By Katie Schubert
OMAHA, Neb., Aug 14 (Reuters) – An Omaha judge ruled on
Wednesday that there was enough evidence to allow a doctor to
stand trial for four murders that police say were acts of
revenge over his firing from a residency program in 2001.
Dr. Anthony J. Garcia, 40, is charged with four counts of
first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Dr. Roger
Brumback and his wife, Mary, in May, as well as the 2008
killings of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and his family’s
housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, in 2008.
During a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Omaha Police
Officer Derek Mois testified before Douglas County District
Court Judge Darryl Lowe about the crime scenes and the evidence
investigators say links Garcia to Omaha at the times of the
killings.
Mois testified the stab wounds on all four victims had a
similar pattern. Roger Brumback died of a gunshot wound to the
abdomen and also was stabbed.
Garcia, who remains in custody, was arrested July 15 in
southern Illinois by the Illinois State Police and FBI agents
from the Omaha office.
Police say the killings were acts of revenge against
Brumback and another Creighton University doctor, Dr. William
Hunter, who fired him from a pathology residency in 2001 for
unprofessional conduct. Thomas Hunter was William Hunter’s son.
An affidavit unsealed last month showed receipts, eyewitness
accounts, cell phone records, and evidence at the Brumbacks’
home connected Garcia to Omaha at the times of the killings.
According to the affidavit and records, Garcia applied for
an Indiana medical license in 2008 and in 2012. Indiana denied
his requests. Records released by the Indiana medical board from
those applications show he failed to complete residencies in New
York, Illinois and Louisiana in addition to Nebraska.
He was suspended from a New York residency for yelling at a
radiology technician, then withdrew from the program in 1999. He
also withdrew from an Illinois residency, citing migraine
headaches.
(Reporting by Katie Schubert; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Greg
McCune and Andre Grenon)
