Douglas County officials declared that a Lawrence man choked his wife and then set the house fire that killed them both this past month. Dist. Atty. Mike Malone said an arson squad investigation showed that Audrey Pope, 56, was choked with a piece of rope until she was unconscious and then died of smoke inhalation from a fire set by her husband, Earl Pope, 56. After choking his wife in a bedroom, Pope apparently set kerosene fires in two rooms of the frame house at 1608 E. 15th St., investigators said.