Jury says 'Creighton killer,' Dr. Anthony Garcia, eligible for death penalty

Dr. Anthony Garcia is eligible for the death penalty for his crimes

Update 11/9/16:

A historic election that swept underdog Presidential candidate Donald Trump into office, also overwhelmingly reinstated the death penalty in the State of Nebraska yesterday, nullifying a previous repeal of the death penalty in 2015 by the state legislature.

Much like the Trexit rebuke that swept across the state and the nation, the Rust Belt carried the initiative by a 4 to 1 margin outside Lincoln and Omaha.

That means the Supreme Court will assemble a three-judge panel to determine if Dr. Anthony Garcia will receive the death penalty, expected some months down the line, for committing two double-murders in the "Creighton murders" from 2008 and 2013.

Original Article:

A Douglas County jury reconvened for only 45 minutes today to determine if there were aggravating factors in Dr. Anthony J. Garcia's murder case to make him eligible for the death penalty.

Their answer was: Yes, Anthony Garcia warrants consideration for the death penalty. The same jury convicted him of all four counts of first-degree murder on Wednesday.

Dr. Garcia was convicted this week of two home-invasion, double homicides in the 2008 deaths of Thomas Hunter, 11, the son of a Creighton University Medical Center pathologist Dr. William Hunter, and the family housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, 57, in Dundee, as well the deaths of Creighton pathologist Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife Mary in 2013.

Anthony Garcia's lawyers vowed to appeal the verdict for a re-trial

The crimes all had commonalities with the victims sustaining massive stabbing wounds to right side of their necks from household knives found inside the home and the victims' links back to Dr. Garcia's superiors at Creighton University—namely Drs. William Hunter and Roger Brunback—during the time of his residency there.

In each case, the knives used in the deadly attacks were found still impaled in the victims when the bodies were discovered.

On Wednesday, a Douglas County jury convicted Garcia of all nine counts against him, including four counts of first-degree murder, four counts of the use of a deadly weapon, and one count of attempted burglary.

The murders were thought to be motivated by revenge after Dr. Garcia was fired from the Creighton pathology residency training program back in 2001 after he attended the training program for only one year.

Both Dr. Hunter, then the residency director of the program, and Dr. Brumback, then the chairman of the department, had signed Garcia's termination letter, which began (or continued) Dr. Garcia's downward career spiral in the medical profession. Dr. Garcia has had difficulty maintaining gainful employment as a doctor since his troubles at Creighton.

The 'Creighton murder' victims

Garcia had been terminated from several other residency training programs and denied numerous medical licenses in several states after Dr. Bill Hunter sent letters to other residency and state medical licensing boards stating Dr. Garcia had been terminated from Creighton's residency program for "erratic behavior."

It may be years before the appeals process in the Anthony Garcia
case is resolved, and who knows what may happen or what that
process may reveal in that time

The first part of the death penalty phase of the trial began today for the Douglas County jurors, determining if there were aggravating factors in the crimes to make Garcia eligible for the death penalty.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine argued that there were three aggravating factors, making Garcia eligible for the death penalty:

(1)  The murder was committed in an effort to conceal the commission of a crime, or to conceal the identity of the perpetrator of such crime.

(2)  The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or manifested exceptional depravity by ordinary standards of mortality and intelligence.

(3)  At the time the murder was committed, the offender also committed another murder.

"[H]e murdered more than one person on each occasion," Kleine began listing the aggravators. "Part of the purpose of the murder was to conceal the identity of the perpetrator of the crime itself. I think that is very straight forward and that each crime was especially heinous."

Given that one of the victims was a child and there were multiple victims involved, it didn't come as much of a surprise to many court observers that the jury determined there were, indeed, aggravating factors to make Garcia eligible for the death penalty.

Now, the Nebraska Supreme Court will appoint two other judges to make up a three-judge panel, which will include the trial's presiding judge, Gary Randall, several months down the road who will now decide if Dr. Garcia will get the death penalty in the next phase of sentencing. They will hear any evidence of aggravating and mitigating factors and weigh in that evidence to decide Garcia's final fate of life in prison or death.
 

Gary Randall, the judge who presided over the
Garcia case, will be one of the three judges that
will decide if Garcia gets the death penalty

Garcia's fate will also depend on the outcome of a November 8th ballot question put before Nebraska voters in less than two weeks time on election day that could abolish the state's death penalty.

Nebraska's State Legislature repealed the death penalty in 2015, despite Governor Pete Ricketts' veto; however, the measure has not gone into force due to a veto referendum campaign that gathered enough signatures to suspend the repeal.

Thus, the death penalty has remained legal in the state until voters decide whether to retain or repeal the measure on November 8, 2016 in a ballot proposition.

If the death penalty is voted out, there will be no three-judge panel, and the Garcia case will go to sentencing without the option of the death penalty on the table.

An appeal is also expected of the Garcia verdict, complicating matters even further. The defense has already vowed that there will be a retrial of the case given the fact that virtually all the evidence used to convict Garcia was circumstantial in nature with no evidence tying Garcia directly to the murders.

For justice to be properly served, especially for a death penalty case, the defense has argued that one would hope there would be some form of direct evidence convincingly proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that someone accused of murder is in fact guilty of the crimes he was convicted of.

Garcia's attorneys have argued the murders that Dr. Garcia was convicted of
are linked to an unsolved murder in 2007 of Joy Blanchard in her home, not
far from Dr. William Hunter's home in Dundee, pointing to a different suspect

The defense has contended throughout the trial that the 2008 Dundee murders and 2013 Brunback murders were very similar in nature to a 2007 unsolved stabbing, home-invasion murder of Joy Blanchard who lived not too far from the Hunters' home.

Two knives used in her attack were also found impaled in the victim similar to the victims found in the "Creighton murders."

Garcia's attorneys have argued that police and prosecutors failed to rule out the possibility that the same killer(s) of Joy Blanchard in 2007 could have also been responsible for the Dundee murders in 2008 and the Brunbacks murders in 2013. In fact, at one point, Omaha police also thought all five murders were related and asked the FBI's help to find a potential serial killer linked to all the cases involved.

In any case, we can expect the appeals process for Anthony Garcia to drag on for years, if not decades, to find any kind of resolution while Garcia remains in prison. So this is not likely the last we will likely hear about this case.

References:

• Medicine of Omaha—Defense argues Dr. Anthony Garcia should be spared the death penalty because of severe mental illness and 'profound burden of failure' in death penalty sentencing hearing (6/13/18)
• Medicine of Omaha—Death penalty hearing for Anthony Garcia delayed again until May (3/1/18)
• Medicine of Omaha—As Anthony Garcia's quadruple murder case is featured on another TV show, Judge dismisses Garcia's motion against the death penalty (2/13/18)
• Medicine of Omaha—Death penalty hearing for Dr. Anthony Garcia in complete chaos and delayed until March because trial Judge decided to replace his lawyers during the sentencing phase (11/19/17)
• Medicine of Omaha—Anthony Garcia's Chicago-based lawyers ask to be removed from the 'Creighton killer' case (8/6/17)
• Medicine of Omaha—CBS News '48 Hours' features Dr. Anthony Garcia's quadruple murder case (5/7/17)
• Medicine of Omaha—Dr. Anthony Garcia ruled to be competent for death penalty sentencing, but court then grants defense a last minute postponement (3/29/17)
• Medicine of Omaha—Dr. Anthony Garcia's death penalty hearing likely delayed after Judge orders mental competency exam for 'Creighton Killer' (3/13/17)
• Omaha World-Herald—Nebraskans vote overwhelmingly to restore death penalty, nullify historic 2015 vote by state Legislature (11/9/16) with video
• Lincoln Journal Star—Jury rules former doctor eligible for death penalty (10/28/16)
• Omaha World-Herald—Jury finds aggravating factors that could lead to death penalty for Anthony Garcia (10/28/16)
• KMTV—Jury decides Garcia could get death penalty (10/28/16) with video
• WOWT—Three judge panel to decide if Garcia will face death penalty (10/28/16) with video
• KETV—Jury finds death penalty aggravators exist in Anthony Garcia murders (10/28/16)
• Nebraska Radio Network—Next phase in Anthony Garcia murder trial starts today in Omaha (10/28/16)
• WOWT—Death Penalty still pending in Garcia case (10/28/16) with video
• Omaha World-Herald—Anthony Garcia trial jury meeting to discuss death penalty possibility (10/28/16)
• KMTV—Death penalty vote looms after Garcia verdict (10/27/16) with video
• People—Disgraced Doctor Convicted of Killing Four in Years-Long Revenge Plot After Being Fired (10/27/16)
• KMTV Video—Anthony Garcia verdict (10/26/16)
• Medicine of Omaha—Jury finds Dr. Anthony Garcia guilty on four counts of first-degree murder (10/26/16)
• KETV—A closer look at Nebraska's death penalty debate (10/24/16) with video
• Omaha World-Herald—Death penalty in Nebraska: Periodic rise and fall of opposition (10/21/16)
• Omaha World-Herald—Death penalty in Nebraska: Rarely used, does it get another try? (10/21/16)
• KMTV—Garcia's attorney says DNA exonerates client in 2008 Dundee murders; implicate Simmer (3/28/16) with video