April 11, 2023 • 58 mins
When your failures are never your fault, time and distance can’t cool the need for revenge. When your mind continues to tally Shakespearian wounds, naturally, murder follows.
Sources:
https://apnews.com/04e245949c1d4b3492298c25fe5ab0b7
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-garcia-case-was-revenge-motive-behind-omaha-double-murders/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark (00:01):
What choice did he have but to lash out at the people
who continued to heap tragedyand embarrassment on his life?
As Shakespeare wrote, if youprick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we notlaugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall wenot revenge?
Marcy (00:20):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:42):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
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(01:04):
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That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:32):
Nemesis had a list.
It contained the names of theenemy's arrayed against him.
A triumvirate cabal.
Number one was a woman oldenough to be his mother.
At first nemesis had hoped shewould be like his mother and
that she would nurture andprotect him.
Instead, betrayal.
(01:52):
She had, in fact, become hischief inquisitor torturing him.
Piling on Humiliations until hecried out for mercy.
The bitches overseers were nobetter than she was.
Mercy was not in theirvernacular.
They closed ranks, rejected hisentreaties.
They were demons, ravaging,nemesis with their poison
(02:12):
quills, reveling in hissupplication.
Instead of sucker, they threwhim to the dogs.
After their judgment, nemesisheld them all equally
accountable.
He thought of them as athree-headed hydra.
What choice did he have but tolash out at the people who
continued to heap tragedy andembarrassment on his life?
(02:34):
As Shakespeare wrote, if youprick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we notlaugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall wenot revenge?
Nemesis needed a win.
He considered the ways ofbringing them to their knees.
To show them he would not justtake the abuse and retreat.
(02:55):
What does a knight do whenslapped in the face with
injustice?
This was his quest.
He would strike the vipers intheir nest.
Nemesis picked Hunter because hecouldn't get to the hag.
Hunter was a good firstsubstitute.
Hunter was the one who couldhave called off the madness.
(03:16):
Instead, he was no help.
He'd willingly, no eagerlyjoined the bitch's mission to
destroy him.
But what Hunter didn't know isthat he himself was a soft
target, he and his perfect wife.
Perfect family.
Living in the perfectneighborhood.
Pompous asshole even hadservants to do his bidding.
(03:40):
Nemesis had done someinvestigating.
He had watched until he wascomfortable with the situation.
Then he made his decision.
It was mid-afternoon on a brightsunshine day.
No one was on the streets.
No one was on the immaculatemanicured yards.
He circled around theneighborhood, passed his target
and parked down the street.
(04:01):
He grabbed his bag of tools andwalked the rest of the way.
During the stroll, nemesiscompared his surroundings to his
current place.
These were rich people's houses.
The neighborhood filled withassholes, just like Hunter and
his brood.
He felt that familiar pang ofjealousy.
This is what they were stealingfrom him, but it was okay.
(04:22):
Anger was turning out to be ahigh octane fuel.
Nemesis walked casually,confidently up to Hunter's
place.
He had the nap sack slung,hoping to avoid using the tools
it contained.
He tried the front door withoutknocking and finding it
unlocked.
He quietly cracked it open,peering inside, scanning the
(04:43):
small entryway before hecommitted and seeing no one,
nemesis slipped through andpressed his back against the
door until he felt it latchbehind him.
Standing motionless just insidethe doorway, he willed his ears
to hear past his rapidbreathing.
To the left, a long open livingroom.
He couldn't see the far end, buthe didn't think anybody was in
(05:05):
there.
In front of him lay the centralhallway with a stairwell down to
the basement.
To the right was a dining room,and further on the kitchen.
It was there that he would findthe first mission objective.
There was no sign of whereanyone was yet.
So nemesis crept through thedining room and into the
kitchen.
The knife block was just wherehe imagined it would be, waiting
(05:26):
at the end of one of thecounters.
As he examined a blade nemesisheard movement from somewhere in
the back of the house.
He quickly retreated back towardthe main hall, intending to
circle around via the darkcentral hallway.
As he made the turn out of thedining room, nemesis, collided
with the boy who had just comeup the basement stairs.
(05:47):
The boy, a skinny white kid withbrown hair and glasses, maybe 10
or 11, looked up, surpriseflashing on his face, almost
searching for recognition andfinding none.
The boy's eyes dropped tonemesis his hand.
As the blade came up.
The boy move suddenly is reflexoverrode conscious action.
But Nemesis was ready.
This was what he had come for.
(06:07):
He grabbed the boysimultaneously, driving him down
to the ground as he drove theknife into his neck.
The boy let out a stifled,guttural cry As they fell to the
floor.
The blade penetrated his throatripping through tissues,
severing vessels entering andwithdrawing, repeatedly.
Nemesis, quietly unleashed hisrage on the child whose shocked
(06:28):
body put up no meaningfulresistance.
Nemesis had seen death before.
He was comfortable with.
He recognized the boy was deadlong before he stopped stabbing.
He could only spare a fewseconds to enjoy the revenge.
After that, his survivalinstinct rang an alarm.
(06:48):
There was still at least oneperson in the back of the house.
Driving the blade one last time,he let it protrude from the
boy's neck as a message.
Nemesis jumped up and sprintedback to the knife block, pulling
a second blade.
He burst through the passageinto the rear of the house.
The servant was there, an oldwoman carrying a bucket and
cleaning supplies.
(07:09):
The woman's eyes met his and hesaw her fear.
She dropped everything andturned to flea.
Her old reflexes were no matchfor nemesis who took three quick
strides,catching her before shecould reach the back door.
Tackling her flat on the floor,he plunged the knife into the
side of her throat repeatedly.
Like the boy, she put up noresistance.
(07:31):
When she was clearly dead,nemesis got up.
He searched the house and foundno one else.
He went back to look at thebodies and he was satisfied.
He figured the piglet grows upto be like it's swine father, so
it made sense to strike thebloodline.
A bonus killing the child wouldmame the man.
Marcy (08:06):
Omaha, Nebraska, a Midwest city of 450,000
residents on the banks of theMissouri River.
It is the home of the collegeBaseball World Series and
billionaire businessman,philanthropist, Warren Buffet.
The city has its share ofproblems, but there are areas
where crime, particularlyviolence is virtually unheard
(08:28):
of.
One of these areas is the Dundeeneighborhood, an affluent sector
just west of downtown andCreighton University.
nevertheless, in the earlyevening of March 13th, 2008,
police 9 1 1 dispatch receivedan urgent call from a Dundee
residence.
A man was reporting two victimsdead in his house.
(08:53):
Dr.
Bill Hunter was a pathologistwho left his office on the
campus of Creighton MedicalCenter at 5:00 PM.
10 minutes later, he arrived athis house, which was just a few
blocks from where Warren Buffetlives.
Dr.
Hunter parked as usual, enteredthrough the rear doors and
encountered the almostunbelievable sight of his 57
(09:15):
year old housekeeper, dead ofstab wounds laying on the floor.
He immediately recognized thatshe was beyond help.
The doctor urgently moved pastthe body only to discover his 11
year old son Tom in the hallway.
His boy was also dead withsevere trauma to his throat and
(09:36):
a knife protruding from hisneck.
The police arrived to clear andsecure the house.
The crime scene team went towork with its processes.
The two detectives assigned asprimary investigators noted
several things about the victimsin the scene.
There were several knives lyingaround, and one was left
(09:57):
embedded in Tom's neck.
The knives were all apparentlyfrom a block on the kitchen
counter.
The wounds themselves wereunusual.
Someone had similarly attackedeach victim targeting the right
side of their throats.
Shirlee Sherman suffered 17blade penetrations, including
one that went completely throughher neck.
(10:20):
The scene showed that normallife was in progress before the
killer interrupted it.
The investigators believed thatTom died first, his body laying
near the stairs to the basement.
Downstairs, tom's Xbox accountwas still logged in, partially
consumed after school snacksflanked the chair he'd been
using.
(10:41):
Close to the back door, itappeared that Shirley had been
interrupted in her cleaning.
A bucket and supplies lay closeto the body dropped during the
attack.
Investigators found evidence atthe scene woefully lacking.
There was no clear sign ofmotive.
It didn't look like robbery.
In a house full of valuableitems, nothing was missing.
(11:02):
Shirley was carrying severalhundred dollars on her when she
died.
Processing had turned up littletrace evidence and no
identifiable suspect d n a wasfound at the scene.
The neighborhood canvas didn'tturn up much either.
No one had anything bad to sayabout the hunters.
Only one neighbor reportedsomething unusual.
(11:24):
She saw silver Hondas SUV without-of-state plates driving
slowly through the area.
The car had parked on the streetand a man got out carrying a
bag.
He walked up the street and outof her sight.
She rationalized the man must bea door to door salesman and went
on about her business.
The investigators focused for atime on victimology.
(11:48):
Surveying the family, theparents were both medical
doctors.
They had four kids, so six plusthe housekeeper were the
insiders.
Aside from the victims all hadsolid alibis at the time of the
murders.
Tom's mother, Dr.
Claire Hunter, had beenattending a medical conference
(12:09):
in Hawaii.
Once notified she immediatelyflew home in shock.
Detectives could not determinewhether either Tom or Shirley
were the intended target of theattack.
In Tom's case, there was no signof problems at school.
The bus camera showed him ridingthat afternoon with no sign that
he was living his last minutes.
(12:32):
Every indication was that Tomwas a good kid, a smart kid who
did well in school.
He loved science and math.
His last minutes were hisroutine Xbox, Dr.
Pepper, potato chips in thebasement.
The examination of Tom'sinternet and gaming contacts
(12:52):
didn't turn up anythingsuspicious.
Could Shirley have been thetarget?.
The detectives didn't think so.
She was a hardworkinggrandmother of five.
She didn't appear to have anyproblems or enemies.
Her adult children described heras depend.
Indispensable and rock solid.
(13:12):
She was the beloved center ofthe family.
The detectives turned fromShirley and Tom to look at
Claire and Bill Hunter.
Neither seemed to have coworkersor patients who would want to do
them harm.
No disgruntled employees came tomind.
Bill had been involved in humanresource actions, including
(13:32):
terminations, but all leftquietly without ongoing
problems.
As days turned into weeks withno solid suspects, investigators
feared the attacks might havebeen completely random Five
years later, on Mother's Daymorning, May 12th, 2013, Dr.
(13:55):
Shanda and Adra Butra took twoelderly friends to a holiday
brunch.As they were finishingbreakfast they received a phone
call that their home's intruderalarm had been activated.
They were delayed in checking ontheir house while they finished
breakfast and dropped off theirslow moving guests.
(14:15):
When they finally arrived attheir house.
Nothing appeared to be out ofplace, but the back door was
open.
Dr.
Roger Brum back's house was justa few miles away from the Buwtra
residence.
On that Mother's Day of 2013,Roger and his wife Mary were
working on their house preparingfor his retirement.
(14:39):
They were planning to sell andleave Omaha.
As Roger was painting theentryway, someone knocked on the
front door.
Roger answered, and the shootingstarted.
Two days later, a moving crewarrived at the Brumback house to
pick up their piano.
The workers received no answerat the door.
(15:02):
One of the crew looked through awindow and spotted a pistol
magazine laying on the floor inthe entryway.
They called the police.
When officers arrived, theyfound Roger's body behind the
door and Mary just a littlefurther into the house Roger had
been shot and both had sufferedseveral stab wounds to the right
(15:23):
side of their necks.
The on-call homicide detectiveswere the same team that took the
case at the Hunter home fiveyears prior.
The two detectives walked in andwere immediately struck by the
similarities in the two murdercases.
Two victims each stabbedmultiple times in the same area
(15:46):
of the throat.
Mary, presumably the secondattack victim had defensive
lacerations on her arm.
The crime scene and the victimbackground would only solidify
their growing unease, that thetwo murder scenes were related.
Same as the Hunter House, therewas very little left at the
scene.
Police collected a broken pistolmagazine from the entryway
(16:09):
floor.
There were no witnesses and nodirect sign of motive.
Nothing valuable was taken.
There was no sexual assault.
There was overkill, but nopostmortem mutilation.
also similar to the HunterHouse, the suspect used knives
from the scene.
As far as the victimology went,people who knew Mary Brumback
(16:32):
said that she could not have hada single person who disliked
her.
It was Roger Brum back'sbackground that focused the
investigation.
He was a pathologist atCreighton.
Roger Brumback was the chairmanof the program, and Bill Hunter,
the father of the murdered boy,supervised residents at
(16:53):
Creighton.
As soon as they made theBrumback murders public, the
investigators received a callfrom the Buwtra's who told them
about their burglary alarm andthe suspicious open door.
Crime scene team members weresent to process the Butra
residence.
The investigators took stock.
(17:13):
In 2008, a Creighton MedicalCenter pathologist's home had
been invaded by an unknownsuspect who left everyone inside
dead with distinct almostsignature injuries to both
bodies.
Then Mother's Day 2013, the homeof two Creighton Medical Center
doctors, one a pathologist, hadbeen broken into setting off the
(17:35):
burglar alarm.
Later that day, someonemercilessly slaughtered the
chief of the Creighton PathologyDepartment and his wife in the
entryway of their home.
Their bodies bore the samedistinct stab injuries as the
first two victims.
The question for investigatorswas, who might want to target
the Creighton pathologydepartment?
(17:58):
Could there be a patient orfamily somehow blaming them for
a medical issue?That didn't seemright?
No one in the department couldcome up with a likely subject
for that line of inquiry.
Minus that, what's left was adisgruntled current or former
employee.
Workplace related violence isnot uncommon if that was indeed
(18:20):
the issue here.
But the level of violence andthe enduring nature of the
malevolence seemed almostunbelievable.
What kind of employee mightquietly hold a deadly grudge for
that long?
The answer?
A resident.
Residency is a critical make orbreak period in a doctor's
(18:41):
career.
Successful completion of aresidency is the gateway.
Failure often is the end of acareer, the death of a dream
that has endured in thatresident's life for years.
The detectives began siftingthrough the files of pathology
residence, going back years,setting aside several failed
(19:01):
candidates.
They were the new pool ofsuspects, and one of them was
Anthony Garcia.
Garcia came up in 2008, but wasdismissed in the initial
investigation because it seemedhe had gone away quietly, even
moving out of Nebraska.
When they asked Dr.
Butra about Garcia, her reactionwas what detectives were looking
(19:24):
for.
He was a terrible student, butbeyond that, he was a bad
person.
He was malicious, he wasvindictive.
Dr.
Butra had been Garcia's directsupervisor.
She had written him up forseveral performance issues and
instead of improving, he lashedout at her and others in the
department.
(19:45):
Dr.
Bure said that she had beenpushing hard for the Chief Bill
Hunter and the chair RogerBrumback, to use her
documentation to fire Garcia.
When there were two incidentsthat, as they say were the
straws that broke the camel'sback.
In the first incident, Garciaimproperly, handled the cadaver
in a manner that causeddisfigurement to the body.
(20:08):
Butcher said it showed Garcialacked the requisite compassion
and attention to detail thattheir program demanded.
In the second incident, Garciaintentionally tried to sabotage
the career of pathology's chiefresident.
When Garcia was called on thecarpet over the incident, he
laughed it off as a joke, butButra said his actions were
(20:29):
malicious.
When Garcia was fired, the namesButra, hunter and Brumback were
on the paperwork in the weeksand months that followed, it
would first be the job of theinvestigators and then the media
to find the answer to thequestion.
Who is Garcia?
(20:50):
Fred and Estella Garcia were anAmerican success story.
Fred born in the US with astrong Mexican heritage, fought
in Vietnam.
He came home, married and workedfor the post office.
Estella, born in Mexico, becamea nurse.
The Garcias were the kind ofpeople who were proud, as their
(21:10):
hard work earned them a placefirmly in the American middle
class.
They could afford a house inWalnut, California, a distant
suburb of Los Angeles, farenough east to not have that big
city feel.
Garcia was their first child andthey had big dreams for him.
Growing up, he did well inschool.
He was an altar boy at theirchurch.
(21:32):
He was a big kid, so naturallyhe played football.
Garcia accepted the hopes anddreams of his parents with
Dutiful Resolve.
They wanted him to be a doctor,so that became his dream too.
He went to college in Californiain medical school at the
University of Utah.
After graduation in 1999, Garciabegan a residency program at
(21:57):
Bassett St.
Elizabeths in Utica, New York.
His time in New York did not gowell.
Garcia had personal problemswith staff members who accused
him of behavingunprofessionally.
The conflict simmeredculminating in an incident where
he blew up screaming at aradiology technician.
(22:18):
He was gone by the end of theyear.
With the termination came awarning from the New York State
Board of Professional MedicalConduct.
It would be a flag on hispermanent record that would
follow his medical careerindefinitely.
After the termination, Garciawent back to his parents' home
(22:38):
in California.
Then he received a rare secondchance.
The pathology department atCreighton Medical Center in
Omaha, Nebraska was willing totake him.
After Garcia started atCreighton, it didn't take long
for him to have similar problemsas at Bassett.
His supervising Dr., Chandra,Bewtra described him as
(23:00):
academically very poor.
Dr.
Butcher complained that Garciawas a child cloaked with a
medical degree.
The poor performance reviews,mistakes and attempts to
sabotage a fellow doctor led toGarcia's dismissal in 2001.
He didn't take his dismissalcompletely in silence.
(23:20):
He lashed out complaining to theprogram, the college and whoever
might listen.
Leveling professional andpersonal attacks at those he saw
as responsible for hissituation.
These complaints were sloppy andtransparent in their motivation.
In the end, Garcia seemed toadmit defeat.
He packed up and left Omaha.
(23:43):
Garcia again returned home.
His brother and parents noticedhe was depressed, but never gave
up on the goal of working as adoctor.
In 2003, he got a third chance.
He got into a residency at theUniversity of Illinois Hospital,
and at that time got a licenseto practice medicine in
Illinois.
(24:03):
Following the Illinoisresidency, Garcia chased
employment in several statesworking in clinics and taking
contracts in prisons.
When he applied for a medicallicense to practice, they often
refused him.
The Illinois license kept hiscareer off life support, but the
proceeding failures in New Yorkand Nebraska were writ large on
(24:26):
his record.
LSU Health Sciences Center inShreveport, Louisiana fired
Garcia from a psychiatryresidency because the state
reviewed his record and refusedto issue him a license.
That was in late February, 2008,a few weeks before the murders
at the Hunter residence.
(24:48):
After the LSU termination,Garcia found worked at a federal
penitentiary outside of TerreHaute, Indiana.
He applied for the statelicensure there twice, but was
denied each time.
During a failed application inNovember, 2012, he complained in
writing.
"I feel my actions do not riseto the level of a denial of my
medical licensure application.
(25:10):
I have been aggrieved andadversely affected by not being
able to work as a physician inthe state of Indiana." He had
been working in Indiana on atemporary medical license, which
expired on the last day of 2012.
The brumback murders happened afew weeks later.
To the homicide investigatorsworking the Omaha murders.
(25:32):
What they discovered aboutGarcia added to their
suspicions, the licensure timingcould be emotive for a revenge
killing, but it wasn'tdefinitive.
One of the tantalizing pieces ofevidence was that at the time of
the first murders, Garcia wasdriving a silver Honda CR-V with
Louisiana plates.
(25:54):
It matched the suspicious carthe neighbor had described
perfectly.
To track Garcia's recentmovements, detectives pulled,
cell and credit card records.
Bingo.
On the day of the murders,Garcia's cell phone hit on a
tower an hour outside of Omaha.
Later, he made a purchase at achicken wing joint and was
(26:15):
captured on camera buying beerin the city.
The detectives considered thesefacts highly suspicious,
considering Garcia's residencewas almost 600 miles away in
Terre Haute.
Once they were on the rightsuspect, the investigators began
to build their case quickly.
When they made it to Garcia'sTerra Haute home, the second
(26:35):
murders were still fresh.
It felt like they were hot onthe trail.
That's why they were anxiousWhen Garcia couldn't be located.
Was he still traveling?
Where their other targets?
The Omaha detectives workingwith the FBI pulled in other
state and local agencies.
It was the Illinois Statetroopers that found Garcia,
(26:58):
pulling him over On July 15th ateight 30 in the morning.
They arrested him for drunkdriving.
While searching his car, theyfound parts of a gun, a sledged
hammer, and a crowbar.
The homicide team had searchwarrants ready for when Garcia
was arrested.
When he was in custody, theywent into his house in Tera
(27:20):
Haute.
It turned out that Garcia was acompulsive list guy.
He wrote what he wanted to getdone over the course of a day.
His lists included things asmundane as reminders to buy
vegetables or hygiene products.
Unfortunately, for him, the Lissalso included pretentious words
like gun invade, torture, kill,kidnap.
(27:45):
There was a trove of evidencesoaking in water in the kitchen
sink.
All of his Creighton paperworkwas there.
The poor of performance reviewsand the termination.
Also, in the house, detectivesfound the box that matched the
piece of pistol that was foundin Garcia's car.
Interestingly, the missing partof the pistol matched by serial
(28:09):
number was later located near aroadway in Terre Haute.
It appears he threw it from amoving vehicle.
The caliber of that weapon wasnine millimeter matching that
used in the murders.
While in Tara Ho, detectivestried to track where Garcia was
spending his time, the searchled to Club Coyote and Cecilia
(28:32):
Hoffman.
Cecilia was an exotic dancerthat Garcia was interested in.
He frequented the establishmentand made it known that he wanted
Cecilia to be his girlfriend.
Cecilia wanted nothing to dowith Garcia.
One night she rebuffed hisadvances by saying Dr.
Tony, I only like bad boys.
I'm a bad girl.
(28:53):
You couldn't, you couldn'thandle a girl like me.
Cecilia said that Garciaresponded by telling her that he
wasn't as good as she thought hewas.
And to prove it, she quoted himsaying, I killed people before I
killed a young boy and an oldwoman.
That statement put Cecilia onthe witness list.
(29:16):
Garcia was extradited to Omaha.
And on July 23rd, 2013, theyindicted him on four counts of
first degree murder at theDouglas County Courthouse.
At trial, prosecution presenteda mountain of mostly
circumstantial evidence,including brutal scene photos, a
broken gun magazine from thesecond murder scene that
(29:37):
corresponded with Garcia's gunbox and two other pieces of the
pistol.
There was the witnessinformation about the suspicious
car in the hunter's neighborhoodthat matched the car with
Louisiana plates that Garciaowned.
There was the cell phonetracking showing Garcia traveled
at least 18 hours round trip foronly a four hour stay in Omaha.
(30:02):
There were credit card receiptsshowing items that Garcia
purchased in Omaha, accompaniedby video proof that he was
actually the one using the card.
There was DNA matched to Garciafrom the back doorknob of the
butcher home.
Police theorized the couple wasGarcia's primary target that
day.
This theory was bolstered byGarcia's electronic search for
(30:23):
their residence address.
They also showed the jury a cashof motive evidence that was
found soaking in Garcia's home.
The prosecution also put onCecilia, the exotic dancer, who
told the story of how he triedto charm her by claiming the
murders of a kid in an old lady.
The defense fired back with whatwas not at the murder scene.
(30:47):
No witness, no fingerprints, nofibers, no dna, n a.
They said that a quick roundtrip to Omaha was not evidence
of murder.
He had once lived there and waslooking for a new job.
They said the stripper was astrung out addict who was fed
the story by the cops.
The defense attorneys wentfurther saying that all the
(31:09):
evidence was either planted likethe cell phone tracking,
suspicious Google searches, orthe pieces of gun, or it was
contaminated like the DNA matchfrom the butcher back door.
The defense's tactic was toallege police misconduct with no
evidence to support the claime.
The arguments between defenseand prosecution were
(31:30):
acrimonious, and when the judgecited with the prosecution, the
defense was openly disrespectfulof the process leading the judge
to hold the lead defenseattorneys, a husband and wife
team from Chicago in contempt.
They resigned and had to bereplaced with associates, which
nearly led to a mistrial.
(31:51):
The trial lasted more than twoweeks with 50 witnesses.
Garcia chose not to testify.
It took the jury seven hours tofind him guilty on all counts.
At the end of the trial, Garciabegan acting strangely.
He stopped talking to hislawyers and never looked up
during closing arguments.
(32:13):
Before sentencing, the defenseteam asked that Garcia's mental
health status be evaluated.
The judge refused to delaysentencing based on that
request.
His reasoning being that Garciahad been uncooperative to some
level for the entire process andhe had been evaluated prior to
trial and found competent.
In the first of two sentencinghearings, the prosecutor
(32:36):
addressed the jury presentingthat Garcia should receive the
death penalty because of threestatutory aggravating factors.
He killed multiple people.
He killed to conceal hisidentity, and the killings were
especially heinous, cruel, andmanifesting exceptional
depravity.
The jury agreed that Garcia'scrimes met the statutory
(32:58):
requirement for the deathpenalty.
In the second of the two-partsentencing hearing a three judge
panel validated the jury'sreasoning and sentenced Garcia
to death.
During the sentencing hearings,they wield Garcia into the
courtroom.
He never looked up or saidanything and appeared to sleep
through both proceedings.
(33:34):
to begin this discussion, mark,this is such a sad case.
Tom had a bright future andShirley was a grandmother.
There was the lawyer and thedoctor, and they were getting
ready for their retirement andso they were starting a new
chapter in their lives.
Mark (33:52):
I agree.
Senseless deaths.
The victims had almost no directinvolvement with the person who
killed them, and because of thatthey could have done nothing to
avoid their end.
Marcy (34:02):
Why did you pick the name nemesis for the character in the
narrative?
Mark (34:07):
Nemesis is the Greek goddess of retribution and
indignation.
So I thought that wasappropriate.
When I write a narrative, Idon't want to use the names the
given names cause it gives toomuch away.
Plus I wanna focus on what'sbeing done and why.
So I try to pick somethingthat's appropriate.
And I think the goddess ofretribution and indignation is
good.
It reminds me of one of thecases we went through where the
(34:28):
psychologist labeled thesuspect, a grievance collector.
I think that label isappropriate for Garcia.
Marcy (34:35):
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge.
Mark (34:38):
Okay.
So the reason I put that inthere, in the narrative is that
line about revenge.
Was actually one that theinvestigators pulled off of
Garcia's phone, believe it ornot.
He literally googled the wordrevenge.
The irony with thoseShakespearean lines is that
character, the character thatsays them is a true victim.
Marcy (34:56):
Garcia's failed career was full of disappointments.In
medical school he actuallyoriginally wanted to be a
neurosurgeon.
Mark (35:04):
Dr.
Butra, the pathologist, assessedhim as academically very poor.
That was a quote from heracademically, very poor.
The neurosurgeon thing was onlythe first, of many setbacks that
be fell his career.
The problem with people like himis they lack introspection, and
resilience.
Marcy (35:20):
Clearly not a person who thinks what did I do wrong and
how can I do better?
Mark (35:24):
Right.
Marcy (35:25):
Before we get too far into the case, one thing I found
unusual in Garcia's bio was thatby all indications, he grew up
in a loving home with supportiveparents, solid middle class
family, did really well inschool and sports, and I can't
figure out how it took thisturn.
Mark (35:46):
Yeah I can't explain it.
Personality defect, like I said,he's an injustice collector.
When something goes wrong hedoesn't forget about it.
Doesn't smooth it over.
And clearly he's not a guy who'sgifted socially.
Part of the reason I say that ishe's he's as old as he was
spending a lot of time in astrip joint trying to get a
girlfriend who's a stripper.
You wouldn't think that it'd bedifficult for a guy like that
to.
(36:07):
To find a woman that he didn'thave to pay off.
Marcy (36:10):
I guess I have sympathy with the parents.
They saw a son who seemed tohave everything going completely
right totally implode.
Mark (36:21):
Yeah.
And for that reason, I thinkit's not surprising.
They were in denial for a while.
They and his sibling said theyhad no idea of the problems he
had after medical school.
Marcy (36:29):
One wonders why he chose pathology, which for anybody
who's not up to speed ontheology, is the study of the
causes and effects of disease,especially laboratory
examination of samples of bodytissues for diagnostic or
forensic purposes.
Mark (36:46):
Yeah, from what I've read, they have the reputation of
being lab rats analyzing samplesand not having a lot of contact
with patients.
And I guess that could be a pospositive if you don't like
people.
Marcy (36:58):
Yeah.
But pathologists, like mostdoctors think of themselves as
disease fighters who helppeople.
It seems like compassion wouldbe a prerequisite for a doctor,
even for pathologists.
Mark (37:10):
Yeah, I've thought about that.
I have a feeling that's whyGarcia stood out in the
pathology department where heworked.
He wasn't pathologist material.
I saw that in my career.
You saw recruits come out thatdid fine in the academy, hit the
street on field training, andwhen they got to the street, the
wheels fell off because theycouldn't adapt information to
(37:30):
application.
Some people just aren't suitedto some jobs.
Nine out 10 recruits make thesame kinds of mistakes.
But they learn and improve.
Some are faster than othersthere's these outliers that,
that just don't seem to havewhat they takes and they don't
learn and adapt.
What I learned over time is thatwhen that sort of deficiency
becomes known they have to beshown the door because they can
(37:53):
become, if they make it throughthey can be disastrous as police
officers.
And actually in those cases,dismissal is merciful for the
recruit and the department andthe public.
And I'm sure that's doubly truefor substandard pathologists.
Marcy (38:08):
You mentioned in the investigation that the idea that
the suspect is completely randomis not what investigators want.
Why is that such a problem?
Mark (38:18):
Yeah, it's true.
Cases where there's no clearlink in terms of motive or
relationship between theoffender and the suspect are
notoriously difficult to solve.
With most murders, there arewitnesses.
There's a coherent motive,there's a pool of likely
suspects who are linked in someway to the victim.
The problem with unrelatedrandom attackers is getting to
the suspect.
This can be seen in theclearance rate of like gang
(38:40):
related shootings in drive-bysin urban areas.
Those clearance rates are muchlower because there's usually no
direct link between the shooterand the victim.
The other concern for the Omahadetectives, was if the attack of
the Hunter House was a randomguy, that's the kind of guy
who's likely to do it again.
And you better find that guysoon.
Marcy (39:01):
He didn't wait for Dr.
Hunter to come back and hedidn't return to get Dr.
Hunter later.
Why was he satisfied withkilling the son and not go back
and get Dr.
Hunter?
Mark (39:12):
The key is revenge.
And what is the best revenge?
Let me tell a story first.
Cause I think it, it gives some,I've got some evidence I want to
talk about with this, but thisis a story that kind of
illustrates this.
We had a horrible DV case inAnchorage.
A woman that separated from herhusband.
She had placed a domesticviolence order They had two
kids.
They were like elementaryschool, young, maybe a little
(39:34):
younger than that.
She sees her man pull up to theresidence and she immediately
calls the police.
So the police are en route, butshe's so afraid of the guy who
is she knows is outside.
She takes her kids out the backdoor and runs with them to a
neighbor's house.
It's a good distance away.
The guy breaks into the house,looks through the house, does
(39:55):
some stuff, and then leaves thehouse and tracks them through.
The neighbor's yard probablywith snow.
He breaks down the neighbor'sdoor, finds the kids clinging to
his wife, and he shoots each ofthe kids in the head and kills
them instantly.
When he leaves and commitssuicide nearby in the woods.
(40:18):
But he had the opportunity to,and he didn't kill the mother.
She was alive when he left andshe lived.
She was shot in the abdomen byone of the bullets that went
through one of the kids' heads,but the man didn't kill her.
Why do you think he didn't killher?
Marcy (40:35):
Because living after that experience is to torture enough.
Mark (40:39):
Yeah.
He wanted her to experience thatand be alive to live with it.
Revenge.
So let's look at the firstmurder.
Garcia knows what Dr.
Hunter's schedule is like.
He knows when he'll be homeabout.
He knows what his, what heprobably what he drives.
His wife is also a doctor and heprobably knows his wife isn't
(41:02):
there.
I think it's the most probable.
He went there early afternoonknowing that the kid's gonna be
there.
I think that he went thereexpecting some of the, there's
three kids that weren't at home.
I think he went there expectingother kids to be there.
Garcia's a sadistic dude, and hewanted to punish Dr.
Hunter.
Dr.
Hunter wasn't a hard target.
He could have waited for Dr.
Hunter to come home and killedhim then.
(41:22):
And this, my belief in this isbolstered by the, by one of the
lists found in Garcia's homethat included a note to kill the
rich kid, which he did.
Marcy (41:34):
Speaking of lists, you are a list guy.
Mark (41:38):
Yeah, it's a tightly wrapped thing.
I cope with anxiety sometimes bymaking order in my life by
listing or making a schedule.
Marcy (41:48):
Okay, but you aren't writing.
Brush my teeth by gun killpeople.
Mark (41:54):
No.
I usually remember to do boththose things without a list.
Marcy (41:57):
Do.
You buy the, do you buy thedefense that's assertion that
garcia's mentally ill.
Mark (42:04):
Before the trial, he had a court ordered or evaluation by
psychiatrist that found that hewas competent at the time.
The bottom line with mentalillness is, was he capable of
discerning right from wrong?
Did he make rational decisionswhen committing these crimes?
The first expert I rememberreading about who wrote on this
issue was profiler John Douglas,and he said something that
(42:26):
sticks with me on this topic.
Basically, you can see that someof these offenders are sane.
they know that they're doingsomething wrong through the
lengths they go to conceal theircrimes to get away with them.
Marcy (42:38):
Can you give examples of similar crimes maybe on either
side of the insanity claim?
Mark (42:47):
A woman in Texas several years ago Brought five of her
young children into the bathroomand drowned each one in
succession in her bathtub.
Afterwards, she admitted doingit and made no real attempt to
conceal it, and her motive oncegiven was irrational and she was
later ruled to be insane.
Here's a similar crime.
(43:08):
A young mother in South Carolinaclaimed that her two little kids
had been carjacked and drivenaway by a black man.
Within a few days, the kids werefound dead in the car at the
bottom of a nearby lake.
It turned out that the motherhad drowned her kids because she
wanted to have a relationshipwith a man who wouldn't date a
woman with kids, and she triedto unsuccessfully to claim
(43:30):
insanity.
The difference between story oneand story two is that she had a
rational, albeit despicablemotive for killing her kids.
Marcy (43:39):
And she made up a despicable story to cover her
track.
If you look at the firstmurders, Garcia was stealthy and
didn't leave evidence, didthings like, okay, so if you
look at the first murders,Garcia was stealthy.
He didn't leave much evidence.
He did things like park up thestreet to avoid detection.
And then the second murders, hewasn't as sophisticated at
(44:01):
covering his tracks, but hedrove long distance to get to
the scene.
A full round, tr full day'sround trip.
He thought at the time that disthat the distance would cover
him and that the motive wouldbe, difficult to figure out
because of the time lapse.
But since the conviction Garciahas been sent between the state
(44:22):
psychiatric hospital and theprison on more than one
occasion,
Mark (44:27):
yeah, I'm not saying he doesn't have mental health
issues.
And I don't know how seriousthey are.
What happened in the trial is hestopped talking to the defense
team, started to sleep orpretending to sleep through the
process.
But it increased in kind ofnoticeability and severity after
his conviction.
I've talked before aboutsuspects when being interviewed,
how they employed differenttactics to avoid having to face
(44:48):
what they've done.
In fact, the last episode werecorded the shooter claimed to
have blacked out, so he didn'tremember the specific details
and in that case, he didn't haveto describe it because he
claimed he blacked out, and thedetectives taking the interview
left it there because he hadadmitted I can remember some of
it, but I can't remember all thedetails.
So they left it at that.
I suspect the onset of insanityor at least his extreme
(45:09):
sleepiness is Garcia's way ofavoiding accountability.
It's okay.
He still has to sit in prisonfor it.
Marcy (45:17):
The other angle on insanity, if he's successful,
that might get him off of deathrow.
Mark (45:24):
Yeah, that is true.
And that is actually the focusof his ongoing appeals process.
They're not so focused ongetting him out of prison.
I think that's pretty unlikely,but they're looking ahead at
reducing his sentence to justlife without parole.
As an aside, the death penaltyis obviously a controversial
subject for many reasons.
And Nebraskans were asked in2016 in a referendum, if the
(45:47):
death penalty should remain onthe books in Nebraska.
And they voted overwhelmingly tokeep it for cases like this.
One murder, one withaggravators, worst of the worst
cases.
And this is one of those casesthat motivated that vote and
that referendum,
Marcy (46:03):
talk for a second about overkill.
Mark (46:06):
So overkill is basically doing more in an assault or a
crime than is necessary toachieve the desired results.
I've never seen a gunshot victimwho was stabbed after the fact.
But I did go to a shooting wherethe victim who was shot dead in
the street or fatally woundedand dying, was beaten, curb
stomped or kicked repeatedly ashe died.
(46:26):
The case I'm talking about thatwas a message of intimidation by
gang bangers to the residentsthat lived on that street.
It was a very public event.
These murders were a message.
Yes.
But the case reminded me more ofa murder case that we covered in
Kentucky where the murderer wasMartin.
He shot the man he was targetingand then beat him badly.
(46:46):
He broke his nose causing facialinjuries.
And the reason for that and thereason for these murders, the
overkill, these murders wasrage.
Marcy (46:54):
And looking at overkill is important because it helps
investigators understandpotential motive.
Mark (47:01):
Yes.
And in the Martin case, the samething.
It wasn't just a random guybumbling through a burglary
because of that overkill.
And in this case, 17 stabwounds, multiple stab wounds to
somebody's neck, way more thanit takes to kill them.
That is about anger, and thatanger's often related to
familiarity with the victim.
Marcy (47:21):
The location where the victims were stabbed is
significant.
He's a doctor and knows theanatomy.
So do you think that's why hestabbed him in the neck?
Mark (47:31):
Yeah.
I've been on at least a coupleof cases where neck lacerations
caused death or very close toit.
I remember a fight in a parkinglot one morning after the bars
closed.
Started with as a simple fistfight.
A guy had the made the choice tobreak a beer bottle, whipped it
across another guy's throat, andit killed him very quickly.
In another incident, I waswalking around in a crowd after
(47:54):
bar break.
In the middle of the night.
There had been a fight down thestreet and the crowd was so big
I didn't even know about it.
Suddenly this huge Samoan guybursts outta the crowd was
lumbering towards me and bloodwas seeming this pour out of his
out from under his chin.
Someone had taken a knife andsliced his throat and that guy
was running around like crazy.
I got him on the ground.
We put pressure on it, andluckily an ambulance was close.
(48:18):
That guy certainly would'vedied.
Had we not gotten to him andtaken measures to send him off
the hospital.
All of this to say the neck is avery vulnerable place and the
pathologist who committed thesemurders knew that.
Marcy (48:31):
Talk about the neighborhood canvas.
Mark (48:35):
Yeah.
I love it when you are walkingaround and think there's nothing
to find here.
And you find someone who sawsomething very important and
they may not even think they sawsomething.
And this happens more than youthink.
Nowadays, the other thing youmight get on a canvas is a video
camera that caught one of theplayers come here going from the
scene.
And I've also been involved in acanvas where he found the
suspect vehicle leaving thescene of a murder.
(48:57):
That's always pretty cool.
One of the details I love that'sso real about talking to people
is that the witness in the firstmurder rationalized that the guy
in the Honda must just be asalesman.
It's unusual to have somebodypark on the street in this very
wealthy area and walk somewhere.
But they were suspicious.
They were suspicious enough tonote perfect details.
(49:20):
The car was right on.
The suspect des descriptionwasn't great, but medium height,
stocky male.
Tan or all of complexioncomplected skin accurate enough
that the jury bought that, thatwas the guy that was there.
The Bootlegger's Cove case wedid.
And she saw the guy who lit thefire and she didn't even know
(49:41):
it.
And she said, yeah, this guy wassitting over there.
That's, it's gold man.
When you come up with that, it'sgold.
Marcy (49:47):
If the Brumback bodies weren't found for two days, how
do they know when the killingstook place?
Mark (49:54):
One of the really sad aspects of their murder was that
they had been on a FaceTime callwith their daughter and her
husband.
That morning.
Mary took several screenshots,one of which they were all
cracking up at a joke that thedaughter had just told.
They looked really happy.
And they know that this wasright before the murders.
And this would've been likeSunday morning, mother's Day,
(50:16):
morning-ish, mid-morning.
So they have the time on thatcall.
The detectives noted the clothesthat they were wearing.
And they were the same clothesthey were killed in.
And Dr.
Breck was painting that morning,so he probably also had paint
paint open, paint on theclothes.
I can't keep from paint, fromgetting paint on my clothes.
And all of that.
And the conditions of thebodies, the temperature in that
(50:38):
house, they'd be able to come upwith an estimated timeframe that
was, fairly accurate.
Marcy (50:46):
It seems like maybe a mistake that the detectives
didn't track down the cars ofthe terminated residence after
the first set of murders.
Do you think that they shouldhave caught that at that time?
Mark (50:55):
In retrospect, that small step would've broken the case,
prior.
But consider that the detectiveswere given the idea that the
residents were an all clear.
When they asked the question, doyou have an disgruntled
employees?
Clearly when they went to act tofocus on Garcia maybe what they
had been told was, to smoothover history.
I think that level of denial islargely because these are
(51:17):
doctors who don't want to thinkabout their colleagues, even the
substandard ones being capableof this.
as a detective, you're gonnawork through scenarios from most
likely to least likely.
And some of that is based onwhat the people you're
interviewing tell you.
From the outside looking in, theresidents are gonna seem like
poor suspects.
Even the fail ones, they havededicated their years of their
(51:39):
lives pledged themselves aprofession that is about caring
for the sick and all of themhave worked hard.
Even the ones that didn't dowell And in light of that, it
probably seemed more likely thatthe suspect was gonna turn out
to be some random psycho.
Marcy (51:54):
What you said makes me think two things.
Garcia was washed out because hestood out.
He wasn't the hardworking,compassionate person that he
needed to be to pass.
And the second thing is it seemslike it could have been amiss
because Garcia was dismissed andhe left the state and they knew
that, and yet the suspect wasdriving a vehicle out-of-state
(52:14):
plates.
They missed that ability to tiethose two things together.
But hindsight's 2020.
Mark (52:22):
Yes, that was missed for sure.
Marcy (52:25):
The gun evidence was a little confusing for me.
Was there a ballistic match?
Mark (52:30):
No, there's no ballistic match.
I think the bullets were toodeformed.
What happened was that Garciawas shooting at the door of the
Brumback house.
He obviously shot Dr.
Brumback and his gunmalfunctioned.
And apparently, usually when youhave a malfunction, it's a
fixable thing, but they actuallyfound part of his, of a recoil
spring and a damaged magazinethat, that came out of the gun.
Literally those things werelaying in the threshold of the
(52:53):
door.
Those items that were leftbehind didn't have serial
numbers and couldn't be tracedback to a specific gun.
But they were determined tobelong to a specific model of
pistol that fired ninemillimeter rounds.
Now, Garcia owned two guns andhe had one nine millimeter, and
it was the same type of gun thatspring that was found on the
scene and the broken magazinewould fit.
(53:14):
When Garcia was arrested, partof the nine millimeter pistol
was in the car, and that had aserial number on it and part of
the pistol that was missing andlater found in grass near the
roadway, like he had pitched itout to get rid of it.
That was also the same serialnumber.
So both pieces of gun had thesame serial number and the box
with the serial number, the gunwas in his house.
(53:35):
So basically you take those, thesuspicious thing about he broke
the gun in half, threw it outthe window and a gun that
matched the magazine in thespring that broke off.
It isn't definitive evidence,but it's very, it adds to the
proof.
It's circumstantial.
Marcy (53:49):
So I just have this mental picture of this gun just
falling apart into pieces ashe's trying to kill these poor
people.
Did he ninja tried to take itapart to spread evidence around?
Did it really fall apart?Or doyou think they were fighting
over it and it came apart?
How did it end up in so manypieces?
Mark (54:07):
I read one theory that somehow the door, like he shot
the doctor and the door gotclosed on the gun in the fight
and it broke apart.
I don't know, but you, therecoil spring in the pistol is
internal to the pistol.
That is a, that's a devastatingpi.
You're not firing that gununless you really know what
you're doing without a recoilspring.
(54:27):
And the, and I think, who knows,maybe the, he's trying to strip
it and clear the gun to fix themalfunction and the.
And the magazine falls out andsomebody steps on it.
Something happened.
There's piece pieces, parts.
He took the two mate, the upperreceiver and the lower receiver
if you know what your guns.
He took the upper se, upperreceiver and lower receiver with
him, but there's still parts onthe ground.
When he left that house.
Marcy (54:49):
Crazy.
So talk a little bit about ClubCoyote and the deal with Cecilia
hoffman.
Mark (54:57):
First of all, having worked as a vice detective
around commercial sex workersand exotic dancers, a
gentleman's club is the lastplace a guy wants to go looking
for it's one or two things ifyou do.
One, you're a male predatorlooking to take advantage of the
vulnerable position Many ofthese women are in or seem to be
in.
Or two, you're the prey andyou're gonna be chewed up and
(55:20):
spit out by a woman and probablyher boyfriend who only value you
as a source of income.
Marcy (55:30):
Which one do you think Garcia would've been?
He was the killer of childrenand the elderly.
Mark (55:36):
I think he would've been number two.
He was clueless and vulnerable.
He didn't realize that in hisown words, killing a little kid
and an old lady would not givehim mad Street cred.
The really cool thing is sheturned out to be a stellar
witness.
The defense tried to call herall kinds of things, but she
maintained her credibility.
And in the closing arguments,the prosecution pointed out she
(55:58):
had nothing to prove.
She gained nothing bytestifying.
Marcy (56:04):
What a phenomenal loser to have that much hate and anger
boiling so that you carry thisplan out over five years and
probably would have continuedand circled back around for the
Bewtras again.
if given the chance.
Mark (56:26):
Yeah.
What strikes me about this caseis particularly horrible is I
think he targeted the kid onpurpose, right?
For the reasons I said.
And the idea you want to go killa 10 or 11 year old boy.
You look at the kids' photos, itjust, oh, it just breaks your
heart.
Think about that kid runningaround having a good time after
school.
And there's a guy that, forreasons that has have nothing to
(56:49):
do with the poor cleaning ladyand the boy targets them.
Come on.
It's just horrendous.
Marcy (56:58):
What the families want people to know is that the
victims in these senselesskillings were great people,
either of accomplishment orpotential.
Thomas Hunter was a smart,compassionate sixth grader who
would've achieved great things.
Shirley Sherman was a lovingsister, mother, and grandmother
(57:19):
who was adored by her family andthe family she served.
Mary Brumback was a retiredlawyer, active volunteer,
beloved grandmother, wife andfriend.
Dr.
Roger Brumback was agrandfather, father, and medical
doctor who devoted his life toimproving healthcare, focusing
(57:40):
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(58:02):
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(58:23):
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a 3 Little Birds, LLCproduction.
What choice did he have but to lash out at the people
who continued to heap tragedyand embarrassment on his life?
As Shakespeare wrote, if youprick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we notlaugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall wenot revenge?
Marcy (00:20):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:42):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
One of the places that you canlisten to Crime Raven is on
Audible.
With an Audible membership, youcan access podcasts, audiobooks,
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To support Crime Raven, Audibleis allowing our listeners to try
it for free for 30 days if youvisit
(01:04):
audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:32):
Nemesis had a list.
It contained the names of theenemy's arrayed against him.
A triumvirate cabal.
Number one was a woman oldenough to be his mother.
At first nemesis had hoped shewould be like his mother and
that she would nurture andprotect him.
Instead, betrayal.
(01:52):
She had, in fact, become hischief inquisitor torturing him.
Piling on Humiliations until hecried out for mercy.
The bitches overseers were nobetter than she was.
Mercy was not in theirvernacular.
They closed ranks, rejected hisentreaties.
They were demons, ravaging,nemesis with their poison
(02:12):
quills, reveling in hissupplication.
Instead of sucker, they threwhim to the dogs.
After their judgment, nemesisheld them all equally
accountable.
He thought of them as athree-headed hydra.
What choice did he have but tolash out at the people who
continued to heap tragedy andembarrassment on his life?
(02:34):
As Shakespeare wrote, if youprick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we notlaugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall wenot revenge?
Nemesis needed a win.
He considered the ways ofbringing them to their knees.
To show them he would not justtake the abuse and retreat.
(02:55):
What does a knight do whenslapped in the face with
injustice?
This was his quest.
He would strike the vipers intheir nest.
Nemesis picked Hunter because hecouldn't get to the hag.
Hunter was a good firstsubstitute.
Hunter was the one who couldhave called off the madness.
(03:16):
Instead, he was no help.
He'd willingly, no eagerlyjoined the bitch's mission to
destroy him.
But what Hunter didn't know isthat he himself was a soft
target, he and his perfect wife.
Perfect family.
Living in the perfectneighborhood.
Pompous asshole even hadservants to do his bidding.
(03:40):
Nemesis had done someinvestigating.
He had watched until he wascomfortable with the situation.
Then he made his decision.
It was mid-afternoon on a brightsunshine day.
No one was on the streets.
No one was on the immaculatemanicured yards.
He circled around theneighborhood, passed his target
and parked down the street.
(04:01):
He grabbed his bag of tools andwalked the rest of the way.
During the stroll, nemesiscompared his surroundings to his
current place.
These were rich people's houses.
The neighborhood filled withassholes, just like Hunter and
his brood.
He felt that familiar pang ofjealousy.
This is what they were stealingfrom him, but it was okay.
(04:22):
Anger was turning out to be ahigh octane fuel.
Nemesis walked casually,confidently up to Hunter's
place.
He had the nap sack slung,hoping to avoid using the tools
it contained.
He tried the front door withoutknocking and finding it
unlocked.
He quietly cracked it open,peering inside, scanning the
(04:43):
small entryway before hecommitted and seeing no one,
nemesis slipped through andpressed his back against the
door until he felt it latchbehind him.
Standing motionless just insidethe doorway, he willed his ears
to hear past his rapidbreathing.
To the left, a long open livingroom.
He couldn't see the far end, buthe didn't think anybody was in
(05:05):
there.
In front of him lay the centralhallway with a stairwell down to
the basement.
To the right was a dining room,and further on the kitchen.
It was there that he would findthe first mission objective.
There was no sign of whereanyone was yet.
So nemesis crept through thedining room and into the
kitchen.
The knife block was just wherehe imagined it would be, waiting
(05:26):
at the end of one of thecounters.
As he examined a blade nemesisheard movement from somewhere in
the back of the house.
He quickly retreated back towardthe main hall, intending to
circle around via the darkcentral hallway.
As he made the turn out of thedining room, nemesis, collided
with the boy who had just comeup the basement stairs.
(05:47):
The boy, a skinny white kid withbrown hair and glasses, maybe 10
or 11, looked up, surpriseflashing on his face, almost
searching for recognition andfinding none.
The boy's eyes dropped tonemesis his hand.
As the blade came up.
The boy move suddenly is reflexoverrode conscious action.
But Nemesis was ready.
This was what he had come for.
(06:07):
He grabbed the boysimultaneously, driving him down
to the ground as he drove theknife into his neck.
The boy let out a stifled,guttural cry As they fell to the
floor.
The blade penetrated his throatripping through tissues,
severing vessels entering andwithdrawing, repeatedly.
Nemesis, quietly unleashed hisrage on the child whose shocked
(06:28):
body put up no meaningfulresistance.
Nemesis had seen death before.
He was comfortable with.
He recognized the boy was deadlong before he stopped stabbing.
He could only spare a fewseconds to enjoy the revenge.
After that, his survivalinstinct rang an alarm.
(06:48):
There was still at least oneperson in the back of the house.
Driving the blade one last time,he let it protrude from the
boy's neck as a message.
Nemesis jumped up and sprintedback to the knife block, pulling
a second blade.
He burst through the passageinto the rear of the house.
The servant was there, an oldwoman carrying a bucket and
cleaning supplies.
(07:09):
The woman's eyes met his and hesaw her fear.
She dropped everything andturned to flea.
Her old reflexes were no matchfor nemesis who took three quick
strides,catching her before shecould reach the back door.
Tackling her flat on the floor,he plunged the knife into the
side of her throat repeatedly.
Like the boy, she put up noresistance.
(07:31):
When she was clearly dead,nemesis got up.
He searched the house and foundno one else.
He went back to look at thebodies and he was satisfied.
He figured the piglet grows upto be like it's swine father, so
it made sense to strike thebloodline.
A bonus killing the child wouldmame the man.
Marcy (08:06):
Omaha, Nebraska, a Midwest city of 450,000
residents on the banks of theMissouri River.
It is the home of the collegeBaseball World Series and
billionaire businessman,philanthropist, Warren Buffet.
The city has its share ofproblems, but there are areas
where crime, particularlyviolence is virtually unheard
(08:28):
of.
One of these areas is the Dundeeneighborhood, an affluent sector
just west of downtown andCreighton University.
nevertheless, in the earlyevening of March 13th, 2008,
police 9 1 1 dispatch receivedan urgent call from a Dundee
residence.
A man was reporting two victimsdead in his house.
(08:53):
Dr.
Bill Hunter was a pathologistwho left his office on the
campus of Creighton MedicalCenter at 5:00 PM.
10 minutes later, he arrived athis house, which was just a few
blocks from where Warren Buffetlives.
Dr.
Hunter parked as usual, enteredthrough the rear doors and
encountered the almostunbelievable sight of his 57
(09:15):
year old housekeeper, dead ofstab wounds laying on the floor.
He immediately recognized thatshe was beyond help.
The doctor urgently moved pastthe body only to discover his 11
year old son Tom in the hallway.
His boy was also dead withsevere trauma to his throat and
(09:36):
a knife protruding from hisneck.
The police arrived to clear andsecure the house.
The crime scene team went towork with its processes.
The two detectives assigned asprimary investigators noted
several things about the victimsin the scene.
There were several knives lyingaround, and one was left
(09:57):
embedded in Tom's neck.
The knives were all apparentlyfrom a block on the kitchen
counter.
The wounds themselves wereunusual.
Someone had similarly attackedeach victim targeting the right
side of their throats.
Shirlee Sherman suffered 17blade penetrations, including
one that went completely throughher neck.
(10:20):
The scene showed that normallife was in progress before the
killer interrupted it.
The investigators believed thatTom died first, his body laying
near the stairs to the basement.
Downstairs, tom's Xbox accountwas still logged in, partially
consumed after school snacksflanked the chair he'd been
using.
(10:41):
Close to the back door, itappeared that Shirley had been
interrupted in her cleaning.
A bucket and supplies lay closeto the body dropped during the
attack.
Investigators found evidence atthe scene woefully lacking.
There was no clear sign ofmotive.
It didn't look like robbery.
In a house full of valuableitems, nothing was missing.
(11:02):
Shirley was carrying severalhundred dollars on her when she
died.
Processing had turned up littletrace evidence and no
identifiable suspect d n a wasfound at the scene.
The neighborhood canvas didn'tturn up much either.
No one had anything bad to sayabout the hunters.
Only one neighbor reportedsomething unusual.
(11:24):
She saw silver Hondas SUV without-of-state plates driving
slowly through the area.
The car had parked on the streetand a man got out carrying a
bag.
He walked up the street and outof her sight.
She rationalized the man must bea door to door salesman and went
on about her business.
The investigators focused for atime on victimology.
(11:48):
Surveying the family, theparents were both medical
doctors.
They had four kids, so six plusthe housekeeper were the
insiders.
Aside from the victims all hadsolid alibis at the time of the
murders.
Tom's mother, Dr.
Claire Hunter, had beenattending a medical conference
(12:09):
in Hawaii.
Once notified she immediatelyflew home in shock.
Detectives could not determinewhether either Tom or Shirley
were the intended target of theattack.
In Tom's case, there was no signof problems at school.
The bus camera showed him ridingthat afternoon with no sign that
he was living his last minutes.
(12:32):
Every indication was that Tomwas a good kid, a smart kid who
did well in school.
He loved science and math.
His last minutes were hisroutine Xbox, Dr.
Pepper, potato chips in thebasement.
The examination of Tom'sinternet and gaming contacts
(12:52):
didn't turn up anythingsuspicious.
Could Shirley have been thetarget?.
The detectives didn't think so.
She was a hardworkinggrandmother of five.
She didn't appear to have anyproblems or enemies.
Her adult children described heras depend.
Indispensable and rock solid.
(13:12):
She was the beloved center ofthe family.
The detectives turned fromShirley and Tom to look at
Claire and Bill Hunter.
Neither seemed to have coworkersor patients who would want to do
them harm.
No disgruntled employees came tomind.
Bill had been involved in humanresource actions, including
(13:32):
terminations, but all leftquietly without ongoing
problems.
As days turned into weeks withno solid suspects, investigators
feared the attacks might havebeen completely random Five
years later, on Mother's Daymorning, May 12th, 2013, Dr.
(13:55):
Shanda and Adra Butra took twoelderly friends to a holiday
brunch.As they were finishingbreakfast they received a phone
call that their home's intruderalarm had been activated.
They were delayed in checking ontheir house while they finished
breakfast and dropped off theirslow moving guests.
(14:15):
When they finally arrived attheir house.
Nothing appeared to be out ofplace, but the back door was
open.
Dr.
Roger Brum back's house was justa few miles away from the Buwtra
residence.
On that Mother's Day of 2013,Roger and his wife Mary were
working on their house preparingfor his retirement.
(14:39):
They were planning to sell andleave Omaha.
As Roger was painting theentryway, someone knocked on the
front door.
Roger answered, and the shootingstarted.
Two days later, a moving crewarrived at the Brumback house to
pick up their piano.
The workers received no answerat the door.
(15:02):
One of the crew looked through awindow and spotted a pistol
magazine laying on the floor inthe entryway.
They called the police.
When officers arrived, theyfound Roger's body behind the
door and Mary just a littlefurther into the house Roger had
been shot and both had sufferedseveral stab wounds to the right
(15:23):
side of their necks.
The on-call homicide detectiveswere the same team that took the
case at the Hunter home fiveyears prior.
The two detectives walked in andwere immediately struck by the
similarities in the two murdercases.
Two victims each stabbedmultiple times in the same area
(15:46):
of the throat.
Mary, presumably the secondattack victim had defensive
lacerations on her arm.
The crime scene and the victimbackground would only solidify
their growing unease, that thetwo murder scenes were related.
Same as the Hunter House, therewas very little left at the
scene.
Police collected a broken pistolmagazine from the entryway
(16:09):
floor.
There were no witnesses and nodirect sign of motive.
Nothing valuable was taken.
There was no sexual assault.
There was overkill, but nopostmortem mutilation.
also similar to the HunterHouse, the suspect used knives
from the scene.
As far as the victimology went,people who knew Mary Brumback
(16:32):
said that she could not have hada single person who disliked
her.
It was Roger Brum back'sbackground that focused the
investigation.
He was a pathologist atCreighton.
Roger Brumback was the chairmanof the program, and Bill Hunter,
the father of the murdered boy,supervised residents at
(16:53):
Creighton.
As soon as they made theBrumback murders public, the
investigators received a callfrom the Buwtra's who told them
about their burglary alarm andthe suspicious open door.
Crime scene team members weresent to process the Butra
residence.
The investigators took stock.
(17:13):
In 2008, a Creighton MedicalCenter pathologist's home had
been invaded by an unknownsuspect who left everyone inside
dead with distinct almostsignature injuries to both
bodies.
Then Mother's Day 2013, the homeof two Creighton Medical Center
doctors, one a pathologist, hadbeen broken into setting off the
(17:35):
burglar alarm.
Later that day, someonemercilessly slaughtered the
chief of the Creighton PathologyDepartment and his wife in the
entryway of their home.
Their bodies bore the samedistinct stab injuries as the
first two victims.
The question for investigatorswas, who might want to target
the Creighton pathologydepartment?
(17:58):
Could there be a patient orfamily somehow blaming them for
a medical issue?That didn't seemright?
No one in the department couldcome up with a likely subject
for that line of inquiry.
Minus that, what's left was adisgruntled current or former
employee.
Workplace related violence isnot uncommon if that was indeed
(18:20):
the issue here.
But the level of violence andthe enduring nature of the
malevolence seemed almostunbelievable.
What kind of employee mightquietly hold a deadly grudge for
that long?
The answer?
A resident.
Residency is a critical make orbreak period in a doctor's
(18:41):
career.
Successful completion of aresidency is the gateway.
Failure often is the end of acareer, the death of a dream
that has endured in thatresident's life for years.
The detectives began siftingthrough the files of pathology
residence, going back years,setting aside several failed
(19:01):
candidates.
They were the new pool ofsuspects, and one of them was
Anthony Garcia.
Garcia came up in 2008, but wasdismissed in the initial
investigation because it seemedhe had gone away quietly, even
moving out of Nebraska.
When they asked Dr.
Butra about Garcia, her reactionwas what detectives were looking
(19:24):
for.
He was a terrible student, butbeyond that, he was a bad
person.
He was malicious, he wasvindictive.
Dr.
Butra had been Garcia's directsupervisor.
She had written him up forseveral performance issues and
instead of improving, he lashedout at her and others in the
department.
(19:45):
Dr.
Bure said that she had beenpushing hard for the Chief Bill
Hunter and the chair RogerBrumback, to use her
documentation to fire Garcia.
When there were two incidentsthat, as they say were the
straws that broke the camel'sback.
In the first incident, Garciaimproperly, handled the cadaver
in a manner that causeddisfigurement to the body.
(20:08):
Butcher said it showed Garcialacked the requisite compassion
and attention to detail thattheir program demanded.
In the second incident, Garciaintentionally tried to sabotage
the career of pathology's chiefresident.
When Garcia was called on thecarpet over the incident, he
laughed it off as a joke, butButra said his actions were
(20:29):
malicious.
When Garcia was fired, the namesButra, hunter and Brumback were
on the paperwork in the weeksand months that followed, it
would first be the job of theinvestigators and then the media
to find the answer to thequestion.
Who is Garcia?
(20:50):
Fred and Estella Garcia were anAmerican success story.
Fred born in the US with astrong Mexican heritage, fought
in Vietnam.
He came home, married and workedfor the post office.
Estella, born in Mexico, becamea nurse.
The Garcias were the kind ofpeople who were proud, as their
(21:10):
hard work earned them a placefirmly in the American middle
class.
They could afford a house inWalnut, California, a distant
suburb of Los Angeles, farenough east to not have that big
city feel.
Garcia was their first child andthey had big dreams for him.
Growing up, he did well inschool.
He was an altar boy at theirchurch.
(21:32):
He was a big kid, so naturallyhe played football.
Garcia accepted the hopes anddreams of his parents with
Dutiful Resolve.
They wanted him to be a doctor,so that became his dream too.
He went to college in Californiain medical school at the
University of Utah.
After graduation in 1999, Garciabegan a residency program at
(21:57):
Bassett St.
Elizabeths in Utica, New York.
His time in New York did not gowell.
Garcia had personal problemswith staff members who accused
him of behavingunprofessionally.
The conflict simmeredculminating in an incident where
he blew up screaming at aradiology technician.
(22:18):
He was gone by the end of theyear.
With the termination came awarning from the New York State
Board of Professional MedicalConduct.
It would be a flag on hispermanent record that would
follow his medical careerindefinitely.
After the termination, Garciawent back to his parents' home
(22:38):
in California.
Then he received a rare secondchance.
The pathology department atCreighton Medical Center in
Omaha, Nebraska was willing totake him.
After Garcia started atCreighton, it didn't take long
for him to have similar problemsas at Bassett.
His supervising Dr., Chandra,Bewtra described him as
(23:00):
academically very poor.
Dr.
Butcher complained that Garciawas a child cloaked with a
medical degree.
The poor performance reviews,mistakes and attempts to
sabotage a fellow doctor led toGarcia's dismissal in 2001.
He didn't take his dismissalcompletely in silence.
(23:20):
He lashed out complaining to theprogram, the college and whoever
might listen.
Leveling professional andpersonal attacks at those he saw
as responsible for hissituation.
These complaints were sloppy andtransparent in their motivation.
In the end, Garcia seemed toadmit defeat.
He packed up and left Omaha.
(23:43):
Garcia again returned home.
His brother and parents noticedhe was depressed, but never gave
up on the goal of working as adoctor.
In 2003, he got a third chance.
He got into a residency at theUniversity of Illinois Hospital,
and at that time got a licenseto practice medicine in
Illinois.
(24:03):
Following the Illinoisresidency, Garcia chased
employment in several statesworking in clinics and taking
contracts in prisons.
When he applied for a medicallicense to practice, they often
refused him.
The Illinois license kept hiscareer off life support, but the
proceeding failures in New Yorkand Nebraska were writ large on
(24:26):
his record.
LSU Health Sciences Center inShreveport, Louisiana fired
Garcia from a psychiatryresidency because the state
reviewed his record and refusedto issue him a license.
That was in late February, 2008,a few weeks before the murders
at the Hunter residence.
(24:48):
After the LSU termination,Garcia found worked at a federal
penitentiary outside of TerreHaute, Indiana.
He applied for the statelicensure there twice, but was
denied each time.
During a failed application inNovember, 2012, he complained in
writing.
"I feel my actions do not riseto the level of a denial of my
medical licensure application.
(25:10):
I have been aggrieved andadversely affected by not being
able to work as a physician inthe state of Indiana." He had
been working in Indiana on atemporary medical license, which
expired on the last day of 2012.
The brumback murders happened afew weeks later.
To the homicide investigatorsworking the Omaha murders.
(25:32):
What they discovered aboutGarcia added to their
suspicions, the licensure timingcould be emotive for a revenge
killing, but it wasn'tdefinitive.
One of the tantalizing pieces ofevidence was that at the time of
the first murders, Garcia wasdriving a silver Honda CR-V with
Louisiana plates.
(25:54):
It matched the suspicious carthe neighbor had described
perfectly.
To track Garcia's recentmovements, detectives pulled,
cell and credit card records.
Bingo.
On the day of the murders,Garcia's cell phone hit on a
tower an hour outside of Omaha.
Later, he made a purchase at achicken wing joint and was
(26:15):
captured on camera buying beerin the city.
The detectives considered thesefacts highly suspicious,
considering Garcia's residencewas almost 600 miles away in
Terre Haute.
Once they were on the rightsuspect, the investigators began
to build their case quickly.
When they made it to Garcia'sTerra Haute home, the second
(26:35):
murders were still fresh.
It felt like they were hot onthe trail.
That's why they were anxiousWhen Garcia couldn't be located.
Was he still traveling?
Where their other targets?
The Omaha detectives workingwith the FBI pulled in other
state and local agencies.
It was the Illinois Statetroopers that found Garcia,
(26:58):
pulling him over On July 15th ateight 30 in the morning.
They arrested him for drunkdriving.
While searching his car, theyfound parts of a gun, a sledged
hammer, and a crowbar.
The homicide team had searchwarrants ready for when Garcia
was arrested.
When he was in custody, theywent into his house in Tera
(27:20):
Haute.
It turned out that Garcia was acompulsive list guy.
He wrote what he wanted to getdone over the course of a day.
His lists included things asmundane as reminders to buy
vegetables or hygiene products.
Unfortunately, for him, the Lissalso included pretentious words
like gun invade, torture, kill,kidnap.
(27:45):
There was a trove of evidencesoaking in water in the kitchen
sink.
All of his Creighton paperworkwas there.
The poor of performance reviewsand the termination.
Also, in the house, detectivesfound the box that matched the
piece of pistol that was foundin Garcia's car.
Interestingly, the missing partof the pistol matched by serial
(28:09):
number was later located near aroadway in Terre Haute.
It appears he threw it from amoving vehicle.
The caliber of that weapon wasnine millimeter matching that
used in the murders.
While in Tara Ho, detectivestried to track where Garcia was
spending his time, the searchled to Club Coyote and Cecilia
(28:32):
Hoffman.
Cecilia was an exotic dancerthat Garcia was interested in.
He frequented the establishmentand made it known that he wanted
Cecilia to be his girlfriend.
Cecilia wanted nothing to dowith Garcia.
One night she rebuffed hisadvances by saying Dr.
Tony, I only like bad boys.
I'm a bad girl.
(28:53):
You couldn't, you couldn'thandle a girl like me.
Cecilia said that Garciaresponded by telling her that he
wasn't as good as she thought hewas.
And to prove it, she quoted himsaying, I killed people before I
killed a young boy and an oldwoman.
That statement put Cecilia onthe witness list.
(29:16):
Garcia was extradited to Omaha.
And on July 23rd, 2013, theyindicted him on four counts of
first degree murder at theDouglas County Courthouse.
At trial, prosecution presenteda mountain of mostly
circumstantial evidence,including brutal scene photos, a
broken gun magazine from thesecond murder scene that
(29:37):
corresponded with Garcia's gunbox and two other pieces of the
pistol.
There was the witnessinformation about the suspicious
car in the hunter's neighborhoodthat matched the car with
Louisiana plates that Garciaowned.
There was the cell phonetracking showing Garcia traveled
at least 18 hours round trip foronly a four hour stay in Omaha.
(30:02):
There were credit card receiptsshowing items that Garcia
purchased in Omaha, accompaniedby video proof that he was
actually the one using the card.
There was DNA matched to Garciafrom the back doorknob of the
butcher home.
Police theorized the couple wasGarcia's primary target that
day.
This theory was bolstered byGarcia's electronic search for
(30:23):
their residence address.
They also showed the jury a cashof motive evidence that was
found soaking in Garcia's home.
The prosecution also put onCecilia, the exotic dancer, who
told the story of how he triedto charm her by claiming the
murders of a kid in an old lady.
The defense fired back with whatwas not at the murder scene.
(30:47):
No witness, no fingerprints, nofibers, no dna, n a.
They said that a quick roundtrip to Omaha was not evidence
of murder.
He had once lived there and waslooking for a new job.
They said the stripper was astrung out addict who was fed
the story by the cops.
The defense attorneys wentfurther saying that all the
(31:09):
evidence was either planted likethe cell phone tracking,
suspicious Google searches, orthe pieces of gun, or it was
contaminated like the DNA matchfrom the butcher back door.
The defense's tactic was toallege police misconduct with no
evidence to support the claime.
The arguments between defenseand prosecution were
(31:30):
acrimonious, and when the judgecited with the prosecution, the
defense was openly disrespectfulof the process leading the judge
to hold the lead defenseattorneys, a husband and wife
team from Chicago in contempt.
They resigned and had to bereplaced with associates, which
nearly led to a mistrial.
(31:51):
The trial lasted more than twoweeks with 50 witnesses.
Garcia chose not to testify.
It took the jury seven hours tofind him guilty on all counts.
At the end of the trial, Garciabegan acting strangely.
He stopped talking to hislawyers and never looked up
during closing arguments.
(32:13):
Before sentencing, the defenseteam asked that Garcia's mental
health status be evaluated.
The judge refused to delaysentencing based on that
request.
His reasoning being that Garciahad been uncooperative to some
level for the entire process andhe had been evaluated prior to
trial and found competent.
In the first of two sentencinghearings, the prosecutor
(32:36):
addressed the jury presentingthat Garcia should receive the
death penalty because of threestatutory aggravating factors.
He killed multiple people.
He killed to conceal hisidentity, and the killings were
especially heinous, cruel, andmanifesting exceptional
depravity.
The jury agreed that Garcia'scrimes met the statutory
(32:58):
requirement for the deathpenalty.
In the second of the two-partsentencing hearing a three judge
panel validated the jury'sreasoning and sentenced Garcia
to death.
During the sentencing hearings,they wield Garcia into the
courtroom.
He never looked up or saidanything and appeared to sleep
through both proceedings.
(33:34):
to begin this discussion, mark,this is such a sad case.
Tom had a bright future andShirley was a grandmother.
There was the lawyer and thedoctor, and they were getting
ready for their retirement andso they were starting a new
chapter in their lives.
Mark (33:52):
I agree.
Senseless deaths.
The victims had almost no directinvolvement with the person who
killed them, and because of thatthey could have done nothing to
avoid their end.
Marcy (34:02):
Why did you pick the name nemesis for the character in the
narrative?
Mark (34:07):
Nemesis is the Greek goddess of retribution and
indignation.
So I thought that wasappropriate.
When I write a narrative, Idon't want to use the names the
given names cause it gives toomuch away.
Plus I wanna focus on what'sbeing done and why.
So I try to pick somethingthat's appropriate.
And I think the goddess ofretribution and indignation is
good.
It reminds me of one of thecases we went through where the
(34:28):
psychologist labeled thesuspect, a grievance collector.
I think that label isappropriate for Garcia.
Marcy (34:35):
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge.
Mark (34:38):
Okay.
So the reason I put that inthere, in the narrative is that
line about revenge.
Was actually one that theinvestigators pulled off of
Garcia's phone, believe it ornot.
He literally googled the wordrevenge.
The irony with thoseShakespearean lines is that
character, the character thatsays them is a true victim.
Marcy (34:56):
Garcia's failed career was full of disappointments.In
medical school he actuallyoriginally wanted to be a
neurosurgeon.
Mark (35:04):
Dr.
Butra, the pathologist, assessedhim as academically very poor.
That was a quote from heracademically, very poor.
The neurosurgeon thing was onlythe first, of many setbacks that
be fell his career.
The problem with people like himis they lack introspection, and
resilience.
Marcy (35:20):
Clearly not a person who thinks what did I do wrong and
how can I do better?
Mark (35:24):
Right.
Marcy (35:25):
Before we get too far into the case, one thing I found
unusual in Garcia's bio was thatby all indications, he grew up
in a loving home with supportiveparents, solid middle class
family, did really well inschool and sports, and I can't
figure out how it took thisturn.
Mark (35:46):
Yeah I can't explain it.
Personality defect, like I said,he's an injustice collector.
When something goes wrong hedoesn't forget about it.
Doesn't smooth it over.
And clearly he's not a guy who'sgifted socially.
Part of the reason I say that ishe's he's as old as he was
spending a lot of time in astrip joint trying to get a
girlfriend who's a stripper.
You wouldn't think that it'd bedifficult for a guy like that
to.
(36:07):
To find a woman that he didn'thave to pay off.
Marcy (36:10):
I guess I have sympathy with the parents.
They saw a son who seemed tohave everything going completely
right totally implode.
Mark (36:21):
Yeah.
And for that reason, I thinkit's not surprising.
They were in denial for a while.
They and his sibling said theyhad no idea of the problems he
had after medical school.
Marcy (36:29):
One wonders why he chose pathology, which for anybody
who's not up to speed ontheology, is the study of the
causes and effects of disease,especially laboratory
examination of samples of bodytissues for diagnostic or
forensic purposes.
Mark (36:46):
Yeah, from what I've read, they have the reputation of
being lab rats analyzing samplesand not having a lot of contact
with patients.
And I guess that could be a pospositive if you don't like
people.
Marcy (36:58):
Yeah.
But pathologists, like mostdoctors think of themselves as
disease fighters who helppeople.
It seems like compassion wouldbe a prerequisite for a doctor,
even for pathologists.
Mark (37:10):
Yeah, I've thought about that.
I have a feeling that's whyGarcia stood out in the
pathology department where heworked.
He wasn't pathologist material.
I saw that in my career.
You saw recruits come out thatdid fine in the academy, hit the
street on field training, andwhen they got to the street, the
wheels fell off because theycouldn't adapt information to
(37:30):
application.
Some people just aren't suitedto some jobs.
Nine out 10 recruits make thesame kinds of mistakes.
But they learn and improve.
Some are faster than othersthere's these outliers that,
that just don't seem to havewhat they takes and they don't
learn and adapt.
What I learned over time is thatwhen that sort of deficiency
becomes known they have to beshown the door because they can
(37:53):
become, if they make it throughthey can be disastrous as police
officers.
And actually in those cases,dismissal is merciful for the
recruit and the department andthe public.
And I'm sure that's doubly truefor substandard pathologists.
Marcy (38:08):
You mentioned in the investigation that the idea that
the suspect is completely randomis not what investigators want.
Why is that such a problem?
Mark (38:18):
Yeah, it's true.
Cases where there's no clearlink in terms of motive or
relationship between theoffender and the suspect are
notoriously difficult to solve.
With most murders, there arewitnesses.
There's a coherent motive,there's a pool of likely
suspects who are linked in someway to the victim.
The problem with unrelatedrandom attackers is getting to
the suspect.
This can be seen in theclearance rate of like gang
(38:40):
related shootings in drive-bysin urban areas.
Those clearance rates are muchlower because there's usually no
direct link between the shooterand the victim.
The other concern for the Omahadetectives, was if the attack of
the Hunter House was a randomguy, that's the kind of guy
who's likely to do it again.
And you better find that guysoon.
Marcy (39:01):
He didn't wait for Dr.
Hunter to come back and hedidn't return to get Dr.
Hunter later.
Why was he satisfied withkilling the son and not go back
and get Dr.
Hunter?
Mark (39:12):
The key is revenge.
And what is the best revenge?
Let me tell a story first.
Cause I think it, it gives some,I've got some evidence I want to
talk about with this, but thisis a story that kind of
illustrates this.
We had a horrible DV case inAnchorage.
A woman that separated from herhusband.
She had placed a domesticviolence order They had two
kids.
They were like elementaryschool, young, maybe a little
(39:34):
younger than that.
She sees her man pull up to theresidence and she immediately
calls the police.
So the police are en route, butshe's so afraid of the guy who
is she knows is outside.
She takes her kids out the backdoor and runs with them to a
neighbor's house.
It's a good distance away.
The guy breaks into the house,looks through the house, does
(39:55):
some stuff, and then leaves thehouse and tracks them through.
The neighbor's yard probablywith snow.
He breaks down the neighbor'sdoor, finds the kids clinging to
his wife, and he shoots each ofthe kids in the head and kills
them instantly.
When he leaves and commitssuicide nearby in the woods.
(40:18):
But he had the opportunity to,and he didn't kill the mother.
She was alive when he left andshe lived.
She was shot in the abdomen byone of the bullets that went
through one of the kids' heads,but the man didn't kill her.
Why do you think he didn't killher?
Marcy (40:35):
Because living after that experience is to torture enough.
Mark (40:39):
Yeah.
He wanted her to experience thatand be alive to live with it.
Revenge.
So let's look at the firstmurder.
Garcia knows what Dr.
Hunter's schedule is like.
He knows when he'll be homeabout.
He knows what his, what heprobably what he drives.
His wife is also a doctor and heprobably knows his wife isn't
(41:02):
there.
I think it's the most probable.
He went there early afternoonknowing that the kid's gonna be
there.
I think that he went thereexpecting some of the, there's
three kids that weren't at home.
I think he went there expectingother kids to be there.
Garcia's a sadistic dude, and hewanted to punish Dr.
Hunter.
Dr.
Hunter wasn't a hard target.
He could have waited for Dr.
Hunter to come home and killedhim then.
(41:22):
And this, my belief in this isbolstered by the, by one of the
lists found in Garcia's homethat included a note to kill the
rich kid, which he did.
Marcy (41:34):
Speaking of lists, you are a list guy.
Mark (41:38):
Yeah, it's a tightly wrapped thing.
I cope with anxiety sometimes bymaking order in my life by
listing or making a schedule.
Marcy (41:48):
Okay, but you aren't writing.
Brush my teeth by gun killpeople.
Mark (41:54):
No.
I usually remember to do boththose things without a list.
Marcy (41:57):
Do.
You buy the, do you buy thedefense that's assertion that
garcia's mentally ill.
Mark (42:04):
Before the trial, he had a court ordered or evaluation by
psychiatrist that found that hewas competent at the time.
The bottom line with mentalillness is, was he capable of
discerning right from wrong?
Did he make rational decisionswhen committing these crimes?
The first expert I rememberreading about who wrote on this
issue was profiler John Douglas,and he said something that
(42:26):
sticks with me on this topic.
Basically, you can see that someof these offenders are sane.
they know that they're doingsomething wrong through the
lengths they go to conceal theircrimes to get away with them.
Marcy (42:38):
Can you give examples of similar crimes maybe on either
side of the insanity claim?
Mark (42:47):
A woman in Texas several years ago Brought five of her
young children into the bathroomand drowned each one in
succession in her bathtub.
Afterwards, she admitted doingit and made no real attempt to
conceal it, and her motive oncegiven was irrational and she was
later ruled to be insane.
Here's a similar crime.
(43:08):
A young mother in South Carolinaclaimed that her two little kids
had been carjacked and drivenaway by a black man.
Within a few days, the kids werefound dead in the car at the
bottom of a nearby lake.
It turned out that the motherhad drowned her kids because she
wanted to have a relationshipwith a man who wouldn't date a
woman with kids, and she triedto unsuccessfully to claim
(43:30):
insanity.
The difference between story oneand story two is that she had a
rational, albeit despicablemotive for killing her kids.
Marcy (43:39):
And she made up a despicable story to cover her
track.
If you look at the firstmurders, Garcia was stealthy and
didn't leave evidence, didthings like, okay, so if you
look at the first murders,Garcia was stealthy.
He didn't leave much evidence.
He did things like park up thestreet to avoid detection.
And then the second murders, hewasn't as sophisticated at
(44:01):
covering his tracks, but hedrove long distance to get to
the scene.
A full round, tr full day'sround trip.
He thought at the time that disthat the distance would cover
him and that the motive wouldbe, difficult to figure out
because of the time lapse.
But since the conviction Garciahas been sent between the state
(44:22):
psychiatric hospital and theprison on more than one
occasion,
Mark (44:27):
yeah, I'm not saying he doesn't have mental health
issues.
And I don't know how seriousthey are.
What happened in the trial is hestopped talking to the defense
team, started to sleep orpretending to sleep through the
process.
But it increased in kind ofnoticeability and severity after
his conviction.
I've talked before aboutsuspects when being interviewed,
how they employed differenttactics to avoid having to face
(44:48):
what they've done.
In fact, the last episode werecorded the shooter claimed to
have blacked out, so he didn'tremember the specific details
and in that case, he didn't haveto describe it because he
claimed he blacked out, and thedetectives taking the interview
left it there because he hadadmitted I can remember some of
it, but I can't remember all thedetails.
So they left it at that.
I suspect the onset of insanityor at least his extreme
(45:09):
sleepiness is Garcia's way ofavoiding accountability.
It's okay.
He still has to sit in prisonfor it.
Marcy (45:17):
The other angle on insanity, if he's successful,
that might get him off of deathrow.
Mark (45:24):
Yeah, that is true.
And that is actually the focusof his ongoing appeals process.
They're not so focused ongetting him out of prison.
I think that's pretty unlikely,but they're looking ahead at
reducing his sentence to justlife without parole.
As an aside, the death penaltyis obviously a controversial
subject for many reasons.
And Nebraskans were asked in2016 in a referendum, if the
(45:47):
death penalty should remain onthe books in Nebraska.
And they voted overwhelmingly tokeep it for cases like this.
One murder, one withaggravators, worst of the worst
cases.
And this is one of those casesthat motivated that vote and
that referendum,
Marcy (46:03):
talk for a second about overkill.
Mark (46:06):
So overkill is basically doing more in an assault or a
crime than is necessary toachieve the desired results.
I've never seen a gunshot victimwho was stabbed after the fact.
But I did go to a shooting wherethe victim who was shot dead in
the street or fatally woundedand dying, was beaten, curb
stomped or kicked repeatedly ashe died.
(46:26):
The case I'm talking about thatwas a message of intimidation by
gang bangers to the residentsthat lived on that street.
It was a very public event.
These murders were a message.
Yes.
But the case reminded me more ofa murder case that we covered in
Kentucky where the murderer wasMartin.
He shot the man he was targetingand then beat him badly.
(46:46):
He broke his nose causing facialinjuries.
And the reason for that and thereason for these murders, the
overkill, these murders wasrage.
Marcy (46:54):
And looking at overkill is important because it helps
investigators understandpotential motive.
Mark (47:01):
Yes.
And in the Martin case, the samething.
It wasn't just a random guybumbling through a burglary
because of that overkill.
And in this case, 17 stabwounds, multiple stab wounds to
somebody's neck, way more thanit takes to kill them.
That is about anger, and thatanger's often related to
familiarity with the victim.
Marcy (47:21):
The location where the victims were stabbed is
significant.
He's a doctor and knows theanatomy.
So do you think that's why hestabbed him in the neck?
Mark (47:31):
Yeah.
I've been on at least a coupleof cases where neck lacerations
caused death or very close toit.
I remember a fight in a parkinglot one morning after the bars
closed.
Started with as a simple fistfight.
A guy had the made the choice tobreak a beer bottle, whipped it
across another guy's throat, andit killed him very quickly.
In another incident, I waswalking around in a crowd after
(47:54):
bar break.
In the middle of the night.
There had been a fight down thestreet and the crowd was so big
I didn't even know about it.
Suddenly this huge Samoan guybursts outta the crowd was
lumbering towards me and bloodwas seeming this pour out of his
out from under his chin.
Someone had taken a knife andsliced his throat and that guy
was running around like crazy.
I got him on the ground.
We put pressure on it, andluckily an ambulance was close.
(48:18):
That guy certainly would'vedied.
Had we not gotten to him andtaken measures to send him off
the hospital.
All of this to say the neck is avery vulnerable place and the
pathologist who committed thesemurders knew that.
Marcy (48:31):
Talk about the neighborhood canvas.
Mark (48:35):
Yeah.
I love it when you are walkingaround and think there's nothing
to find here.
And you find someone who sawsomething very important and
they may not even think they sawsomething.
And this happens more than youthink.
Nowadays, the other thing youmight get on a canvas is a video
camera that caught one of theplayers come here going from the
scene.
And I've also been involved in acanvas where he found the
suspect vehicle leaving thescene of a murder.
(48:57):
That's always pretty cool.
One of the details I love that'sso real about talking to people
is that the witness in the firstmurder rationalized that the guy
in the Honda must just be asalesman.
It's unusual to have somebodypark on the street in this very
wealthy area and walk somewhere.
But they were suspicious.
They were suspicious enough tonote perfect details.
(49:20):
The car was right on.
The suspect des descriptionwasn't great, but medium height,
stocky male.
Tan or all of complexioncomplected skin accurate enough
that the jury bought that, thatwas the guy that was there.
The Bootlegger's Cove case wedid.
And she saw the guy who lit thefire and she didn't even know
(49:41):
it.
And she said, yeah, this guy wassitting over there.
That's, it's gold man.
When you come up with that, it'sgold.
Marcy (49:47):
If the Brumback bodies weren't found for two days, how
do they know when the killingstook place?
Mark (49:54):
One of the really sad aspects of their murder was that
they had been on a FaceTime callwith their daughter and her
husband.
That morning.
Mary took several screenshots,one of which they were all
cracking up at a joke that thedaughter had just told.
They looked really happy.
And they know that this wasright before the murders.
And this would've been likeSunday morning, mother's Day,
(50:16):
morning-ish, mid-morning.
So they have the time on thatcall.
The detectives noted the clothesthat they were wearing.
And they were the same clothesthey were killed in.
And Dr.
Breck was painting that morning,so he probably also had paint
paint open, paint on theclothes.
I can't keep from paint, fromgetting paint on my clothes.
And all of that.
And the conditions of thebodies, the temperature in that
(50:38):
house, they'd be able to come upwith an estimated timeframe that
was, fairly accurate.
Marcy (50:46):
It seems like maybe a mistake that the detectives
didn't track down the cars ofthe terminated residence after
the first set of murders.
Do you think that they shouldhave caught that at that time?
Mark (50:55):
In retrospect, that small step would've broken the case,
prior.
But consider that the detectiveswere given the idea that the
residents were an all clear.
When they asked the question, doyou have an disgruntled
employees?
Clearly when they went to act tofocus on Garcia maybe what they
had been told was, to smoothover history.
I think that level of denial islargely because these are
(51:17):
doctors who don't want to thinkabout their colleagues, even the
substandard ones being capableof this.
as a detective, you're gonnawork through scenarios from most
likely to least likely.
And some of that is based onwhat the people you're
interviewing tell you.
From the outside looking in, theresidents are gonna seem like
poor suspects.
Even the fail ones, they havededicated their years of their
(51:39):
lives pledged themselves aprofession that is about caring
for the sick and all of themhave worked hard.
Even the ones that didn't dowell And in light of that, it
probably seemed more likely thatthe suspect was gonna turn out
to be some random psycho.
Marcy (51:54):
What you said makes me think two things.
Garcia was washed out because hestood out.
He wasn't the hardworking,compassionate person that he
needed to be to pass.
And the second thing is it seemslike it could have been amiss
because Garcia was dismissed andhe left the state and they knew
that, and yet the suspect wasdriving a vehicle out-of-state
(52:14):
plates.
They missed that ability to tiethose two things together.
But hindsight's 2020.
Mark (52:22):
Yes, that was missed for sure.
Marcy (52:25):
The gun evidence was a little confusing for me.
Was there a ballistic match?
Mark (52:30):
No, there's no ballistic match.
I think the bullets were toodeformed.
What happened was that Garciawas shooting at the door of the
Brumback house.
He obviously shot Dr.
Brumback and his gunmalfunctioned.
And apparently, usually when youhave a malfunction, it's a
fixable thing, but they actuallyfound part of his, of a recoil
spring and a damaged magazinethat, that came out of the gun.
Literally those things werelaying in the threshold of the
(52:53):
door.
Those items that were leftbehind didn't have serial
numbers and couldn't be tracedback to a specific gun.
But they were determined tobelong to a specific model of
pistol that fired ninemillimeter rounds.
Now, Garcia owned two guns andhe had one nine millimeter, and
it was the same type of gun thatspring that was found on the
scene and the broken magazinewould fit.
(53:14):
When Garcia was arrested, partof the nine millimeter pistol
was in the car, and that had aserial number on it and part of
the pistol that was missing andlater found in grass near the
roadway, like he had pitched itout to get rid of it.
That was also the same serialnumber.
So both pieces of gun had thesame serial number and the box
with the serial number, the gunwas in his house.
(53:35):
So basically you take those, thesuspicious thing about he broke
the gun in half, threw it outthe window and a gun that
matched the magazine in thespring that broke off.
It isn't definitive evidence,but it's very, it adds to the
proof.
It's circumstantial.
Marcy (53:49):
So I just have this mental picture of this gun just
falling apart into pieces ashe's trying to kill these poor
people.
Did he ninja tried to take itapart to spread evidence around?
Did it really fall apart?Or doyou think they were fighting
over it and it came apart?
How did it end up in so manypieces?
Mark (54:07):
I read one theory that somehow the door, like he shot
the doctor and the door gotclosed on the gun in the fight
and it broke apart.
I don't know, but you, therecoil spring in the pistol is
internal to the pistol.
That is a, that's a devastatingpi.
You're not firing that gununless you really know what
you're doing without a recoilspring.
(54:27):
And the, and I think, who knows,maybe the, he's trying to strip
it and clear the gun to fix themalfunction and the.
And the magazine falls out andsomebody steps on it.
Something happened.
There's piece pieces, parts.
He took the two mate, the upperreceiver and the lower receiver
if you know what your guns.
He took the upper se, upperreceiver and lower receiver with
him, but there's still parts onthe ground.
When he left that house.
Marcy (54:49):
Crazy.
So talk a little bit about ClubCoyote and the deal with Cecilia
hoffman.
Mark (54:57):
First of all, having worked as a vice detective
around commercial sex workersand exotic dancers, a
gentleman's club is the lastplace a guy wants to go looking
for it's one or two things ifyou do.
One, you're a male predatorlooking to take advantage of the
vulnerable position Many ofthese women are in or seem to be
in.
Or two, you're the prey andyou're gonna be chewed up and
(55:20):
spit out by a woman and probablyher boyfriend who only value you
as a source of income.
Marcy (55:30):
Which one do you think Garcia would've been?
He was the killer of childrenand the elderly.
Mark (55:36):
I think he would've been number two.
He was clueless and vulnerable.
He didn't realize that in hisown words, killing a little kid
and an old lady would not givehim mad Street cred.
The really cool thing is sheturned out to be a stellar
witness.
The defense tried to call herall kinds of things, but she
maintained her credibility.
And in the closing arguments,the prosecution pointed out she
(55:58):
had nothing to prove.
She gained nothing bytestifying.
Marcy (56:04):
What a phenomenal loser to have that much hate and anger
boiling so that you carry thisplan out over five years and
probably would have continuedand circled back around for the
Bewtras again.
if given the chance.
Mark (56:26):
Yeah.
What strikes me about this caseis particularly horrible is I
think he targeted the kid onpurpose, right?
For the reasons I said.
And the idea you want to go killa 10 or 11 year old boy.
You look at the kids' photos, itjust, oh, it just breaks your
heart.
Think about that kid runningaround having a good time after
school.
And there's a guy that, forreasons that has have nothing to
(56:49):
do with the poor cleaning ladyand the boy targets them.
Come on.
It's just horrendous.
Marcy (56:58):
What the families want people to know is that the
victims in these senselesskillings were great people,
either of accomplishment orpotential.
Thomas Hunter was a smart,compassionate sixth grader who
would've achieved great things.
Shirley Sherman was a lovingsister, mother, and grandmother
(57:19):
who was adored by her family andthe family she served.
Mary Brumback was a retiredlawyer, active volunteer,
beloved grandmother, wife andfriend.
Dr.
Roger Brumback was agrandfather, father, and medical
doctor who devoted his life toimproving healthcare, focusing
(57:40):
on children and the elderlyPlease rate and review Crime
Raven wherever you listen.
It helps us get better and ithelps other listeners find us.
Also, if you email us ascreenshot of your review or
send us a question or a case,we'll send you a promo code for
(58:02):
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Send them tocrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
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Remember, email us atcrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
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If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
(58:23):
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