Eighty-three-year-old accused murderer Tadeusz "Ted" Jandura stabbed his 82-year-old wife Ingeborg "at least 100 times" in their Ilikai Hotel room Sunday, a deputy prosecutor alleged in court yesterday.

Jandura, a retired millwright from Edmonton, Alberta, is being held without bail on a charge of second-degree murder that calls for his imprisonment without possibility of parole.

City Deputy Prosecutor Rom Trader said in court yesterday that the life-without-parole sentence applies under state law because the victim was more than 60 years old and the crime "was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity."

Trader made the remarks after an O'ahu grand jury indicted Jandura on the murder charge yesterday morning.

The elderly defendant, a Canadian citizen, had been scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing in the afternoon in District Court, but that appearance was canceled because of the indictment.

Jandura is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, murder defendants ever charged in Hawai'i.

According to court documents filed earlier this week, police officers who responded to reports of a disturbance in the hotel room were met at the door by Jandura, who calmly told them, "My wife is dead. I killed her."

The officers found Ingeborg Jandura's body lying at the foot of a bed near the balcony door, according to an affidavit from officer Steven Fong.

An autopsy determined that the victim died of injuries to the neck blood vessels, lung and heart.

The couple had been married 58 years and vacationed here every winter.

According to Canadian court records, the marriage had been a troubled one for years.

Ingeborg Jandura sought a divorce after separating from her husband in the summer of 2003, according to documents filed in the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta, Judicial District of Edmonton.

She described her husband in court documents as "verbally abusive" and "impossible to live with." But she said they had been together for about 57 years and tried to make the marriage "work as well as possible in all of the circumstances."

In June 2005, the couple agreed to "try and put our (divorce) matters at peace," court documents said.

But after a trip to Europe that summer, Ingeborg Jandura said her husband had not changed and, when they returned home, "it simply worsened," the documents said.

Ingeborg Jandura said her husband accused her constantly of "running around with other men." She said her husband would scream at her, calm down and apologize, but that his temper would flare again, according to the documents.

Ingeborg Jandura was born in Bad Pyrmont, Germany, and her husband in Suchodalka, Poland, according to court records. They were married July 19, 1948, in Germany. The couple have a daughter, son and grandson.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.