Professor beat wife to death as she wrapped Christmas presents

A UNIVERSITY professor has admitted beating his wife to death with an iron bar as she wrapped Christmas presents.

Rafael Robb, aged 57, who taught at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania escaped a murder charge after claiming he suddenly snapped during an argument. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter yesterday, explaining that he picked up a pull-up exercise bar during the row and beat his wife as she wrapped presents three days before last Christmas.

“I just lost it,” said Robb.

Robb faces up to seven years in prison. He will be sentenced at a later hearing.

He claimed that he argued with his wife that day about a trip she and their 12-year-old daughter were taking over the holiday break. He did not want the girl to miss any school.

“We started a discussion about that. The discussion was tense,” said Robb. “We were both anxious about it. We both got angry. At one point, Ellen pushed me. I just lost it.”

= Robb is an expert in game theory, a complex melding of psychology, human behaviour and economics — all aimed at determining what one’s adversary will do next.

With that background, police said, he may have thought he could outsmart them. Trying to disguise the killing, he threw the weapon in a rubbish bin in Philadelphia and tried to make his home look like it had been burgled. Detectives were suspicious from the start, though, because the scene was poorly staged and nothing was missing.

Robb could have faced a life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder, but prosecutors felt there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

He pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter, which is defined as an intentional, unlawful killing, with provocation, in the heat of passion.

Robb apologised to his daughter, who was not in court, and said he was “very remorseful”.

“I know she liked her mother and now she doesn’t have a mother,” he said.