Bertha Yalter appears in a booking photo from January 2024. (Miami-Dade County Jail)
A Florida wife is behind bars for trying to kill her husband of several decades after he received a postcard from a long ago ex-girlfriend — a woman he dated some 60 years ago, according to law enforcement.
Bertha Yalter, 71, stands accused of one count each of attempted murder in the second degree, aggravated battery against an elderly person, and tampering with a witness or victim, according to Miami-Dade County court records reviewed by Law&Crime.
When the violence unfolded, the couple had been married for nearly 52 years, according to the North Miami Beach Police Department.
The underlying incident occurred on Sunday, Jan. 28, according to an arrest report obtained by Miami-based NBC affiliate WTVJ and CBS affiliate WPLG.
The couple live in the Eastern Shores neighborhood of North Miami Beach, near the corner of Northeast 169th Street and 35th Avenue.
Detectives arrived at the residence around 3:40 p.m. that day in response to a man calling to say his wife had tried to kill him in their gated community, according to the arrest report. Responding officers reportedly found the victim in an “extremely fragile” state and with “several serious bruises and open lacerations…as well as open bite marks that were bleeding.”
The attempted murder, the man allegedly told law enforcement, occurred after he received a postcard from a woman he dated before marrying his wife in the 1960s. Some aspect of the long-gone lover’s decades-later outreach greatly angered the defendant, who first tried to smother her husband with a pillow, police allege.
At least some of the alleged attack was captured on a cellular phone, police say. Detectives on the scene viewed the footage and allegedly confirmed the man’s story. Bertha Yalter also allegedly admitted to depriving her husband of his cellphone at some point, a prosecutor alleged during a later bond hearing.
The defendant also allegedly confessed to committing the attack when interviewed by law enforcement, according to the police report obtained by Tampa-based Fox affiliate WTVT.
During the recorded bond hearing and first appearance on Monday, the victim was identified as having the initials “MY.” The defendant was ordered to have no contact with him in any way, shape, or form.
The judge and prosecutor in the case also remarked upon the nature of the incident — mentioning the postcard from the other woman.
During the bond hearing, a public defender who was initially assigned to the case moved to have the charges against Bertha Yalter downgraded to domestic battery by way of strangulation. The defense attorney argued that the state often tries to paint such cases as attempted murders.
“Judge, there is nothing indicating she was trying to kill him,” the public defender said at one point during that hearing.
An attorney for the state, however, began reading from the arrest report to justify the more serious charges. The prosecutor remarked that the attempted smothering by a pillow covered attempted murder because “that would suffocate and kill him.”
“I think she also admitted to urinating on him,” the state’s attorney said. “So, I think if you look at the totality of the circumstances, this appears to be more than a domestic battery by strangulation.”
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer agreed with the state. The court ordered the defendant to remain in pretrial detention pending a final bond hearing. On Tuesday, that hearing was scheduled for Feb. 1.
Since her first court appearance, Bertha Yalter retained private counsel. Law&Crime reached out to her attorneys for comment on this case but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
The City of North Miami Beach declined to release any records related to this case due to the ongoing investigation.
Law&Crime also reached out to the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts for additional information about this case, but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
It is presently unclear what the postcard said.
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