· From a patient who shot his plastic surgeon to a man so frustrated with the healthcare
system he turns to murder, we count eight chilling times patients killed their doctors!
8 – Hans Peterson, · If you believe bad things don’t happen
to good people, this gruesome 2006 murder will change your mind.
David Cornbleet was a charitable dermatologist known for good deeds like treating 9/11 burn
victims and helping those affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Exactly the sort of person who doesn’t deserve to be brutally stabbed to death twenty times.
· A surveillance camera happened to capture footage of the perpetrator, but the person’s
identity was unclear.
It took some Myspace detective work, an anonymous tip and a year-long manhunt to solve the mystery.
· It turned out the killer, Hans Peterson, was one of David’s patients from five years
earlier.
He’d planned to torture David, but ended up stabbing him during a struggle.
7 – Chester Posby, · It seems even internationally respected
doctors who are pioneers in their field have to deal with disgruntled patients.
Unfortunately for Dr John Kemink, this disgruntled patient was driven by a powerful delusion
that drove him to murder.
· In 1992, Chester Posby got it in his head that Dr Kemink was conspiring to perform a
deadly brain operation on him.
Feeling betrayed, he burst into the University of Michigan Otolaryngology Clinic and shot
Dr Kemink in the head, shoulder and abdomen with a semiautomatic handgun.
· Dr Kemink was known for his pioneering work developing cochlear implants for children,
which have improved thousands of deaf and hard-of-hearing children’s lives.
6 – Vitali Davydov, · Psychiatrist Wayne Fenton probably didn’t
consider his unarmed mild-mannered nineteen-year-old patient a threat when he showed up for his
regular appointment in 2006.
No one could’ve foreseen that young Vitali Davydov would snap into a schizophrenic rage
and pummel his doctor to death with his bare fists.
· The horrifying unprovoked murder occurred during a discussion of Vitali’s treatment
options and wasn’t noticed until Vitali’s father came to pick him up.
He saw the bloodstains on his son’s hands and clothes and immediately dialled 911.
· Vitali confessed and was found guilty, but was not held criminally responsible because
of his condition.
He was moved to the maximum-security mental hospital in Maryland where, four years later,
he tragically murdered his roommate.
5 – Wilfredo Sabonsolin, · If asked whether you’d prefer to die
or live with a difficult disability most people would choose life.
But for seventy-two-year-old Wilfredo Sabonsolin living just didn’t seem worth it after he
lost the ability to walk.
· After life-saving spinal chord surgery, Wilfredo ended up confined to a wheelchair.
He’d been an avid runner most of his life and couldn’t cope with losing that part
of his identity.
· The surgeon who’d performed the operation, Dr Cris Cecil Abbu, had allegedly reassured
him that he would be able to walk properly after therapy.
So when Wilfredo ended up stuck in a wheelchair he vowed to kill the one person he held responsible.
· Slipping past hospital security, he fatally shot the doctor twice in the chest and then
took his own life.
4 – Stanwood Elkus, · If you asked most people what they take
for granted in life, you could probably expect answers like time, clean air or maybe their
loved ones.
What you wouldn’t expect to hear is bowel control – but that’s something former
barber Stanwood Elkus struggled to live without.
· After undergoing prostate surgery in the Nineties, Stanwood was forced to hand in his
dignity card and adjust to life as an incontinence sufferer.
He eventually came to accept it – until a 2013 conversation with a friend put a dangerous
thought in his head.
The friend told him the urologist who’d performed the procedure, Dr Ronald Gilbert,
had botched it and was the reason Standwood’s incontinence was so severe.
· Furious, Standwood showed up at Dr Gilbert’s office the next day and shot him nine times
in the torso, killing him instantly.
Afterwards, Stanwood staggered out of the examination room and said, ‘Call the police.
I’m insane.’
The cops arrived eight minutes later to arrest him.
· Sadly, the shooting may have been a case of mistaken identity.
Dr Gilbert had worked at the hospital at the time of Stanwood’s operation, but no records
suggest he participated in the surgery.
3 – Barbara Newman, · Although psychiatry helps millions of people
every year, not everyone can be saved.
In 2011, sixty-two-year-old paranoid schizophrenic Barbara Newman shot her psychiatrist Mark
Lawrence in his Maryland home.
· A day earlier, Mark had voiced his concerns about Barbara to a colleague.
Barbara had begun blaming all her problems on Mark, so the colleague advised him to send
her for an outside consultation.
· Unfortunately Barbara’s disturbed delusions escalated before there was time to put this
plan in motion.
She took Mark’s life before immediately turned the gun on herself.
2 – Yuri Lebedev, · Everyone has days where they wake up feeling
unhappy about the way they look.
For Yuri Lebedev, this was every day of his life.
No matter what he did, he was never satisfied with his appearance.
Eventually he resorted to invasive plastic surgeries, but even these failed to improve
his horrible self-image.
· The doctor who oversaw Yuri’s surgeries, Dr Alexander Remizov, warned him that getting
further surgeries would be a dangerous road to go down and would not make him happy.
· He advised Yuri to see a psychiatrist, but his words fell on deaf ears.
Yuri blamed the doctor for his self-esteem issues and, in 2015, entered St Petersburg’s
Russian Railways Hospital with a concealed machine gun.
He found Dr Alexander’s office and shot him in the chest, then tragically took his
own life.
1 – Stephen Pasceri, · Sometimes grief can push a person into
dark territory.
Like in 2015 when confused fifty-five-year-old Stephen Pasceri shot and killed Dr Michael
Davidson because he blamed him for the recent death of his mother.
· Stephen was overcome with anger and deeply frustrated with the US healthcare system.
He had been extremely critical of the system in the media ever since his father unexpectedly
died during a short hospital stay in 2011.
· Stephen’s elderly mother died because of unforeseen complications in her treatment,
but Stephen still held Dr Davidson personally responsible.
He shot the cardiovascular surgeon twice outside his office before committing suicide.
· Dr Davidson left behind three children and a pregnant wife.
A tragedy all around.