairs; rather, they claim she shot at him, followed him down the stairs, then shot him again twice.
[Image via Law & Crime Network]
