Frederic Defrouville

Frederic De Frouville (Virginia, c. 1850 – April 4, 1883) was an American noted for committing a murder-suicide in Washington, DC. De Frouville murdered his estranged wife, Andrea De Frouville, née Andrea Marie Wolstrup in Denmark, on April 4, 1883, and then shot and killed himself. She had legally separated from him the previous November because of his heavy drinking and abuse of her.

Early life and education Frederic De Frouville was born about 1850 in Virginia. His father was Frederick De Frouville, a French national who had emigrated to the United States in the 1840s and became a citizen in 1848, and his mother was Orsena Bestor of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He also had a sister. Her friends had recommended against her marriage to De Frouville because they considered him too wild and reckless. After the separation, she gained a clerkship as a translator in the Department of Agriculture due to the recommendation of Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill. Friends warned her of De Frouville's threats against her in the weeks before her death, and her attorney advised her to have him arrested.