December 22, 2025 • 57 mins
Please enjoy this re-release of a 2022 premium episode!
Anthony Garcia seemed to have made it. He had overcome a severe learning disability to earn a medical degree from the University of Utah. Afterwards, he was admitted into the Pathology program at Creighton University. However, he washed out of that program and the two that followed. Garcia seemed to have weathered these setbacks, but then four murders were committed five years apart. And all four of the victims had ties to Creighton University’s Pathology Program. Were the murders somehow connected? It was difficult to believe that someone could have held a deadly grudge for so long.
Join us at the quiet end for The Grudge. As we dissect this fascinating case, we’ll tell you about Anthony Garcia’s childhood, his difficulties in medical school and residencies, and the unhinged life Garcia was living when these murders were committed.
Sources
Anthony Garcia's Attorneys Want Him Evaluated for Mental Illness Before Death Penalty Hearing, World-Herald, Todd Cooper, 3/13/2027
Haunting, Dateline, S25 E24 Pathological: The Murderous Rage of Dr. Anthony Garcia by Henry J. Cordes and Todd Cooper
Resident Evil, 48 Hours, S30 E27
Trial Day 16-In Anthony Garcia Trial, Defense and Prosecution go at it One Last Time Before Handing Case to Jury, World Herald, Christopher Burbach & Todd Cooper, 10/26/2026
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-brewery--4126935/support.
Record your voicemail at tiegrabber.com for our feedback segment or send us an email to truecrimebrewery@tiegrabber.com
We love receiving your feedback and most of our case choices come from listener suggestions!
Anthony Garcia seemed to have made it. He had overcome a severe learning disability to earn a medical degree from the University of Utah. Afterwards, he was admitted into the Pathology program at Creighton University. However, he washed out of that program and the two that followed. Garcia seemed to have weathered these setbacks, but then four murders were committed five years apart. And all four of the victims had ties to Creighton University’s Pathology Program. Were the murders somehow connected? It was difficult to believe that someone could have held a deadly grudge for so long.
Join us at the quiet end for The Grudge. As we dissect this fascinating case, we’ll tell you about Anthony Garcia’s childhood, his difficulties in medical school and residencies, and the unhinged life Garcia was living when these murders were committed.
Sources
Anthony Garcia's Attorneys Want Him Evaluated for Mental Illness Before Death Penalty Hearing, World-Herald, Todd Cooper, 3/13/2027
Haunting, Dateline, S25 E24 Pathological: The Murderous Rage of Dr. Anthony Garcia by Henry J. Cordes and Todd Cooper
Resident Evil, 48 Hours, S30 E27
Trial Day 16-In Anthony Garcia Trial, Defense and Prosecution go at it One Last Time Before Handing Case to Jury, World Herald, Christopher Burbach & Todd Cooper, 10/26/2026
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-brewery--4126935/support.
Record your voicemail at tiegrabber.com for our feedback segment or send us an email to truecrimebrewery@tiegrabber.com
We love receiving your feedback and most of our case choices come from listener suggestions!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery. Ty Grabbers. I'm Jill as
usual and with me.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Is and I'm Dick. I like the intro.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So Anthony Garcia seemed to have made it. He'd overcome
a severe learning disability to earn a medical degree from
the University of Utah. After that, he was admitted into
the pathology program at Creighton University. However, he washed out
of that program and the two that followed. Arcia seemed
to have weathered these setbacks. But then four murders were
(01:04):
committed five years apart, and all four of the victims
had ties to Creighton University's pathology program. So were the
murders somehow connected. It was difficult to believe that someone
could have held a deadly grudge for so long. So
join us at the Quiet End for what we're calling
the grudge. As we dissect this fascinating case, we'll tell
(01:28):
you about Anthony Garcia's childhood, his difficulties in medical school,
and residencies which were very bizarre and the unhinged life
Garcia was living when the murders were committed. And as always,
Dick has a beer.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We have a Nebraska beer called Vanilla Bean Fathead from
Nebraska Brewing Company. This is an American barley wine. It's
eleven point five percent alcohol by volume. So again it's
one of those share beers. I'm not going to drink
this all by myself. It's a copper colored beer with
(02:03):
a tiny, almost nonexistent beige head.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, at the risk of sounding stupid, why would they
call it fat head If the head is almost nonexistent,
fat head would lead me to believe it has a
big fat head on it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, it might have been referring to something else. Or
I guess if I just poured it straight vertically into
the glass, it would have a better head.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so we really don't know why.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
No, Okay, there's an aroma, some dark fruit and vanilla,
and I get some raisins, maybe some prunes in the
taste and vanilla and oak. Nice smooth beer. They hid
the alcohol very well. You don't even notice it unless
you try drinking a lot of it and then stand up.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I won't do that. Let's open it up. Well, I
have to tell you it's smell very vanilla ish and yummy.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It's a nice bear.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, So come on over here next to me. Then
let's get.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Started, Okay. So I'll start first, and we're going to
be in two thousand and eight. This is a Thursday,
March thirteenth, and it was somewhat of a harbinger of
spring for the residence of Omaha. Winter seemed to be
losing its grip and the day was warm enough for
shorts and T shirts, or at least it was if
you were a kid. I'm not sure I'd be out
(03:27):
in shorts and a T shirt, but it was a
nice day. So eleven year old Tom Hunter got off
his school bus and went into his house by the
back door. Both his parents worked, so Tom was one
of those latch key kids, and on this day, as
was the norm for Thursdays, Shirley Sherman was there for
the house cleaning. Inside the house, Tom went down to
(03:48):
the basement where the player he was. He wanted to
work on his Xbox skills for a while, and Shirley
was working upstairs. Neighbors had witnessed a silver Honda CRV
park not far from the Hunter home. They lived in Dundee,
which is a suburb of Omaha, and a man got
out he walked over to the Hunter home. He knocked
and entered, then left about ten minutes later. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So Tom's dad, doctor William Hunter, arrived at his home
around five point forty five, and he noticed Shirley's car
was still there, which was a bit unusual. Usually she
was done cleaning by then. So when he entered the house,
he found Shirley dead on the floor, and this poor
woman had a knife sticking out of her neck. So
of course his next thought was to his son, where's Tom.
(04:36):
He found him in the basement. Tom was dead as well,
and little Tom had a knife protruding from his neck.
So this is appearances worst nightmare, just a horror for
doctor Hunter, and he immediately called nine one one.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah. I can only imagine coming home and finding not
just the dead bodies, but the knives sticking out of
their necks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, the whole thing's a shock, right, He's coming home
from work like a regular day, regular day. Yeah. So
it was Detective Derreck Moyce who responded to the call.
Tom Hunter had numerous stab wounds on the right side
of his neck with a knife stuck in one side.
Surely had similar wounds. She had stab wounds to the
right side of her neck with a knife sticking out.
(05:18):
So Moyes remembers saying to his supervisor, what the hell
is this? This is very unusual, shocking crime.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And Tom Hunter was the youngest of four Hunter boys.
The three oldest had moved out of the house. So
maybe a change of life baby, or a mistake baby
or something.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I wouldn't say mistake, Maybe surprise, surprise baby.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I like that one.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
His parents were William and Claire Hunter. They were both
doctors and they both worked at Creyton University School of Medicine.
William was in the pathology department and Claire was a cardiologist.
Tom was a bright, precocious kid. He loved video games, reading,
and sports. He was convinced he was going to be
a major league ballplayer despite his rather small size. Tom
(06:03):
attended King Science and Technology Center, which was a magnet school,
and that's where his intellect really started showing itself.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So the other victim, Shirley Sherman, was fifty seven years
old and she was a lifelong resident of Omaha. She
had married just after high school and had two children.
Then she was divorced and she was working as a
house cleaner. She lived next door to her daughter and
her granddaughter, who were very important to her. Her daughter
had a mentally and physically abusive boyfriend, and Shirley had
(06:36):
made it her life's work to get this boyfriend out
of her daughter's house, so she was very involved in
helping her daughter and her granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, it was pretty frustrating for her because, you know,
as we've seen in cases of partner abuse, the abused
person kept taking this guy back.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh, it's so frustrating. We've seen something like that in
our family, and it's just really difficult when you see
someone being emotionally abusive right in front of you. But
you really can't make a person realize, unfortunately, that they
need to get out.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
No, you can't. No.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So, actually, many people in the neighborhood had noticed that
silver Honda CRV and the driver was a dark haired,
dark complexioned man who appeared out of place. His car
had an unfamiliar out of state plate. It was white
with pastel colors, and he went to the hunter's door,
went in and was out in about ten minutes, like
(07:31):
you said. So, Detective Moys had been a homicide detective
for three years at this point, and based on what
he saw, he thought that Tom had answered the door
and was killed there. Surely had been upstairs and was
attacked when she came down to the first floor. But
burglary did not appear to be a motive at all,
and the knives appeared to be part of a set
(07:52):
from the kitchen there. So Moys wondered why the killer
had not brought his own weapons. That's a little odd.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, obviously he wasn't there to rob the place.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
No, it had to be a planned killing pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, So why do you rely on finding what you
need for murder weapons?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Exactly? And also the stab wounds really stood out because
instead of being slashed and stabbed all over, both victims
had wounds that were centered around their necks, and at
autopsy the next day, the pathologist said the killer was
trying to cut the kartid artery and the jugular vein.
So is this a medical person that occurred to them
(08:30):
that it could be.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, I mean all the wounds were on the right
side of the neck. Multiple stabbings, like the perpetrator was
trying to find the vessels.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
But they're not hard to find. Well maybe if someone's
fighting you, yeah, yeah, but I would think otherwise it
would be pretty simple to find parrotid artery at least.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, yeah, if you get the knife in there and
just start slicing, you should be able to hit it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Horrific.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So doctor Hunter, when he is questioned by the police,
had absolutely no idea who could have done this, and
the police themselves really didn't have any idea who the
target might have been. Police were initially very suspicious of
Shirley's daughter's boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I could see that because if he was just really
angry at Shirley for helping her daughter and trying to
keep her away from him, that would kind of be
the perfect thing for him to do, is go after
her there, Oh sure, and then the child just could
have been you know, collateral damage for him. So that's
certainly something to look into, and.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
They did, but he was eventually cleared. Okay, So the
Hunters had taught at Creighton for several.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Years, right, both of Tom's parents. They just couldn't come
up with anyone who might want to hurt these people
once the boyfriend was eliminated, right, didn't make sense?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Didn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
We've got this older woman doing her job and a
little boy playing his xbox, So who would want to
kill them? Doesn't make any sense?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
No, it doesn't. So the police also investigated some possible
time eyes between these two murders and the murder the
previous year of another woman in Omaha. She had also
been stabbed in the neck with the knife left in
her neck.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And that's unusual.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's an unusual scenario, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think so. I mean, I'm not a detective, but
we do these cases, and it's not something I've heard
before that I can recall.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
No, And if I'm looking at this double murder, which
are bizarre enough, you know, with the knife sticking out
of the neck, and I hear that there was one
committed about a year ago with a very similar scene, boy,
I'm going to say they shouldn't be connected until they're
not connected, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah? You would kind of go on the assumption, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So there was some really intensive investigating about that, but
it really failed to reveal any connection between the murders.
So again, they were at a dead end with this investigation.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So after several weeks with absolutely no progress, the case
really is stagnated. Not wanting the case to disci peer,
the chief of police asked Detective Scott Warner to take
the lead in the investigation, with Detective moys assisting him.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So was Warner more experienced he was the senior guy.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, but they were pairing the case down from several
detectives to just Scott Warner and Moise. Okay, so those
are the only two work in this. Actually Warner was
working in and Moys was assisting him. Now, this pairing
of Warner and Moyse was the start of a long
partnership between the two of them, and they saw literally
dozens of killings. This was how it all began.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Interesting Now, just a few days after the killings, doctor
Hunter had sat down with doctor Roger Brumbeck the department
chare at Creighton and they went through a list of
every pathology resident since the nineteen nineties. So most were
quickly dismissed as suspects, but there was a Russian doctor
who had had some run ins with many people in
(11:58):
the department. Brumbeck disliked this Russian doctor and had insisted
he'd be put on review and undergo a psych evaluation.
So in response, the Russian had actually filed a discrimination
complaint against the school. But doctor Hunter felt differently about
the Russian. He had helped him get a job in
Pittsburgh that worked so well for him that the Russian
(12:19):
doctor had withdrawn his suit. Still, there was some interest
on the part of the police, and Warner interviewed this guy,
but he didn't think there was any motive there. And plus,
the Russian doctor had an alibi.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, he was hundreds of miles away. I forget if
he was at a meeting or what, but he was.
There was no way he could have done these crimes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So I'm kind of curious what led them to look
at residents in the first place. It's not a normal
thing for residents to strike out at physicians. Were they
just trying anything they could think of?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, they were looking at because the pathology department, possible
pathology department connection.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I know they were looking at it, But I'm asking
what led them in that direction. Why would a resident,
a former resident, want to kill a doctor's child. That
still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I don't think he would have, but they're looking at him.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, that's why I'm thinking they must have just been
looking at anything possible.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
They looked at pathology department employees, sure, and anyone who
had consistent dealings with the pathology department. Sure, so that
would be residents, could be other doctors.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, but that's unusual, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So in early two thousand and nine, the case was
transferred into the cold case unit, so that was unfortunate.
This really frustrated Moys and Warner, who were still working
pretty hard treking down clues. Moys was interested in some
online friends of Tom, but then they weren't involved. They
were ruled out rather quickly.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah. Again, Tom was a pretty avid gamer, and who
knows what sorts of people he played with it conversed
with on the net.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That really concerns me about kids.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But they really couldn't find any connection between these quote
unquote friends of Tom and the murders.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I bet some of them were adults, though, which is
really creepy.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'll bet somewhere yep.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Now, Shirley's family, of course, was still quite interested in
finding her killer, and they actually contributed a lot of
money to a reward fund, and they hired their own
private detective because the family was convinced that there was
a Creton connection to these murders. So that's where they're
looking as well.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, and this family, and there's a good number of
people in the family, but they're all middle class, lower
middle class, So to put up reward money and to
hire a PI out of their own pocket was a challenge.
It was difficult for them to do that, but they
did it.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, it shows a lot of commitment to finding her killer.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, So the FBI Behavioral Unit was asked to give
their opinion. They had no real insights, but did have
one interesting suggestion. The killer was a serial killing drifter
and he might not be apprehended until he killed again.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, because it looks like someone just did this almost
for kicks from the evidence, right, it's really hard to
find a motive that makes sense, So I can see
why they would be thinking that way. So let's fast
forward to Mother's Day twenty thirteen. Owen Brumback called his
mother Mary to wish her a happy Mother's Day. Then
(15:30):
the Brumbacks got on with their day. So this couple,
the Brumbacks, are both sixty five and they had announced
their retirement and a move to West Virginia. The husband, Roger,
had been the chair of the pathology department at Crayton
for twelve years, and Mary actually had a career in
family law. But there was another couple anticipating retirement that
(15:50):
Mother's Day, and that was a Gandra and Chanda. Butra
both were physicians, and Chanda worked in the pathology department
with doctor Brumback and doctor Hunter. The Beutris were having
lunch that day with their good friends Richard and Florence
phil and the couples hadn't seen each other for some time,
(16:10):
so they had a long lunch and then it took
them a long time to get back to their car.
As they were driving home, their home security system alerted
them that an alarm had gone off at two sixteen pm,
and when they got home, they saw that someone had
tried to push in a door at the back of
the house. Whoever had tried to break in was unsuccessful
and nothing was missing from the house. The Betris did
(16:33):
not report the attempted break in to the police. I
don't know why that puzzles me. As soon as I
got that notification, I would call nine one one and
have them come to the house. I wouldn't go in
my house. No, what's going on here?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And you have evidence, you know that the door had
been jimmied.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Sure, so I wouldn't go near it. I'm not going
in no, So that's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Back to the Brumbacks, they were having a night lazy
Mother's Day and just doing a little work around the house.
Roger was painting the foyer when someone came to the door,
and what follows is an interpretation of the scene. So
Brunback opened the door and the intruder pulled out a pistol.
They began to struggle. Pistol was fired three times, the
(17:19):
magazine release was tripped and the ammunition clip fell to
the floor. One bullet struck Runback in the lower leg,
another in his shoulder, and the fatal shot ran through
his abdomen and struck his liver as well as his
hepatic artery, so he led pretty quickly. Mary ran into
the floyer and she was pistol whipped by this intruder,
(17:40):
so she had a large gash in her forehead and
her assailant ran to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of
knives and stabbed Mary repeatedly severed her carotid artery. Then
he walked over to Roger and sliced his karate.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Brutal, Yeah, brutal.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So there in the sixties, they both work, didn't get
a lot of company, so nobody found them for a
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's just awful though.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Unfortunately, I guess in a sense. A couple days after
the murder, a piano moving crew arrived at the brumback
house to pick up an hold upright piano. So no
one answered the door when the crew chief knocked on it,
and then he pulled open the unlocked door. He saw
a gun magazine on the door threshold, and he stopped
right there and called nine to.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
One one, So hold the phone. If I'm a piano
moving crew or a member of a piano moving crew,
I'm not going to walk in anyone's house, regardless of
whether or not the door's locked. I'm not even going
to know the door is unlocked because I wouldn't touch
the doorknob. So unless there was some personal relationship here,
I find it odd. And if I were the detective,
I would look at that person quite closely. They did, okay,
(18:48):
but isn't that odd or is it just me.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And you knock on the door there's no answer and
you say, okay, but.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, exactly, you call their phone maybe, but you certainly
don't walk in. It's not like someone was looking for
them or doing a welfare check. So this is very
odd to me.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, but fortunately they did find him. Otherwise it might
have been several more days.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I understand, but I think there's a boundary issue. I
just felt I needed to point out here.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Well, thank you. Yes, So Derek Moyes was one of
the responders. How's that for coincidence?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, Well, it wasn't that big of a force, was
it big enough?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And the homicide department or division had been broken up
into teams, and it just happened that Moyes's team was
on call that day. So it was just by chance
that he was going to be working both the hunter
murder and the runback murders.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, So Moyes surveyed the crime scene, and he initially
thought he was looking at a murder suicide. Now once
he entered the house, he could see that this was
actually a double homicide, and he also noticed some things
that were familiar to him. We've got two victims in
a an upscale neighborhood, no signs of burglary, and knife
wounds to the neck. And then when he found out
(20:06):
the names of the victims, he knew the same killer
had struck again five years later. So he finds out
that Brumback is a doctor at Crichton, and he says, well,
there's got to be a Crichton connection at this point,
there's nothing else these people have in common. Too much
of a coincidence, absolutely, and most detectives don't believe in coincidences.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, well, there's no such thing as a coincidence, Yank.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I kind of think you're right. So it was back
to the drawing board looking for people who had a
grudge with Brumback, and Hunter now that Russian doctor's issue
had been with Brumback, so he was back on the
suspect list. Hunter also had remembered a couple of residents
who had been fired, but this was more than ten
years earlier, and this was after a cruel prank on
(20:53):
another resident. But this likelihood of a Creton connection was
growing stronger by the next day, and that's when doctor
Gindra Butra called and told the police about that attempted
break in at his house on Mother's Day, So there's
another connection.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Okay, So that again, as you said, that just strengthened
the Creton connection.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, it's almost obvious at this point.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, and looking at the timeline, it appears that whoever
did this probably went to the Butra house first, and
when they were not found to be home, he went
to the broomback house.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah. So think the Buttres came really close to being murdered.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, if their lunch had not taken quite as long.
And then there was another comment about the couple they
had a meal with. One of them was recovering from surgery,
and it took forever to get to their cars, so
they dodged one that time.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So they were lucky. But I hope that after that
they realized if their alarm goes off, they shouldn't go home,
at least not without the police being there. Because there's
a good cheace. He might not have left, He might
have waited for them. It would have been just as
easy for the murderer, right, and he might be oh
absolutely now. The next week, Police Chief Todd Schmedderer announced
(22:11):
the formation of a multi agency task force. Most important
was that Creighton connection. All personnel records for the department
were suboened, and that's something that wasn't done during the
first investigation of the murders at the Hunter House, so
the Dundee suspects were all given a fresh look. In fact,
the Russian doctor called Warner preemptively saying he had nothing
(22:35):
to do with the Brumback murders and he would be
happy to be interviewed again. He did say he wasn't
particularly unhappy that Brumbeck was dead, so he was being
brutally honest there, but certainly didn't seem to have anything
to hide.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
No, and he got ruled out again.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So Moys was given the assignment of digging into Mary
Brumbeck's life and he discovered nothing really of importance there,
no grudge. She was a kind, considerate woman and seemed
to be beloved by all of her friends and acquaintances.
So dead end in that direction right there, which they
kind of figured, they're really thinking this is Creighton related. Yes,
(23:14):
So the task course had been going through pathology department
records and each employee had been sorted into a binder
to be investigated, and Moys was given a binder with
the name on it, doctor Anthony J. Garcia, And this
is when the case really gets going.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
This is it. Anthony Garcia received his medical degree from
the University of Utah in May of nineteen ninety nine
and started his residency in pathology in July of two thousand.
So typically you get your MD degree and virtually the
next day, next week, but very quickly you starting your residency.
(23:50):
There's a gap here. He would typically have begun his
residency in July of nineteen ninety nine out of two thousand.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, there's a one year gap.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So I can tell you from my days on the
Bylaws and Credentials Committee that that is a red flag.
Don't want to have unexplained gaps in your CV.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So explain, well, it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Should be consecutive. So, like I said, graduate May of
ninety nine, start your residency July of ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, I get that, but what kind of things would
you be looking out for that would make the gap?
There could be legitimate reasons, right.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Basic thing is you got to find out what the
reason was.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Sure, and that's something that would probably be explained by
the candidate.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It can be. And after he started at Creighton, he
lasted until May of two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
And one, so less than a year and he was.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Expelled from that program. Okay, so it was apparent from
his binder that Moyce had that Garcia and doctor Buttra
had a long and contentious history. And as he read further,
he saw that both Brunback and Hunter had signed the
termination letter. There there's all three, and they got Hunter
and Brumbeck as signatories of the letter, and you've got
(25:06):
Garcia and Bututra just going at it all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, So that's a light bulb moment.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So Moys then looked up Garcia on a national database
because he's starting to get some interest here. He's liking
so far what he's found. Moys found that Garcia's present
address was in Terre Haute, Indiana. He had received a
recent DUI in Chicago, but there was no evidence of
the criminal activity. Garcia was five feet eight inches tall,
(25:36):
he weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and he did
have an olive complexion. So if you remember what they
found out about the unknown man seeing at the time
of the Dundee murders, the man was olive complexed, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Kind of stocky, dark hair.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah. Yeah, So that kind of fits too, oh.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I'd say more than kind of it does fit. So
they looked him to him more right, And Garcia had
two cars registered to him, expensive ones, a Mercedes SUV
and a Ferrari.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah what was that three four hundred thousand dollars worth
of vehicle.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I don't know. I'm not a car person. I know
that those are ostentatious, showy type vehicles.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, maybe not so much the Mercedes, but the Ferrari
is certainly a gloudy car.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's your opinion. Some people love them. Well, sure, But
from June two thousand and seven to June two thousand
and nine he had driven a Honda CRV while he
lived in Louisiana, a silver CRV. Oh well, so that
was at the time where there was the murder at
the Hunter's house. So Moys then looked up Louisiana license
(26:44):
plates going back to two thousand and eight, and the
plate showed a Pelican with a sunset of yellow and pink.
And that's exactly what the witnesses in Dundee had reported
seeing outside the Hunter home. So everything seems to be
coming together at this point, and it's not looking good
for Garcia.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
No, the investigation is really starting to point at him,
and Mois was getting more and more excited. This is
the best leads he's had so far.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Well, you know, of course, he always does his job
and tries to do it well. I think most people do.
But just the idea of a child being killed really
lit a fire under him to get him going. I
think so, because that's so offensive and upsetting.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
So Moys told his boss that he wanted to take
a couple other police to delve more deeply into Garcia,
and we're going to find out some really interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah. From this point, the investigation is just really outrageous.
The things they find out are just not predictable at all,
are they?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No, So. Garcia was one of the three first year
residents in pathology when he started at Creighton back in
July of two thousand and Apparently he did well in
his first couple of rotations, but it wasn't long until
some red flags were popping up on medical rounds. Garcia
known to talk loudly and to make fart noises, so
(28:04):
very unprofessional to say the least.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, you're making rounds with other docs, you're discussing a
patient and he's going.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's terrible. I mean, was it in front of patients,
because that's even worse.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, I don't know pathologists, probably not live patients.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh true. So maybe that was a good field for
him to go into because he did not have a
good bedside manner.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
He definitely did not.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
But the other doctors were not happy with it. And
it was doctor Butra who asked him to leave, and
his response was, I don't feel like it. I'll do
what I want. So insubordinate for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yes. And then besides these behavioral quirks, issues, shortcomings, whatever
you want to call him, arsie, his clinical work was
pretty crappy. At his six month review, to attending doctors
just flat out refused to fill out his evaluation. He
was so poor or so poorly prepared.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So why would you choose not to fill it out
at all? Why wouldn't you give him a poor evaluation?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Because my thinking is because they don't want to found
out that they gave a negative review. They didn't want
to be targeted.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Well, you know, it seems like these doctor types they
like to protect each other too, and you can get
away with a lot before they're really going to get
you in trouble.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh, there's no question about that.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Because they figure you've gone all the way through med school.
They don't want to ruin it for you.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I think pretty much every one of these we've done
that involves a physician, there's been some, if not a
cover up, there's been some just boys will be boys
type of thing, leniency, we'll just let it go. Yes,
then it becomes someone else's problem.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Right, which is dangerous, yes, as we've seen so.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
But doctor Buttra was not afraid of anything with Garcia.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, I think he was even worse because she was
a woman, because he was very sexist, it seems.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Well, and she was an Indian.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Woman, right, Maybe a little racist too, I'm not sure
about that. Don't know if I can say that for sure.
They could be could be.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So. She rated Garcia's attitude, knowledge, and performance completely unacceptable,
and she wrote very passive, aggressive. Doctor Garcia showed marked
lack of initiative and interest. He took no responsibility for
his cases. His knowledge is very poor. That's about as
crappy a review as you could get.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
That's not something you can take to another hospital and
think you're going to get a job, No, ma'am. So
doctor Hunter, who became director of the residency program just
a few weeks before that, was asked to handle this problem,
and as he pursued this matter, he began to wonder
how Garcia had been admitted to the pathology residency at
Creyton in the first place.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, when we go back to medical school, it had
taken Garcia five years instead of the typical four years
to graduate medical school. The major reason for this was
he failed his National Board of Medical Examiner exam three
times before finally passing it. And if you're a med student,
(31:05):
you got to pass the NBME before you can go
on to next to your medical school. Okay, so a
big exam, very important. Now he also underperformed. I guess
that's as kind of word as you could say in
an internal medicine rotation.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You know, are we going to talk about his childhood
or anything, because it is notable to me that his
parents were more working class people who were very proud
of their son and his accomplishments. They were he was
kind of the star of the family, so he had
a lot to live up to.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
He did, and he had a fairly okay childhood.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, no, abuse was no of his parents seemed great.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
His academic difficulties were recognized pretty early, but didn't seem
to have a solution or a way to help him.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
No, but it seemed like a lot of effort and
ambition because he really probably wasn't easy for him to
go through medical school. He was probably not the student
that most of those people were in his classes.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
No, Oh, here's a person with some degree of learning
difficulty in terms of reading and reading comprehension. And a
ton of what you do in med school is read.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So if he had had a different mentality or personality,
it would really be admirable that he was working so
hard to get through this. Maybe he didn't even really
want to go to medical school. I think that there
may have been some pressure there from his family, and
not in a negative or harmful way. I don't think
their intentions were bad. His parents seemed like really pretty
(32:37):
good people from what I've seen and read.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, No, I think that's a pretty accurate assessment.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
But he was just kind of mean and a jerk
for lack of better words.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, he just didn't want to be a doctor.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Well, I think maybe he wanted to be a doctor
to have the fancy cars and stuff, but maybe the
work itself was not his passion at all. More in
it for the money, you could put it that way,
and the prestige.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I think he was looking for ways to make a.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Good living, yes, and impress people, let's be honest.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
And also to not have to work too hard to
get that money.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I suppose. But I would think that medical school is hard.
Oh it is, and he probably had to work quite
hard to get through it.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So maybe at one point he was willing to work hard,
but he just didn't have the right mentality for it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Well and yeah, and if he was going to go
that path, he could have gotten through a residency.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Sure. So there, well, yeah, there's definitely something wrong with
this guy. Not saying there wasn't, but I'm saying that
he had to work hard to get through med school.
Nobody was pushing him through.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Doctor Hunter didn't know it at the time, but found
out years later that Creighton was not Garcia's first residency
at all.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Okay, so here's that missing year, right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So when he graduated medical school, he'd been accepted into
a family practice program in Albany, New York, where he
was judged not just as a bad doctor, but they
actually felt he was a dangerous one. So Garcia was
suspended and ordered into counseling, and it's not known whether
he actually got that counseling. What did cause him to
(34:14):
lose his job was that he was screaming at a
radiology tech in front of a patient, and rather than
face a disciplinary hearing, Garcia resigned.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Then he got accepted into the Creighton.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Program, so that explains his year.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So there's that gap year.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
So you think he would have had to explain that
year and people would have checked on Albany, but apparently.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Not, well, they didn't know it. It took some time
before they actually found out that he had been in
the Albany program.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
So he must have lied and just said he took
a sabbatical or something.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I don't know what did to explain that, but they
didn't know about that program until some time it elapsed, right, Okay. Now,
Hunter decided he would try to work with Garcia, and
he was hoping that Garcia would improve enough that he
could finish out the year and then he could have
credit for the year and he could go on to
(35:08):
another residency because he wasn't going to get chosen to
remain at Creighton. However, Hunter just wasn't impressed with Garcia's attitude.
Plus he had the added pressure from Brumback, who felt
that he was being too lenient on Garcia.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Okay, so doctor Brumback thought that doctor Hunter was too soft. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
His Hunter was the residency director and Brumback's the boss. Okay,
so he thought basically that Garcia should be kicked out. Boom,
right there, Doctor Brumback did. Doctor Brumback did, and Hunter
was hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And for a while, it actually looked like Garcia might
make it through that year because his work and attitude improved,
although minimally it did improve. But then there was this
incident that it cost him his job.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Right, yes, this is a fairly major incident. The chief
resident of the program was out of town taking an
exam when someone called his wife and said he was
needed back at Creyton, and the caller also told the
wife that he would lose his job if he didn't
get back to Creyton. So he got back and found
(36:14):
out this was all a lie and found out that
Garcia was behind all this. So run Back gave Garcia
the choice of either resigning or being fired, and Garcia said,
I'll be fired, so he was. He appealed, but this
appeal was denied.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So it's hard to say. Was this a way of
getting back at him or was it supposed to be
some kind of practical joke. His mind just didn't work
like other people's.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
No, I didn't. Why would you even do something like that.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I don't know, That's what I'm saying. And what was
the point?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Pointless?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, But with doctor Hunter's help, Garcia was accepted into
a pathology residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
So you would have thought Garcia would like because doctor
Hunter was the one that kept giving him chances.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
But Garcia lasted less than two years in that residency,
and besides having poor performance, he suffered a bunch of
medical issues that caused him to miss a lot of work. Yeah,
so part of that wasn't his fault, I guess. Or
was he a hypochondriac?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Both? He was ill, obviously, depression, a variety of illnesses other.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Than psychiatric or were they all psychiatric?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Pretty much? Migraine headaches, oh yeah, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
But he missed a lot of work because of this, Yeah,
he did. So by the end of two thousand and three,
Garcia was back in California and he was living with
his parents. So there's a big step down, you think.
And he was working at home fixing cars. But you know,
his parents were very nice people. It's not like they
were ragging on him about this. They were trying to
help him. And in two thousand and seven, he was
(37:55):
accepted into a psychiatry residency at Louisiana State University. He
was able to get a temporary medical license and began
to work, but this job lasted only a few months.
He was fired when the officials there learned of his
difficulties at Creighton. So now he's thinking things that happened
at Creighton are haunting him and maybe he's never going
(38:18):
to be able to get past it, and maybe that's
why his resentment against the doctors at Creighton was building.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah. I think one of the things was that because
you're wondering, maybe why would you let seven years go
by to get revenge? And he was fired in two
thousand and one. Tom and Shirley were killed in two
thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It's a grudge, and what's the saying revenge is a
dish best served cold, right, right, because it's less likely
they're going to look at you if years have passed.
And that was true. It took the detectives a while
to think that someone would hold a grudge for such
a length of time. But on the other hand, you know,
things were happening to remind him of that because his
(38:59):
career was not working.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
No, it wasn't. It was in the shitter. So and
one interesting aspect of all this was that Garcia was
fired from the LSU program two weeks before Tom Hunter
and Shirley Sherman were murdered.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, so that's not a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
So it's not seven years, No, two weeks.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Well after his dismissal, Garcia moved back to Chicago and
he found part time work with a couple of medical clinics.
In twenty ten, he got a job in the federal
prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and he got a temporary
medical license, But when he applied for a permanent license,
he ran into the same problem he had before, because
this time it was doctor Roger Brumback who told the
(39:42):
Indiana authorities that Garcia had been fired. So in December
of twenty twelve, Garcia was denied a license to practice
in Indiana. So obviously that made him very angry and resentful.
And it was only five months after that that doctor
Brumback was killed along with his wife.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
So Moys at this point is pretty convinced that Garcia
is the murderer.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Well, everything's pointing to him, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Sure is? So Moys obtained cell phone records, and while
they didn't go all the way back to the Dundee murders,
Moys was able to see that Garcia had been an
hour away from Omaha the day before the Brumback murders.
And Moys also found a call placed to Gander Mountain,
which is an outdoors store in Tara Haute, and they
sold guns. Moys knew that the murder weapon was a
(40:27):
Smith and West and SD nine. An investigation showed that
Garcia had purchased in SD nine two months before the
Brunback murders.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
But he hadn't shot any of his victims. Correct or
had he shot that couple?
Speaker 3 (40:41):
He shot doctor Brumbeck and the.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Rest were stabbings, right, Okay? Well, they also looked at
credit card records and that took some time, since Garcia
had twenty credit cards. Garcia had used one of the
cards at a restaurant called Wingstop, just a few minutes
after the alarm had gone off at the Butcher residence.
The same part was used at a convenience store just
outside of Omaha, and that store had security cameras, and
(41:07):
when they looked at the footage, they saw that Garcia
had purchased a case of beer on that Mother's Day
in that area, right, that's right. So the detectives presented
their findings to the prosecutors and they were told to
arrest Garcia. They had enough. He was apprehended as he
was driving on a highway. Now when he was picked up,
there was a gun in his car and he had
(41:28):
the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. He was
taken to jail where Moys and Warner were waiting to
interview him, and Garcia lawyered up, didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Smart move. Detectives looked at Garcia's home in Terre Haute.
This split level house had a Ferrari parked in the driveway.
Inside the house, the furnishings were pretty sparse, with beer
cans and trash being the primary decor.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, no furniture, really, I saw footage of it. The
living room was empty, so he'd really kind of I
wouldn't say he didn't know what he was doing. I
wouldn't say he was insane to that point necessarily, but
I mean something was definitely wrong with him mentally, seriously, seriously. Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
So, and then the kitchen sink headed papers were kind
of bizarre and incriminating, which they interpreted as signs of
a mentally ill person. He had poured some kind of
substance on the papers, designed to blur the ink or
dissolve the ink.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, he'd been putting in a lot of effort into
weird things. Yeah, but it did say things about killing
and guns and very incriminating things.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So if we go back again to his childhood, he'd
been the oldest of three children. His parents, Frederick and
Estella Garcia, were a middle class couple, and it seemed
like a loving home. But they did say he didn't
have many friends, and like you said, he didn't do
very well academically. He did have a reading disability, but
it seemed that his parents may have pushed him to
(42:55):
become a doctor, and he wanted to be a mathematician
because that was his one good subject. So he wasn't
a people person, but maybe he was good with numbers.
But even in college he had average grades and scored
low on his MCATs. He was accepted at the University
of Utah for medical school though, and possibly he had
a little boost because of his ethnicity. He was from
(43:18):
a Hispanic background, even though he was born in the USA. Yes, so,
like we said, med school was a struggle for him,
and it did take him five years, and he was
treated for depression, and he had begun drinking heavily.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
And then when he was dismissed from his first residency
in Albany and returned home, he was exhausted and just
not well. But it wasn't until his third residency in
Chicago that his mental illness became more apparent. He was
emotional up and down, drinking heavily, and was taking several
medications that were self prescribed. He told his supervising physician
(43:57):
that he had had homicidal thoughts about some cod workers
and had thoughts of harming himself. He got hospitalized twice
over a two month period, and during one of those
hospitalizations he got several courses of electric shock treatments.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
But they did seem to work for a time.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Well, it got him back to being able to function.
I don't know how well. I'd say they worked okay.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
So after he left Chicago, he returned home to California,
and he may have attempted suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
He did continue to express homicidal thoughts, which is alarming,
and he actually wrote, one hundred years from now it
will not matter, so kill them, but do it right.
Then he continued to apply for a medical license, but
(44:42):
at least five states had turned him down. Then oddly
he took some automotive courses, applied to some law schools,
and even tried to become a police officer. So he
was definitely lost.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, he's just drifting along. And then somewhat unexpectedly, he
was admitted to the psych program at LSU, but as
we know, this didn't work out for him either. So
he returned again home to California and about a year
later got some odd jobs for a medical clinic in Chicago,
and then following that he got the prison job in
(45:15):
Tarot Hate. But after he lost the prison job, he
became even more unhinged. He drank even more and was
self prescribing antipsychotics and antidepressants and sedatives. He had a
whole pharmacy going here.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So it's kind of sad up until the point where
he's violent. I kind of feel some sympathy, yeah, and
he was definitely going through a hard time that he was.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
When Moys went through Garcia's SUV, he found a handgun
and some ammunition, also a sledgehammer, a crowbar, a box
of rubber gloves, rode, directions to Shreveport, a stethoscope, and
an LSU lab coat. They also found a bag with
three envelopes addressed to his parents. So Moys deduced from
(45:59):
this that Garcia was traveling to Shreveport to kill some
LSU officials and then planning to take his own life.
And that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
That adds up, it sure it does. Then, looking at
Garcia's cell phone records showed that after the failed break
in at the Butcher's house, Garcia sat in the Chicken
Wing parking lot and searched for Brumback's address. Uh huh,
And on Garcia's tablet were names of two other potential
victims and directions to their homes. Garcia had also written
(46:29):
show I not revenge, And when they looked this up,
it was found to be a quote from the Merchant
of Venice and the full quote is and if you
wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So that all makes sense, it does his mind, I'm sure.
But can you imagine being one of the potential victims.
How horrifying, no kidd, to find out that this guy
was that close to coming to your house and killing
you or your child or anybody. Really horrific. But things
were at least turning around for these.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, they're happy with how well the case is going.
Moyes was still obsessed with the gun. He really wanted
to have the gun as part of the evidence.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So they had found a gun, but not the gun
that had shot doctor Brumback.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
They found part of a gun. Well, the clip came
out and then when he hit Missus Brumbeck in the head,
it cracked and basically fell in different pieces.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Oh well, then there's no getting it. So what was
Moyst thinking he was going to do.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Well, they didn't have the frame of the handgun.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Okay, so they were looking for that still, Yes, and
those pieces that were found in the Brumbeck house couldn't
be linked to Garcia necessarily, so Moys was getting ready
to search the six hundred miles between Omaha and Parahote
when he got lucky.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Did he ever?
Speaker 2 (47:49):
So he was actually going to ride the streets and
look on the sides of the road in a six
hundred mile area. So that's how much he wanted this gun.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
That's how much he wanted it.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
But he did lucky, and a trucker found the frame
of a handgun in Illinois, and that serial number matched
Garcia's gun, because not only had someone found it, but
he'd notified the police.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
But the odds, exactly what are they?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I don't know. I think if I found it, I
would have thrown it in the trash. I don't know
if I would have thought to call the police.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
I'm not sure have even picked it up.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
True true story, Dickie. I might not have either, unless
maybe he knew about the case. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
So.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Garcia's trial commenced in October of twenty sixteen. Donald Klein,
who is Nebraska's most experienced prosecutor, was in charge, and
he was assisted by Brenda Beadle and Sean Lynch. Garcia
was represented by Team Matta. These are attorneys from Chicago,
Roberts Senior who had largely retired, Robert Jr. And Robert
(48:51):
Junior's wife, Allison. That's team Mata. Okay, and Judge Gary
Randall presided, Now this is the first murder trial for Junior.
Senior was part of the team that had defended John
Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Wow, that's quite a job to take.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
On, isn't it? And sor was it just relaxed and
laid back guy, but his son and daughter in law
were just sees loud, aggressive assholes. Really yeah, they didn't
endear themselves to anybody, including you.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Apparently Nope.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
During jury's selection, Junior said decline, We're going to kick
your ass. And his wife, Allison was even worse. During
the pre trial hearing, she called Omaha media and said
that a defense expert had found DNA on Sharley's bandana
that exonerated Garcia. There's some problems with us. When is
it you're not supposed to be talking to the media.
(49:43):
The judge had ordered that gag order. And then the
other problem was that she was lying. The DNA didn't
link with the man that Allison had mentioned.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Wow, so she must have gone to the American Samoa School.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Of Law, maybe like Jimmy Miguel. Yeah, so this this
might have been the straw that broke the camel's back,
because shortly after this escapade, Judge Randall booted her off
the defense team.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Well, you know, a defense attorney does need to work
for their client, and even the worst people deserve a
vigorous defense, right, that's true? To lie like that, it's
not okay. No, So she was replaced by local attorney
Jeremy Jorgensen. But he had his own baggage. He had
tried his only murder case while his license was on probation,
(50:31):
and he had accepted fees on a case whose legal
claim had expired.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Yeah, that's what he got on probation for. So the
evidence against Garcia for the Brumback murders was very strong.
Less strong was the evidence in the Dundee murders.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
And was that because of the time that it elapsed? Yeah,
basically okay, But they did have neighbors who saw a
Carl like kiss and a guy that looked like him. Yeah,
but they couldn't fully identify him as the guy because
so much time had I guess, right.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
And the Matas felt that their best course would be
to get an acquittal for the Dundee murders, because they
figured he's going to be convicted for the Brumback murders,
but if he could get an acquittal for the Dundee murders,
it might keep him off of death row.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
And it was sad for his parents. I mean, I
know the guy was awful and murdered people, but the
parents I did feel kind of sad for them because
this was like their golden boy. They thought he was
really something, and then they'd gone through all this mental
health issues with him, and now they learn what a
horrible man he turned out to be. They have to
(51:37):
feel some guilt for that, and now they have to
worry that he'll be put to death. It's just a lot.
So it's a lot for them as well as, of
course for the victims' families. My heart goes out to
them first and foremost.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
And the detectives knew from Garcia's credit card statements that
he liked to go to strip clubs, and they went
to a club to interview the dancers, and they all
said that Rid was Garcia's favorite dancer.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Stage name.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
I assume her stage name. Her actual name is Cecilia Hoffman,
and when police interviewed her, she was quite forthcoming. She said,
doctor Tony and that's what he was called, spent a
lot of money at the club and particularly on her,
and when he started hitting on her, she decided it
was time to distance herself from him. He was trying
(52:25):
to impress Rider. So doctor Tony told her that he
had once killed a young boy and an old woman.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Oh well, any woman's heart would just be all a
flutter over that. What the fuck, that's ridiculous. But you know,
he really never had relationships with women that we know of, Diddy, No,
he didn't.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
So the prosecution felt that or Cecilia Hoffman was a
credible witness and they planned to have her testify in
the trial.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Well sure, but the defense was not happy. They didn't
want her to testify, right, of course not. They sent
their own private detective to interview her. And this was
this large, intimidating guy who may or may not have
threatened her and she had asked him to leave. So
she took the stand on the ninth day of the trial,
and she testified that doctor Tony liked to show off
(53:13):
his money and wanted to make sure everyone knew that
he was a doctor, and as Garcia became more and
more enamored with her, the creepier he became. It was
when Hoffmann was trying it was when she was trying
to distance herself from him that Garcia made the remark
about killing the two people. So the defense tried to
undermine her testimony, and most courtroom observers felt that she
(53:37):
really held her own on the stand. She was believable.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Yeah, she turned out to be quite a good witness.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Well, they really tried to tear her down for her
drug use and for being a stripper. Yeah, basically what
it was. But she held up. Okay, she did.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
So the jury deliberated a little over seven hours and
found Garcia guilty of murder in the first degree for
all four killings. And that was a big that was
a huge victory. On September fourteenth, twenty eighteen, a three
judge panel sentenced him to death. At his sentencing, Garcia
had this this full beard and stuff, and he was
(54:13):
just listless and uncommunicative. He looked like he was in
a coma.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Oh yeah, he was like catatonic, And maybe part of
it was an act but in some of the pictures
he's like leaning on his attorney, like he's asleep.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Yeah, that man was really crazy and he.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Hadn't spoken to his attorneys in two years. Can you
imagine trying to defend that kind of guy.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
No, I mean, I would have a hard time defending
anyone who killed people, but someone who acts like that,
I just wouldn't have the patience. So he did get
the death penalty and he's on death row. Any appeals
forthcoming because I think if I was his attorney, I
might have tried for insanity.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, there's an automatic appeal. Sure that was denied, and
so that's where we sit right now.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
So he's on death rowte I just kind of won.
Or maybe he should be in a psychiatric facility, although
you know, he killed people, so not going to worry
too much about him, am I I don't think so. Noah, Well,
this is a fascinating story, now.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I know.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
You read a book on the case titled.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Pathological Pathological The Murderous Rage of Doctor Anthony Garcia, which
was written by Henry J. Cordies and Todd Cooper. And
there's also a couple of TV shows. There was a
dateline season twenty five, episode twenty four titled Haunting, and
there was a forty eight hours season thirty, episode twenty
(55:36):
seven called Resident Evil.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
That's a great name.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
I liked that.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I wish I could have used that one.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Ye I was taken. Sorry, I know.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Okay, so it wasn't hunting, it was haunting.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Huh hunting?
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Okay, all right, Well, quite a story. Another doctor who
could have been stopped earlier, I would say, and maybe
saved some lives. Something to consider, a lot of what ifs, right,
Oh yeah, any case there are, but this one maybe
has more than usual a little bit.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Okay, Well, thank you everyone for listening, and thank you
so much for your support and being a tie grabber.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yes, we certainly appreciate the fact that you're listening to us.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Yeah, we really do. And we'll see you next time
at the quiet end.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
Got a couple of seats here, come on down, all right,
bye bye bye guys. Mm hm okay, but do
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery. Ty Grabbers. I'm Jill as
usual and with me.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Is and I'm Dick. I like the intro.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So Anthony Garcia seemed to have made it. He'd overcome
a severe learning disability to earn a medical degree from
the University of Utah. After that, he was admitted into
the pathology program at Creighton University. However, he washed out
of that program and the two that followed. Arcia seemed
to have weathered these setbacks. But then four murders were
(01:04):
committed five years apart, and all four of the victims
had ties to Creighton University's pathology program. So were the
murders somehow connected. It was difficult to believe that someone
could have held a deadly grudge for so long. So
join us at the Quiet End for what we're calling
the grudge. As we dissect this fascinating case, we'll tell
(01:28):
you about Anthony Garcia's childhood, his difficulties in medical school,
and residencies which were very bizarre and the unhinged life
Garcia was living when the murders were committed. And as always,
Dick has a beer.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We have a Nebraska beer called Vanilla Bean Fathead from
Nebraska Brewing Company. This is an American barley wine. It's
eleven point five percent alcohol by volume. So again it's
one of those share beers. I'm not going to drink
this all by myself. It's a copper colored beer with
(02:03):
a tiny, almost nonexistent beige head.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, at the risk of sounding stupid, why would they
call it fat head If the head is almost nonexistent,
fat head would lead me to believe it has a
big fat head on it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, it might have been referring to something else. Or
I guess if I just poured it straight vertically into
the glass, it would have a better head.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so we really don't know why.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
No, Okay, there's an aroma, some dark fruit and vanilla,
and I get some raisins, maybe some prunes in the
taste and vanilla and oak. Nice smooth beer. They hid
the alcohol very well. You don't even notice it unless
you try drinking a lot of it and then stand up.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I won't do that. Let's open it up. Well, I
have to tell you it's smell very vanilla ish and yummy.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It's a nice bear.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, So come on over here next to me. Then
let's get.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Started, Okay. So I'll start first, and we're going to
be in two thousand and eight. This is a Thursday,
March thirteenth, and it was somewhat of a harbinger of
spring for the residence of Omaha. Winter seemed to be
losing its grip and the day was warm enough for
shorts and T shirts, or at least it was if
you were a kid. I'm not sure I'd be out
(03:27):
in shorts and a T shirt, but it was a
nice day. So eleven year old Tom Hunter got off
his school bus and went into his house by the
back door. Both his parents worked, so Tom was one
of those latch key kids, and on this day, as
was the norm for Thursdays, Shirley Sherman was there for
the house cleaning. Inside the house, Tom went down to
(03:48):
the basement where the player he was. He wanted to
work on his Xbox skills for a while, and Shirley
was working upstairs. Neighbors had witnessed a silver Honda CRV
park not far from the Hunter home. They lived in Dundee,
which is a suburb of Omaha, and a man got
out he walked over to the Hunter home. He knocked
and entered, then left about ten minutes later. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So Tom's dad, doctor William Hunter, arrived at his home
around five point forty five, and he noticed Shirley's car
was still there, which was a bit unusual. Usually she
was done cleaning by then. So when he entered the house,
he found Shirley dead on the floor, and this poor
woman had a knife sticking out of her neck. So
of course his next thought was to his son, where's Tom.
(04:36):
He found him in the basement. Tom was dead as well,
and little Tom had a knife protruding from his neck.
So this is appearances worst nightmare, just a horror for
doctor Hunter, and he immediately called nine one one.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah. I can only imagine coming home and finding not
just the dead bodies, but the knives sticking out of
their necks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, the whole thing's a shock, right, He's coming home
from work like a regular day, regular day. Yeah. So
it was Detective Derreck Moyce who responded to the call.
Tom Hunter had numerous stab wounds on the right side
of his neck with a knife stuck in one side.
Surely had similar wounds. She had stab wounds to the
right side of her neck with a knife sticking out.
(05:18):
So Moyes remembers saying to his supervisor, what the hell
is this? This is very unusual, shocking crime.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And Tom Hunter was the youngest of four Hunter boys.
The three oldest had moved out of the house. So
maybe a change of life baby, or a mistake baby
or something.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I wouldn't say mistake, Maybe surprise, surprise baby.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I like that one.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
His parents were William and Claire Hunter. They were both
doctors and they both worked at Creyton University School of Medicine.
William was in the pathology department and Claire was a cardiologist.
Tom was a bright, precocious kid. He loved video games, reading,
and sports. He was convinced he was going to be
a major league ballplayer despite his rather small size. Tom
(06:03):
attended King Science and Technology Center, which was a magnet school,
and that's where his intellect really started showing itself.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So the other victim, Shirley Sherman, was fifty seven years
old and she was a lifelong resident of Omaha. She
had married just after high school and had two children.
Then she was divorced and she was working as a
house cleaner. She lived next door to her daughter and
her granddaughter, who were very important to her. Her daughter
had a mentally and physically abusive boyfriend, and Shirley had
(06:36):
made it her life's work to get this boyfriend out
of her daughter's house, so she was very involved in
helping her daughter and her granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, it was pretty frustrating for her because, you know,
as we've seen in cases of partner abuse, the abused
person kept taking this guy back.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh, it's so frustrating. We've seen something like that in
our family, and it's just really difficult when you see
someone being emotionally abusive right in front of you. But
you really can't make a person realize, unfortunately, that they
need to get out.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
No, you can't. No.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So, actually, many people in the neighborhood had noticed that
silver Honda CRV and the driver was a dark haired,
dark complexioned man who appeared out of place. His car
had an unfamiliar out of state plate. It was white
with pastel colors, and he went to the hunter's door,
went in and was out in about ten minutes, like
(07:31):
you said. So, Detective Moys had been a homicide detective
for three years at this point, and based on what
he saw, he thought that Tom had answered the door
and was killed there. Surely had been upstairs and was
attacked when she came down to the first floor. But
burglary did not appear to be a motive at all,
and the knives appeared to be part of a set
(07:52):
from the kitchen there. So Moys wondered why the killer
had not brought his own weapons. That's a little odd.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, obviously he wasn't there to rob the place.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
No, it had to be a planned killing pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, So why do you rely on finding what you
need for murder weapons?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Exactly? And also the stab wounds really stood out because
instead of being slashed and stabbed all over, both victims
had wounds that were centered around their necks, and at
autopsy the next day, the pathologist said the killer was
trying to cut the kartid artery and the jugular vein.
So is this a medical person that occurred to them
(08:30):
that it could be.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, I mean all the wounds were on the right
side of the neck. Multiple stabbings, like the perpetrator was
trying to find the vessels.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
But they're not hard to find. Well maybe if someone's
fighting you, yeah, yeah, but I would think otherwise it
would be pretty simple to find parrotid artery at least.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, yeah, if you get the knife in there and
just start slicing, you should be able to hit it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Horrific.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So doctor Hunter, when he is questioned by the police,
had absolutely no idea who could have done this, and
the police themselves really didn't have any idea who the
target might have been. Police were initially very suspicious of
Shirley's daughter's boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I could see that because if he was just really
angry at Shirley for helping her daughter and trying to
keep her away from him, that would kind of be
the perfect thing for him to do, is go after
her there, Oh sure, and then the child just could
have been you know, collateral damage for him. So that's
certainly something to look into, and.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
They did, but he was eventually cleared. Okay, So the
Hunters had taught at Creighton for several.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Years, right, both of Tom's parents. They just couldn't come
up with anyone who might want to hurt these people
once the boyfriend was eliminated, right, didn't make sense?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Didn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
We've got this older woman doing her job and a
little boy playing his xbox, So who would want to
kill them? Doesn't make any sense?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
No, it doesn't. So the police also investigated some possible
time eyes between these two murders and the murder the
previous year of another woman in Omaha. She had also
been stabbed in the neck with the knife left in
her neck.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And that's unusual.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's an unusual scenario, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think so. I mean, I'm not a detective, but
we do these cases, and it's not something I've heard
before that I can recall.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
No, And if I'm looking at this double murder, which
are bizarre enough, you know, with the knife sticking out
of the neck, and I hear that there was one
committed about a year ago with a very similar scene, boy,
I'm going to say they shouldn't be connected until they're
not connected, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah? You would kind of go on the assumption, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So there was some really intensive investigating about that, but
it really failed to reveal any connection between the murders.
So again, they were at a dead end with this investigation.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So after several weeks with absolutely no progress, the case
really is stagnated. Not wanting the case to disci peer,
the chief of police asked Detective Scott Warner to take
the lead in the investigation, with Detective moys assisting him.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So was Warner more experienced he was the senior guy.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, but they were pairing the case down from several
detectives to just Scott Warner and Moise. Okay, so those
are the only two work in this. Actually Warner was
working in and Moys was assisting him. Now, this pairing
of Warner and Moyse was the start of a long
partnership between the two of them, and they saw literally
dozens of killings. This was how it all began.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Interesting Now, just a few days after the killings, doctor
Hunter had sat down with doctor Roger Brumbeck the department
chare at Creighton and they went through a list of
every pathology resident since the nineteen nineties. So most were
quickly dismissed as suspects, but there was a Russian doctor
who had had some run ins with many people in
(11:58):
the department. Brumbeck disliked this Russian doctor and had insisted
he'd be put on review and undergo a psych evaluation.
So in response, the Russian had actually filed a discrimination
complaint against the school. But doctor Hunter felt differently about
the Russian. He had helped him get a job in
Pittsburgh that worked so well for him that the Russian
(12:19):
doctor had withdrawn his suit. Still, there was some interest
on the part of the police, and Warner interviewed this guy,
but he didn't think there was any motive there. And plus,
the Russian doctor had an alibi.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, he was hundreds of miles away. I forget if
he was at a meeting or what, but he was.
There was no way he could have done these crimes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So I'm kind of curious what led them to look
at residents in the first place. It's not a normal
thing for residents to strike out at physicians. Were they
just trying anything they could think of?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, they were looking at because the pathology department, possible
pathology department connection.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I know they were looking at it, But I'm asking
what led them in that direction. Why would a resident,
a former resident, want to kill a doctor's child. That
still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I don't think he would have, but they're looking at him.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, that's why I'm thinking they must have just been
looking at anything possible.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
They looked at pathology department employees, sure, and anyone who
had consistent dealings with the pathology department. Sure, so that
would be residents, could be other doctors.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, but that's unusual, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So in early two thousand and nine, the case was
transferred into the cold case unit, so that was unfortunate.
This really frustrated Moys and Warner, who were still working
pretty hard treking down clues. Moys was interested in some
online friends of Tom, but then they weren't involved. They
were ruled out rather quickly.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah. Again, Tom was a pretty avid gamer, and who
knows what sorts of people he played with it conversed
with on the net.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That really concerns me about kids.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But they really couldn't find any connection between these quote
unquote friends of Tom and the murders.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I bet some of them were adults, though, which is
really creepy.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'll bet somewhere yep.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Now, Shirley's family, of course, was still quite interested in
finding her killer, and they actually contributed a lot of
money to a reward fund, and they hired their own
private detective because the family was convinced that there was
a Creton connection to these murders. So that's where they're
looking as well.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, and this family, and there's a good number of
people in the family, but they're all middle class, lower
middle class, So to put up reward money and to
hire a PI out of their own pocket was a challenge.
It was difficult for them to do that, but they
did it.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, it shows a lot of commitment to finding her killer.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, So the FBI Behavioral Unit was asked to give
their opinion. They had no real insights, but did have
one interesting suggestion. The killer was a serial killing drifter
and he might not be apprehended until he killed again.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, because it looks like someone just did this almost
for kicks from the evidence, right, it's really hard to
find a motive that makes sense, So I can see
why they would be thinking that way. So let's fast
forward to Mother's Day twenty thirteen. Owen Brumback called his
mother Mary to wish her a happy Mother's Day. Then
(15:30):
the Brumbacks got on with their day. So this couple,
the Brumbacks, are both sixty five and they had announced
their retirement and a move to West Virginia. The husband, Roger,
had been the chair of the pathology department at Crayton
for twelve years, and Mary actually had a career in
family law. But there was another couple anticipating retirement that
(15:50):
Mother's Day, and that was a Gandra and Chanda. Butra
both were physicians, and Chanda worked in the pathology department
with doctor Brumback and doctor Hunter. The Beutris were having
lunch that day with their good friends Richard and Florence
phil and the couples hadn't seen each other for some time,
(16:10):
so they had a long lunch and then it took
them a long time to get back to their car.
As they were driving home, their home security system alerted
them that an alarm had gone off at two sixteen pm,
and when they got home, they saw that someone had
tried to push in a door at the back of
the house. Whoever had tried to break in was unsuccessful
and nothing was missing from the house. The Betris did
(16:33):
not report the attempted break in to the police. I
don't know why that puzzles me. As soon as I
got that notification, I would call nine one one and
have them come to the house. I wouldn't go in
my house. No, what's going on here?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And you have evidence, you know that the door had
been jimmied.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Sure, so I wouldn't go near it. I'm not going
in no, So that's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Back to the Brumbacks, they were having a night lazy
Mother's Day and just doing a little work around the house.
Roger was painting the foyer when someone came to the door,
and what follows is an interpretation of the scene. So
Brunback opened the door and the intruder pulled out a pistol.
They began to struggle. Pistol was fired three times, the
(17:19):
magazine release was tripped and the ammunition clip fell to
the floor. One bullet struck Runback in the lower leg,
another in his shoulder, and the fatal shot ran through
his abdomen and struck his liver as well as his
hepatic artery, so he led pretty quickly. Mary ran into
the floyer and she was pistol whipped by this intruder,
(17:40):
so she had a large gash in her forehead and
her assailant ran to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of
knives and stabbed Mary repeatedly severed her carotid artery. Then
he walked over to Roger and sliced his karate.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Brutal, Yeah, brutal.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So there in the sixties, they both work, didn't get
a lot of company, so nobody found them for a
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's just awful though.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Unfortunately, I guess in a sense. A couple days after
the murder, a piano moving crew arrived at the brumback
house to pick up an hold upright piano. So no
one answered the door when the crew chief knocked on it,
and then he pulled open the unlocked door. He saw
a gun magazine on the door threshold, and he stopped
right there and called nine to.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
One one, So hold the phone. If I'm a piano
moving crew or a member of a piano moving crew,
I'm not going to walk in anyone's house, regardless of
whether or not the door's locked. I'm not even going
to know the door is unlocked because I wouldn't touch
the doorknob. So unless there was some personal relationship here,
I find it odd. And if I were the detective,
I would look at that person quite closely. They did, okay,
(18:48):
but isn't that odd or is it just me.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And you knock on the door there's no answer and
you say, okay, but.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, exactly, you call their phone maybe, but you certainly
don't walk in. It's not like someone was looking for
them or doing a welfare check. So this is very
odd to me.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, but fortunately they did find him. Otherwise it might
have been several more days.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I understand, but I think there's a boundary issue. I
just felt I needed to point out here.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Well, thank you. Yes, So Derek Moyes was one of
the responders. How's that for coincidence?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, Well, it wasn't that big of a force, was
it big enough?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And the homicide department or division had been broken up
into teams, and it just happened that Moyes's team was
on call that day. So it was just by chance
that he was going to be working both the hunter
murder and the runback murders.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, So Moyes surveyed the crime scene, and he initially
thought he was looking at a murder suicide. Now once
he entered the house, he could see that this was
actually a double homicide, and he also noticed some things
that were familiar to him. We've got two victims in
a an upscale neighborhood, no signs of burglary, and knife
wounds to the neck. And then when he found out
(20:06):
the names of the victims, he knew the same killer
had struck again five years later. So he finds out
that Brumback is a doctor at Crichton, and he says, well,
there's got to be a Crichton connection at this point,
there's nothing else these people have in common. Too much
of a coincidence, absolutely, and most detectives don't believe in coincidences.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, well, there's no such thing as a coincidence, Yank.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I kind of think you're right. So it was back
to the drawing board looking for people who had a
grudge with Brumback, and Hunter now that Russian doctor's issue
had been with Brumback, so he was back on the
suspect list. Hunter also had remembered a couple of residents
who had been fired, but this was more than ten
years earlier, and this was after a cruel prank on
(20:53):
another resident. But this likelihood of a Creton connection was
growing stronger by the next day, and that's when doctor
Gindra Butra called and told the police about that attempted
break in at his house on Mother's Day, So there's
another connection.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Okay, So that again, as you said, that just strengthened
the Creton connection.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, it's almost obvious at this point.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, and looking at the timeline, it appears that whoever
did this probably went to the Butra house first, and
when they were not found to be home, he went
to the broomback house.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah. So think the Buttres came really close to being murdered.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, if their lunch had not taken quite as long.
And then there was another comment about the couple they
had a meal with. One of them was recovering from surgery,
and it took forever to get to their cars, so
they dodged one that time.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So they were lucky. But I hope that after that
they realized if their alarm goes off, they shouldn't go home,
at least not without the police being there. Because there's
a good cheace. He might not have left, He might
have waited for them. It would have been just as
easy for the murderer, right, and he might be oh
absolutely now. The next week, Police Chief Todd Schmedderer announced
(22:11):
the formation of a multi agency task force. Most important
was that Creighton connection. All personnel records for the department
were suboened, and that's something that wasn't done during the
first investigation of the murders at the Hunter House, so
the Dundee suspects were all given a fresh look. In fact,
the Russian doctor called Warner preemptively saying he had nothing
(22:35):
to do with the Brumback murders and he would be
happy to be interviewed again. He did say he wasn't
particularly unhappy that Brumbeck was dead, so he was being
brutally honest there, but certainly didn't seem to have anything
to hide.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
No, and he got ruled out again.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So Moys was given the assignment of digging into Mary
Brumbeck's life and he discovered nothing really of importance there,
no grudge. She was a kind, considerate woman and seemed
to be beloved by all of her friends and acquaintances.
So dead end in that direction right there, which they
kind of figured, they're really thinking this is Creighton related. Yes,
(23:14):
So the task course had been going through pathology department
records and each employee had been sorted into a binder
to be investigated, and Moys was given a binder with
the name on it, doctor Anthony J. Garcia, And this
is when the case really gets going.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
This is it. Anthony Garcia received his medical degree from
the University of Utah in May of nineteen ninety nine
and started his residency in pathology in July of two thousand.
So typically you get your MD degree and virtually the
next day, next week, but very quickly you starting your residency.
(23:50):
There's a gap here. He would typically have begun his
residency in July of nineteen ninety nine out of two thousand.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, there's a one year gap.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So I can tell you from my days on the
Bylaws and Credentials Committee that that is a red flag.
Don't want to have unexplained gaps in your CV.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So explain, well, it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Should be consecutive. So, like I said, graduate May of
ninety nine, start your residency July of ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, I get that, but what kind of things would
you be looking out for that would make the gap?
There could be legitimate reasons, right.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Basic thing is you got to find out what the
reason was.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Sure, and that's something that would probably be explained by
the candidate.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It can be. And after he started at Creighton, he
lasted until May of two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
And one, so less than a year and he was.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Expelled from that program. Okay, so it was apparent from
his binder that Moyce had that Garcia and doctor Buttra
had a long and contentious history. And as he read further,
he saw that both Brunback and Hunter had signed the
termination letter. There there's all three, and they got Hunter
and Brumbeck as signatories of the letter, and you've got
(25:06):
Garcia and Bututra just going at it all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, So that's a light bulb moment.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So Moys then looked up Garcia on a national database
because he's starting to get some interest here. He's liking
so far what he's found. Moys found that Garcia's present
address was in Terre Haute, Indiana. He had received a
recent DUI in Chicago, but there was no evidence of
the criminal activity. Garcia was five feet eight inches tall,
(25:36):
he weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and he did
have an olive complexion. So if you remember what they
found out about the unknown man seeing at the time
of the Dundee murders, the man was olive complexed, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Kind of stocky, dark hair.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah. Yeah, So that kind of fits too, oh.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I'd say more than kind of it does fit. So
they looked him to him more right, And Garcia had
two cars registered to him, expensive ones, a Mercedes SUV
and a Ferrari.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah what was that three four hundred thousand dollars worth
of vehicle.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I don't know. I'm not a car person. I know
that those are ostentatious, showy type vehicles.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, maybe not so much the Mercedes, but the Ferrari
is certainly a gloudy car.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's your opinion. Some people love them. Well, sure, But
from June two thousand and seven to June two thousand
and nine he had driven a Honda CRV while he
lived in Louisiana, a silver CRV. Oh well, so that
was at the time where there was the murder at
the Hunter's house. So Moys then looked up Louisiana license
(26:44):
plates going back to two thousand and eight, and the
plate showed a Pelican with a sunset of yellow and pink.
And that's exactly what the witnesses in Dundee had reported
seeing outside the Hunter home. So everything seems to be
coming together at this point, and it's not looking good
for Garcia.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
No, the investigation is really starting to point at him,
and Mois was getting more and more excited. This is
the best leads he's had so far.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Well, you know, of course, he always does his job
and tries to do it well. I think most people do.
But just the idea of a child being killed really
lit a fire under him to get him going. I
think so, because that's so offensive and upsetting.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
So Moys told his boss that he wanted to take
a couple other police to delve more deeply into Garcia,
and we're going to find out some really interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah. From this point, the investigation is just really outrageous.
The things they find out are just not predictable at all,
are they?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No, So. Garcia was one of the three first year
residents in pathology when he started at Creighton back in
July of two thousand and Apparently he did well in
his first couple of rotations, but it wasn't long until
some red flags were popping up on medical rounds. Garcia
known to talk loudly and to make fart noises, so
(28:04):
very unprofessional to say the least.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, you're making rounds with other docs, you're discussing a
patient and he's going.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's terrible. I mean, was it in front of patients,
because that's even worse.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, I don't know pathologists, probably not live patients.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh true. So maybe that was a good field for
him to go into because he did not have a
good bedside manner.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
He definitely did not.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
But the other doctors were not happy with it. And
it was doctor Butra who asked him to leave, and
his response was, I don't feel like it. I'll do
what I want. So insubordinate for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yes. And then besides these behavioral quirks, issues, shortcomings, whatever
you want to call him, arsie, his clinical work was
pretty crappy. At his six month review, to attending doctors
just flat out refused to fill out his evaluation. He
was so poor or so poorly prepared.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So why would you choose not to fill it out
at all? Why wouldn't you give him a poor evaluation?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Because my thinking is because they don't want to found
out that they gave a negative review. They didn't want
to be targeted.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Well, you know, it seems like these doctor types they
like to protect each other too, and you can get
away with a lot before they're really going to get
you in trouble.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh, there's no question about that.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Because they figure you've gone all the way through med school.
They don't want to ruin it for you.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I think pretty much every one of these we've done
that involves a physician, there's been some, if not a
cover up, there's been some just boys will be boys
type of thing, leniency, we'll just let it go. Yes,
then it becomes someone else's problem.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Right, which is dangerous, yes, as we've seen so.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
But doctor Buttra was not afraid of anything with Garcia.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, I think he was even worse because she was
a woman, because he was very sexist, it seems.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Well, and she was an Indian.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Woman, right, Maybe a little racist too, I'm not sure
about that. Don't know if I can say that for sure.
They could be could be.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So. She rated Garcia's attitude, knowledge, and performance completely unacceptable,
and she wrote very passive, aggressive. Doctor Garcia showed marked
lack of initiative and interest. He took no responsibility for
his cases. His knowledge is very poor. That's about as
crappy a review as you could get.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
That's not something you can take to another hospital and
think you're going to get a job, No, ma'am. So
doctor Hunter, who became director of the residency program just
a few weeks before that, was asked to handle this problem,
and as he pursued this matter, he began to wonder
how Garcia had been admitted to the pathology residency at
Creyton in the first place.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, when we go back to medical school, it had
taken Garcia five years instead of the typical four years
to graduate medical school. The major reason for this was
he failed his National Board of Medical Examiner exam three
times before finally passing it. And if you're a med student,
(31:05):
you got to pass the NBME before you can go
on to next to your medical school. Okay, so a
big exam, very important. Now he also underperformed. I guess
that's as kind of word as you could say in
an internal medicine rotation.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You know, are we going to talk about his childhood
or anything, because it is notable to me that his
parents were more working class people who were very proud
of their son and his accomplishments. They were he was
kind of the star of the family, so he had
a lot to live up to.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
He did, and he had a fairly okay childhood.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, no, abuse was no of his parents seemed great.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
His academic difficulties were recognized pretty early, but didn't seem
to have a solution or a way to help him.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
No, but it seemed like a lot of effort and
ambition because he really probably wasn't easy for him to
go through medical school. He was probably not the student
that most of those people were in his classes.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
No, Oh, here's a person with some degree of learning
difficulty in terms of reading and reading comprehension. And a
ton of what you do in med school is read.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So if he had had a different mentality or personality,
it would really be admirable that he was working so
hard to get through this. Maybe he didn't even really
want to go to medical school. I think that there
may have been some pressure there from his family, and
not in a negative or harmful way. I don't think
their intentions were bad. His parents seemed like really pretty
(32:37):
good people from what I've seen and read.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, No, I think that's a pretty accurate assessment.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
But he was just kind of mean and a jerk
for lack of better words.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, he just didn't want to be a doctor.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Well, I think maybe he wanted to be a doctor
to have the fancy cars and stuff, but maybe the
work itself was not his passion at all. More in
it for the money, you could put it that way,
and the prestige.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I think he was looking for ways to make a.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Good living, yes, and impress people, let's be honest.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
And also to not have to work too hard to
get that money.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I suppose. But I would think that medical school is hard.
Oh it is, and he probably had to work quite
hard to get through it.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So maybe at one point he was willing to work hard,
but he just didn't have the right mentality for it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Well and yeah, and if he was going to go
that path, he could have gotten through a residency.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Sure. So there, well, yeah, there's definitely something wrong with
this guy. Not saying there wasn't, but I'm saying that
he had to work hard to get through med school.
Nobody was pushing him through.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Doctor Hunter didn't know it at the time, but found
out years later that Creighton was not Garcia's first residency
at all.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Okay, so here's that missing year, right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So when he graduated medical school, he'd been accepted into
a family practice program in Albany, New York, where he
was judged not just as a bad doctor, but they
actually felt he was a dangerous one. So Garcia was
suspended and ordered into counseling, and it's not known whether
he actually got that counseling. What did cause him to
(34:14):
lose his job was that he was screaming at a
radiology tech in front of a patient, and rather than
face a disciplinary hearing, Garcia resigned.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Then he got accepted into the Creighton.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Program, so that explains his year.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So there's that gap year.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
So you think he would have had to explain that
year and people would have checked on Albany, but apparently.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Not, well, they didn't know it. It took some time
before they actually found out that he had been in
the Albany program.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
So he must have lied and just said he took
a sabbatical or something.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I don't know what did to explain that, but they
didn't know about that program until some time it elapsed, right, Okay. Now,
Hunter decided he would try to work with Garcia, and
he was hoping that Garcia would improve enough that he
could finish out the year and then he could have
credit for the year and he could go on to
(35:08):
another residency because he wasn't going to get chosen to
remain at Creighton. However, Hunter just wasn't impressed with Garcia's attitude.
Plus he had the added pressure from Brumback, who felt
that he was being too lenient on Garcia.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Okay, so doctor Brumback thought that doctor Hunter was too soft. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
His Hunter was the residency director and Brumback's the boss. Okay,
so he thought basically that Garcia should be kicked out. Boom,
right there, Doctor Brumback did. Doctor Brumback did, and Hunter
was hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And for a while, it actually looked like Garcia might
make it through that year because his work and attitude improved,
although minimally it did improve. But then there was this
incident that it cost him his job.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Right, yes, this is a fairly major incident. The chief
resident of the program was out of town taking an
exam when someone called his wife and said he was
needed back at Creyton, and the caller also told the
wife that he would lose his job if he didn't
get back to Creyton. So he got back and found
(36:14):
out this was all a lie and found out that
Garcia was behind all this. So run Back gave Garcia
the choice of either resigning or being fired, and Garcia said,
I'll be fired, so he was. He appealed, but this
appeal was denied.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So it's hard to say. Was this a way of
getting back at him or was it supposed to be
some kind of practical joke. His mind just didn't work
like other people's.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
No, I didn't. Why would you even do something like that.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I don't know, That's what I'm saying. And what was
the point?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Pointless?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, But with doctor Hunter's help, Garcia was accepted into
a pathology residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
So you would have thought Garcia would like because doctor
Hunter was the one that kept giving him chances.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
But Garcia lasted less than two years in that residency,
and besides having poor performance, he suffered a bunch of
medical issues that caused him to miss a lot of work. Yeah,
so part of that wasn't his fault, I guess. Or
was he a hypochondriac?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Both? He was ill, obviously, depression, a variety of illnesses other.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Than psychiatric or were they all psychiatric?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Pretty much? Migraine headaches, oh yeah, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
But he missed a lot of work because of this, Yeah,
he did. So by the end of two thousand and three,
Garcia was back in California and he was living with
his parents. So there's a big step down, you think.
And he was working at home fixing cars. But you know,
his parents were very nice people. It's not like they
were ragging on him about this. They were trying to
help him. And in two thousand and seven, he was
(37:55):
accepted into a psychiatry residency at Louisiana State University. He
was able to get a temporary medical license and began
to work, but this job lasted only a few months.
He was fired when the officials there learned of his
difficulties at Creighton. So now he's thinking things that happened
at Creighton are haunting him and maybe he's never going
(38:18):
to be able to get past it, and maybe that's
why his resentment against the doctors at Creighton was building.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah. I think one of the things was that because
you're wondering, maybe why would you let seven years go
by to get revenge? And he was fired in two
thousand and one. Tom and Shirley were killed in two
thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It's a grudge, and what's the saying revenge is a
dish best served cold, right, right, because it's less likely
they're going to look at you if years have passed.
And that was true. It took the detectives a while
to think that someone would hold a grudge for such
a length of time. But on the other hand, you know,
things were happening to remind him of that because his
(38:59):
career was not working.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
No, it wasn't. It was in the shitter. So and
one interesting aspect of all this was that Garcia was
fired from the LSU program two weeks before Tom Hunter
and Shirley Sherman were murdered.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, so that's not a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
So it's not seven years, No, two weeks.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Well after his dismissal, Garcia moved back to Chicago and
he found part time work with a couple of medical clinics.
In twenty ten, he got a job in the federal
prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and he got a temporary
medical license, But when he applied for a permanent license,
he ran into the same problem he had before, because
this time it was doctor Roger Brumback who told the
(39:42):
Indiana authorities that Garcia had been fired. So in December
of twenty twelve, Garcia was denied a license to practice
in Indiana. So obviously that made him very angry and resentful.
And it was only five months after that that doctor
Brumback was killed along with his wife.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
So Moys at this point is pretty convinced that Garcia
is the murderer.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Well, everything's pointing to him, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Sure is? So Moys obtained cell phone records, and while
they didn't go all the way back to the Dundee murders,
Moys was able to see that Garcia had been an
hour away from Omaha the day before the Brumback murders.
And Moys also found a call placed to Gander Mountain,
which is an outdoors store in Tara Haute, and they
sold guns. Moys knew that the murder weapon was a
(40:27):
Smith and West and SD nine. An investigation showed that
Garcia had purchased in SD nine two months before the
Brunback murders.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
But he hadn't shot any of his victims. Correct or
had he shot that couple?
Speaker 3 (40:41):
He shot doctor Brumbeck and the.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Rest were stabbings, right, Okay? Well, they also looked at
credit card records and that took some time, since Garcia
had twenty credit cards. Garcia had used one of the
cards at a restaurant called Wingstop, just a few minutes
after the alarm had gone off at the Butcher residence.
The same part was used at a convenience store just
outside of Omaha, and that store had security cameras, and
(41:07):
when they looked at the footage, they saw that Garcia
had purchased a case of beer on that Mother's Day
in that area, right, that's right. So the detectives presented
their findings to the prosecutors and they were told to
arrest Garcia. They had enough. He was apprehended as he
was driving on a highway. Now when he was picked up,
there was a gun in his car and he had
(41:28):
the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. He was
taken to jail where Moys and Warner were waiting to
interview him, and Garcia lawyered up, didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Smart move. Detectives looked at Garcia's home in Terre Haute.
This split level house had a Ferrari parked in the driveway.
Inside the house, the furnishings were pretty sparse, with beer
cans and trash being the primary decor.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, no furniture, really, I saw footage of it. The
living room was empty, so he'd really kind of I
wouldn't say he didn't know what he was doing. I
wouldn't say he was insane to that point necessarily, but
I mean something was definitely wrong with him mentally, seriously, seriously. Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
So, and then the kitchen sink headed papers were kind
of bizarre and incriminating, which they interpreted as signs of
a mentally ill person. He had poured some kind of
substance on the papers, designed to blur the ink or
dissolve the ink.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, he'd been putting in a lot of effort into
weird things. Yeah, but it did say things about killing
and guns and very incriminating things.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So if we go back again to his childhood, he'd
been the oldest of three children. His parents, Frederick and
Estella Garcia, were a middle class couple, and it seemed
like a loving home. But they did say he didn't
have many friends, and like you said, he didn't do
very well academically. He did have a reading disability, but
it seemed that his parents may have pushed him to
(42:55):
become a doctor, and he wanted to be a mathematician
because that was his one good subject. So he wasn't
a people person, but maybe he was good with numbers.
But even in college he had average grades and scored
low on his MCATs. He was accepted at the University
of Utah for medical school though, and possibly he had
a little boost because of his ethnicity. He was from
(43:18):
a Hispanic background, even though he was born in the USA. Yes, so,
like we said, med school was a struggle for him,
and it did take him five years, and he was
treated for depression, and he had begun drinking heavily.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
And then when he was dismissed from his first residency
in Albany and returned home, he was exhausted and just
not well. But it wasn't until his third residency in
Chicago that his mental illness became more apparent. He was
emotional up and down, drinking heavily, and was taking several
medications that were self prescribed. He told his supervising physician
(43:57):
that he had had homicidal thoughts about some cod workers
and had thoughts of harming himself. He got hospitalized twice
over a two month period, and during one of those
hospitalizations he got several courses of electric shock treatments.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
But they did seem to work for a time.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Well, it got him back to being able to function.
I don't know how well. I'd say they worked okay.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
So after he left Chicago, he returned home to California,
and he may have attempted suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
He did continue to express homicidal thoughts, which is alarming,
and he actually wrote, one hundred years from now it
will not matter, so kill them, but do it right.
Then he continued to apply for a medical license, but
(44:42):
at least five states had turned him down. Then oddly
he took some automotive courses, applied to some law schools,
and even tried to become a police officer. So he
was definitely lost.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, he's just drifting along. And then somewhat unexpectedly, he
was admitted to the psych program at LSU, but as
we know, this didn't work out for him either. So
he returned again home to California and about a year
later got some odd jobs for a medical clinic in Chicago,
and then following that he got the prison job in
(45:15):
Tarot Hate. But after he lost the prison job, he
became even more unhinged. He drank even more and was
self prescribing antipsychotics and antidepressants and sedatives. He had a
whole pharmacy going here.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So it's kind of sad up until the point where
he's violent. I kind of feel some sympathy, yeah, and
he was definitely going through a hard time that he was.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
When Moys went through Garcia's SUV, he found a handgun
and some ammunition, also a sledgehammer, a crowbar, a box
of rubber gloves, rode, directions to Shreveport, a stethoscope, and
an LSU lab coat. They also found a bag with
three envelopes addressed to his parents. So Moys deduced from
(45:59):
this that Garcia was traveling to Shreveport to kill some
LSU officials and then planning to take his own life.
And that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
That adds up, it sure it does. Then, looking at
Garcia's cell phone records showed that after the failed break
in at the Butcher's house, Garcia sat in the Chicken
Wing parking lot and searched for Brumback's address. Uh huh,
And on Garcia's tablet were names of two other potential
victims and directions to their homes. Garcia had also written
(46:29):
show I not revenge, And when they looked this up,
it was found to be a quote from the Merchant
of Venice and the full quote is and if you
wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So that all makes sense, it does his mind, I'm sure.
But can you imagine being one of the potential victims.
How horrifying, no kidd, to find out that this guy
was that close to coming to your house and killing
you or your child or anybody. Really horrific. But things
were at least turning around for these.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, they're happy with how well the case is going.
Moyes was still obsessed with the gun. He really wanted
to have the gun as part of the evidence.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So they had found a gun, but not the gun
that had shot doctor Brumback.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
They found part of a gun. Well, the clip came
out and then when he hit Missus Brumbeck in the head,
it cracked and basically fell in different pieces.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Oh well, then there's no getting it. So what was
Moyst thinking he was going to do.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Well, they didn't have the frame of the handgun.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Okay, so they were looking for that still, Yes, and
those pieces that were found in the Brumbeck house couldn't
be linked to Garcia necessarily, so Moys was getting ready
to search the six hundred miles between Omaha and Parahote
when he got lucky.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Did he ever?
Speaker 2 (47:49):
So he was actually going to ride the streets and
look on the sides of the road in a six
hundred mile area. So that's how much he wanted this gun.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
That's how much he wanted it.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
But he did lucky, and a trucker found the frame
of a handgun in Illinois, and that serial number matched
Garcia's gun, because not only had someone found it, but
he'd notified the police.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
But the odds, exactly what are they?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I don't know. I think if I found it, I
would have thrown it in the trash. I don't know
if I would have thought to call the police.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
I'm not sure have even picked it up.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
True true story, Dickie. I might not have either, unless
maybe he knew about the case. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
So.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Garcia's trial commenced in October of twenty sixteen. Donald Klein,
who is Nebraska's most experienced prosecutor, was in charge, and
he was assisted by Brenda Beadle and Sean Lynch. Garcia
was represented by Team Matta. These are attorneys from Chicago,
Roberts Senior who had largely retired, Robert Jr. And Robert
(48:51):
Junior's wife, Allison. That's team Mata. Okay, and Judge Gary
Randall presided, Now this is the first murder trial for Junior.
Senior was part of the team that had defended John
Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Wow, that's quite a job to take.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
On, isn't it? And sor was it just relaxed and
laid back guy, but his son and daughter in law
were just sees loud, aggressive assholes. Really yeah, they didn't
endear themselves to anybody, including you.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Apparently Nope.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
During jury's selection, Junior said decline, We're going to kick
your ass. And his wife, Allison was even worse. During
the pre trial hearing, she called Omaha media and said
that a defense expert had found DNA on Sharley's bandana
that exonerated Garcia. There's some problems with us. When is
it you're not supposed to be talking to the media.
(49:43):
The judge had ordered that gag order. And then the
other problem was that she was lying. The DNA didn't
link with the man that Allison had mentioned.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Wow, so she must have gone to the American Samoa School.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Of Law, maybe like Jimmy Miguel. Yeah, so this this
might have been the straw that broke the camel's back,
because shortly after this escapade, Judge Randall booted her off
the defense team.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Well, you know, a defense attorney does need to work
for their client, and even the worst people deserve a
vigorous defense, right, that's true? To lie like that, it's
not okay. No, So she was replaced by local attorney
Jeremy Jorgensen. But he had his own baggage. He had
tried his only murder case while his license was on probation,
(50:31):
and he had accepted fees on a case whose legal
claim had expired.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Yeah, that's what he got on probation for. So the
evidence against Garcia for the Brumback murders was very strong.
Less strong was the evidence in the Dundee murders.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
And was that because of the time that it elapsed? Yeah,
basically okay, But they did have neighbors who saw a
Carl like kiss and a guy that looked like him. Yeah,
but they couldn't fully identify him as the guy because
so much time had I guess, right.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
And the Matas felt that their best course would be
to get an acquittal for the Dundee murders, because they
figured he's going to be convicted for the Brumback murders,
but if he could get an acquittal for the Dundee murders,
it might keep him off of death row.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
And it was sad for his parents. I mean, I
know the guy was awful and murdered people, but the
parents I did feel kind of sad for them because
this was like their golden boy. They thought he was
really something, and then they'd gone through all this mental
health issues with him, and now they learn what a
horrible man he turned out to be. They have to
(51:37):
feel some guilt for that, and now they have to
worry that he'll be put to death. It's just a lot.
So it's a lot for them as well as, of
course for the victims' families. My heart goes out to
them first and foremost.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
And the detectives knew from Garcia's credit card statements that
he liked to go to strip clubs, and they went
to a club to interview the dancers, and they all
said that Rid was Garcia's favorite dancer.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Stage name.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
I assume her stage name. Her actual name is Cecilia Hoffman,
and when police interviewed her, she was quite forthcoming. She said,
doctor Tony and that's what he was called, spent a
lot of money at the club and particularly on her,
and when he started hitting on her, she decided it
was time to distance herself from him. He was trying
(52:25):
to impress Rider. So doctor Tony told her that he
had once killed a young boy and an old woman.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Oh well, any woman's heart would just be all a
flutter over that. What the fuck, that's ridiculous. But you know,
he really never had relationships with women that we know of, Diddy, No,
he didn't.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
So the prosecution felt that or Cecilia Hoffman was a
credible witness and they planned to have her testify in
the trial.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Well sure, but the defense was not happy. They didn't
want her to testify, right, of course not. They sent
their own private detective to interview her. And this was
this large, intimidating guy who may or may not have
threatened her and she had asked him to leave. So
she took the stand on the ninth day of the trial,
and she testified that doctor Tony liked to show off
(53:13):
his money and wanted to make sure everyone knew that
he was a doctor, and as Garcia became more and
more enamored with her, the creepier he became. It was
when Hoffmann was trying it was when she was trying
to distance herself from him that Garcia made the remark
about killing the two people. So the defense tried to
undermine her testimony, and most courtroom observers felt that she
(53:37):
really held her own on the stand. She was believable.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Yeah, she turned out to be quite a good witness.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Well, they really tried to tear her down for her
drug use and for being a stripper. Yeah, basically what
it was. But she held up. Okay, she did.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
So the jury deliberated a little over seven hours and
found Garcia guilty of murder in the first degree for
all four killings. And that was a big that was
a huge victory. On September fourteenth, twenty eighteen, a three
judge panel sentenced him to death. At his sentencing, Garcia
had this this full beard and stuff, and he was
(54:13):
just listless and uncommunicative. He looked like he was in
a coma.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Oh yeah, he was like catatonic, And maybe part of
it was an act but in some of the pictures
he's like leaning on his attorney, like he's asleep.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Yeah, that man was really crazy and he.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Hadn't spoken to his attorneys in two years. Can you
imagine trying to defend that kind of guy.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
No, I mean, I would have a hard time defending
anyone who killed people, but someone who acts like that,
I just wouldn't have the patience. So he did get
the death penalty and he's on death row. Any appeals
forthcoming because I think if I was his attorney, I
might have tried for insanity.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, there's an automatic appeal. Sure that was denied, and
so that's where we sit right now.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
So he's on death rowte I just kind of won.
Or maybe he should be in a psychiatric facility, although
you know, he killed people, so not going to worry
too much about him, am I I don't think so. Noah, Well,
this is a fascinating story, now.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I know.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
You read a book on the case titled.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Pathological Pathological The Murderous Rage of Doctor Anthony Garcia, which
was written by Henry J. Cordies and Todd Cooper. And
there's also a couple of TV shows. There was a
dateline season twenty five, episode twenty four titled Haunting, and
there was a forty eight hours season thirty, episode twenty
(55:36):
seven called Resident Evil.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
That's a great name.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
I liked that.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I wish I could have used that one.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Ye I was taken. Sorry, I know.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Okay, so it wasn't hunting, it was haunting.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Huh hunting?
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Okay, all right, Well, quite a story. Another doctor who
could have been stopped earlier, I would say, and maybe
saved some lives. Something to consider, a lot of what ifs, right,
Oh yeah, any case there are, but this one maybe
has more than usual a little bit.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Okay, Well, thank you everyone for listening, and thank you
so much for your support and being a tie grabber.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yes, we certainly appreciate the fact that you're listening to us.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Yeah, we really do. And we'll see you next time
at the quiet end.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
Got a couple of seats here, come on down, all right,
bye bye bye guys. Mm hm okay, but do
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