Ex-Diplomat's Spouse Was Infirm, Police Say
By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
On a stormy night last week, former U.S. ambassador Richard Funkhouser, 90, found his frail 84-year-old wife lying in her bedclothes on a rain-soaked sidewalk. It might have been too much to bear, friends and neighbors said.
Yesterday, he apparently fatally shot Phyllis Funkhouser, whose health had been deteriorating, before turning the gun on himself, police said.
Their bodies were found in the underground garage of the Washington retirement home where they lived, Ingleside at Rock Creek, in the 3000 block of Military Road NW.
It was unclear where Funkhouser obtained the gun. Officers said they are investigating the case as a murder-suicide.
Funkhouser, a former Foreign Service officer who lived around the world and served as U.S. ambassador to Gabon from 1969 to 1970, had been his wife's caretaker for years, friends said.
"This was not a crime," said Jane Angus, an Ingleside resident. "This was an act of love."
Angus and others at Ingleside said that Phyllis Funkhouser's health had declined and that she had difficulty moving. Police said she had dementia. Last week, Richard Funkhouser found her on a sidewalk outside the retirement home.
"It had gotten gradually worse -- she became more feeble, and he was feeble," Angus said.
Several years ago, the couple were in a crash of a private plane in Europe. Although they survived, the crash left Phyllis Funkhouser "fairly crippled," said Alice McIlvaine of Ingleside.
Since then, her husband "took beautiful care of her," McIlvaine said. "They were lovely people."
The Funkhousers had lived at Ingleside for seven years and were popular in the social circles there. Richard Funkhouser was an avid golfer who accompanied his wife to dinner in the dining room about once a week, helping her as she moved slowly with a walker, friends said.
Lou Varella, Ingleside's executive director, released a statement saying that the Ingleside community was saddened by the news.
"Our hearts and prayers go out to their family and to all of the residents and staff who cared so much for these fine people," the statement said.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, who was at the scene yesterday, declined to release information, saying that she was respecting the wishes of the couple's two children.
"It's a tough situation on the family, I'm sure," Lanier said.
The Funkhousers lived in Georgetown before moving to Ingleside, friends said. They had a third child, Phillip Hayes Funkhouser, who died at 14 in 1961 in a car crash in Wyoming, where he had been working for the summer. He was a student at St. Albans School for Boys.
Richard Funkhouser served in the Army during World War II and had a distinguished career in the Foreign Service after the war. He served in positions at U.S. embassies in Paris; Bern, Switzerland; Brussels; Luxembourg; Bucharest, Romania; Damascus, Syria; Moscow; and Saigon.
President Richard M. Nixon appointed him as ambassador to Gabon, a position he held for a year. In 1971, he was sent to Vietnam as head of the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support Program.
He then worked as an international affairs consultant based in Scotland. From 1981 to 1983, he was director of international activities for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
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