Convicted 'Creighton killer' Dr. Anthony Garcia gets the death sentence

To no one's surprise, the pronouncement was 'death' by the Nebraska 3-judge panel

A three-judge panel today sentenced convicted quadruple murderer, Dr. Anthony Garcia, to death for his actions in the killings of Thomas Hunter, 11, and the family housekeeper Shirlee Sherman, 57, in March 2008 and Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife Mary, both 65, in May 2013.

  

The hangman awaits Dr. Anthony Garcia as a 3-judge panel today recommended
the death sentence for the convicted and now condemned quadruple murderer

Both sets of double murders, which took place a little more than five years apart in the quiet heartland town of Omaha, NE, were thought to be motivated by Dr. Garcia's festering desire for revenge after he was unceremoniously fired from the Creighton University Medical School in 2001.

Garcia was fired from the Creighton University pathology residency training program back in the summer of 2001 by the two then-heads of the pathology department, Drs. William Hunter (the residency director) and Roger Brumback (the department chairman) for what was characterized as unprofessional conduct.

Prosecutors from the Douglas County Attorney's Office contend that Garcia held a simmering and fomenting grudge against Drs. Hunter and Brumback for smearing his professional reputation with a devastating and stigmatic firing which stuck with the troubled doctor throughout his medical career.

That event directly led to Garcia being fired from numerous other medical jobs and being unable to get or maintain numerous medical licenses afterwards across the country.

Judge Gary Randall has done a great deal to disrupt Anthony Garcia's defense
during the entire course of his murder trial, so does Randall have anything to
worry about from Garcia harboring any resentments against him?

The straw that broke the camel's back appears to have taken place on February of 2008 when Garcia was, again, unceremoniously fired from a psychiatry residency program at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center (LSUHSC) in Shreveport, CA, after program officials there found out directly from Dr. William Hunter, himself, that Garcia was terminated from the Creighton University pathology residency program—something that Garcia had failed to disclose and kept secret from officials at LSU on his residency application.
  
Seventeen days later in March of 2008, Dr. Hunter's son Thomas, 11, and the family housekeeper Shirlee Sherman, 57, were found brutally stabbed to death from an apparent home burglary inside the Hunter family home located in the affluent Omaha neighborhood of Dundee, NE, by Dr. Hunter as he was coming home from work. That gruesome crime went unsolved for years as leads in that case went completely cold.

Then unexpectedly five years later, as Dr. Garcia's career as a doctor continued to deteriorate, the bodies of Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife Mary were found brutally slaughtered, under very eerily similar circumstances, from another apparent home burglary on Mother's Day in 2013 inside the Brumbacks' home.

Earlier that same fateful day, someone had tried to unsuccessfully break into the home of another Creighton University pathologist and former Garcia boss, Dr. Chhanda Bewtra, but was scared off by a burglar alarm that went off from the door.

Dr. Anthony Garcia did not speak to anyone and his appearance and mental
health deteriorated noticeably during his murder trial, all of which may have
greatly and unduly influenced the outcome of his case

It was only then that homicide detectives began to tie the two unsolved cases together on the commonalities of the three homeowners, Drs. Hunter, Brumback and Bewtra, who were the apparent targets of the same intruder, and who had the common tie of working together in the exact same department at the Creighton University School of Medicine.
  
Detectives then searched for possible suspects who were associated with the Creighton University pathology department who may have had a motive for the killings.

They came up with a few names of suspects, including that of Dr. Anthony Garcia, whom investigators found was a former resident at the Creighton University pathology residency training program who was fired from the department by both Drs. Hunter and Brumback back in 2001.

Quite shockingly, there were other likely suspects detectives came across from the Creighton University pathology residency program who held festering grudges against Drs. Hunter and Brumback, such as Dr. Michael Belenky as revealed on a 2017 NBC Dateline: Haunting episode; however, prosecutors mislead the jury to believe that Garcia was the only possible suspect from Creighton University with an apparent motive to seek revenge against Dr. Hunter and Brumback. (See 2017 Dateline: Haunting episode at 2:30.)

In hindsight, Dr. William Hunter probably now wishes he had never contacted school officials at LSU to inform them about how Garcia had withheld material facts about his termination on his residency application back in 2008, as that ill-fated decision led to utter and devastating catastrophe, bringing nothing but untold horror and tragedy not only in his life, but to the lives of four innocent families.

Was Anthony Garcia on his way to kill another former boss,
Dr. Anita Kablinger of LSU, when he was arrested on a state
highway in Illinois back in July of 2013?

When he was arrested back in July of 2013—only two months after the Brumback murders—authorities contend Garcia was on another murderous revenge mission, driving to his old haunts at LSU in order to kill the former professor whom prosecutors contend had made Garcia snap by firing him after contacting Dr. William Hunter.

Garcia was nabbed by Illinois State Troopers and FBI agents in transit, guided by controversial and highly clandestine police surveillance systems called Stingrays and dirtboxes which are used by law enforcement to simulate signals from a cell phone tower to eavesdrop on and track personal cell phones, while he was driving intoxicated on the long journey from his home in Terre Haute, Indiana, to LSU in Shreveport, LA.

At the time of the traffic stop, Garcia had a .45 caliber handgun, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, and a LSU white physician's coat with him inside his SUV, which authorities claim he was going to use to seek revenge against LSU residency program officials who had fired him from its psychiatry residency training program back in 2013.

Judges Gary B, Randall (the presiding judge in Garcia's murder trial), Russell Bowie and Rick Schreiner deliberated Garcia's final fate at a hearing in June.

The three-judge panel has since decided that the aggravating factors in the grisly and brutally violent crimes far outweighed any mitigating factors—including mental illness, family pressures, and substance abuse—to justify condemning Garcia to death.

The murder victims: Shirlee Sherman (left, upper), Thomas Hunter (right,
upper), Mary Brumback (left, lower), and Dr. Roger Brumback (right, lower)

But the decision didn't come down without something bizarre going down. Judge Randall excused himself from the hearing and had to be taken away on a gurney to an ambulance due to what he called severe "pain."

Garcia's sentencing comes almost two years after he was convicted in a nationally-publicized trial for the quadruple murders, and the harsh decision today comes as no surprise to anyone who has been closely following the trial, because one of the judges on the death penalty panel, Douglas County Judge Gary Randall, was the trial judge who also presided over Dr. Garcia's murder trial, and he seemed to have it in for the defendant since day one.

Judge Randall has shown no empathy or mercy to Dr. Garcia, thus far. In fact, Judge Randall seemed impatient, and at other times, he seemed outright annoyed at Garcia's previous defense team, Robert Motta, Jr., his wife Alison Motta, Robert Motta, Sr., and Jeremy Jorgenson, while interjecting a get deal of controversy into the judicial proceedings with decisions going against the defense.

Dr. Anthony Garcia asleep during his sentencing today

For example, two months before the murder trial was to even began in June 2016, Judge Randall rattled Garcia's defense team by removing his lead defense attorney, Alison Motta, from the case, blasting her for claiming that a DNA test done on the crime scene exonerated her client for the Dundee murders.

This controversial decision from the bench to remove Garcia's lead attorney was a major setback for Garcia and resulted in numerous delays in the start of the trial, as his defense team had to do without a key member of the team and reorganize to recover from such a devastating blow; however, subsequent controversial decisions from Judge Randall against Dr. Garcia that setback his cause didn't stop just there.

Dr. William Hunter of Creighton University may now wish he had never
contacted LSU to inform officials there that he had fired Anthony Garcia

After Garcia was convicted on all the counts against him during the trial, Judge Randall again inexplicably interjected even more chaos into Dr. Garcia's defense efforts by appointing the state public defenders' office, the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, to take over as his duly appointed legal representation during the death penalty phase of the trial, effectively throwing out all of Garcia's established legal defense team in the process.

Was this kind of impulsive and rather contemptuous decision on the part of Judge Randall even wise or just at this point? The perception of this kind of shocking move certainly suggests bias on the part of the judge.

This controversial decision led to even more delays in the sentencing phase of the trial and was a serious blow to Garcia's cause to avoid the gas chamber.

With all these shenanigans going on from the bench, one wonders if justice was or ever will be served properly—for both the victims, their families, and even for the accused—in this case, as it may have given Garcia legal justification for an appeal.

Given what has happened in the case thus far, we can understand why Judge Gary Randall (and the remaining judges on the panel) sought to push for the death penalty against Dr. Garcia because, if he ever gets out, it would not be inconceivable that Garcia might hold a festering grudge against the Judge.

Let's just hope, for Judge Randall's sake, that the appeals court doesn't follow the case that closely because payback is not something you want to get from a guy like Dr. Anthony Garcia, if he ever gets a chance to get out again. At least, that's what the prosecution contends.

References:

• KMTV—Anthony Garcia sentenced to death (9/14/18), with video
• KETV—Anthony Garcia given death penalty (9/14/18), with video
• WOWT—Convicted killer Anthony Garcia has been sentenced to death (9/14/18), with video
• Omaha World-Herald—Anthony Garcia sentenced to death in murders of 4 Omahans (9/14/18)
• Omaha World-Herald—Live updates: Judge taken from courthouse on stretcher prior to Anthony Garcia sentencing (9/14/18)
• 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)
• Medicine of Omaha—Jury says 'Creighton killer,' Dr. Anthony Garcia, eligible for death penalty(10/28/16)
• Medicine of Omaha—Jury finds Dr. Anthony Garcia guilty on four counts of first-degree murder(10/26/16)