OMAHA,
Neb. (AP) — A former doctor was sentenced to death on Friday for the
revenge killings of four people connected to a Nebraska medical school,
including the 11-year-old son of a physician who helped fire the man
from a residency program nearly two decades ago.
Anthony
Garcia, 45, of Indiana entered the courtroom in a wheelchair and
appeared to sleep through the hearing as a three-judge panel sentenced
him to death. The judges, who heard arguments earlier this year during
the sentencing phase of Garcia's trial, also had the option of life in
prison.
Garcia
was convicted in 2016 for two attacks — that occurred five years apart —
on families connected to Creighton University School of Medicine in
Omaha. Prosecutors argued the killings were motivated by Garcia's
long-simmering rage over being fired in 2001 by Dr. William Hunter and
another Creighton pathology doctor, Roger Brumback.
Some
of the victims' relatives testified Friday, including Jeff Sherman,
whose mother was fatally stabbed alongside Hunter's young son when she
worked at the Hunter family's home in 2008.
"I'm
left with constant images from courtroom pictures of what happened to
my mom," Sherman said. "I can't ever get those images out of my head."
Investigators
said Garcia fatally stabbed 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and 57-year-old
Shirlee Sherman at the family's home in an upscale Omaha neighborhood.
Police collected a slew of evidence but struggled to find a suspect in
the killings.
The
case went cold in the following years. But that changed with the 2013
Mother's Day deaths of Brumback and his wife, Mary, in their Omaha home.
Police recognized similarities in the 2008 and 2013 killings, and
Garcia was quickly eyed as a suspect. He was arrested two months later
during a traffic stop in southern Illinois.
On
Friday, Thomas Hunter's mother, Dr. Claire Hunter, spoke of the agony
of losing her young son so violently. She said the boy "was a joy in
everybody's life."
"You can't begin to enumerate what an event like has had on us, on the entire community," she said after Garcia was sentenced.
Garcia's parents and brother, who live in California, also attended the hearing. They were tearful as the verdict was read.
His brother, Fernando Garcia, said it was hard for his family to imagine his brother committing the crimes.
"We
just want the victims' families to know we do pray for them. We feel
their pain," he said. "We're sorry those things took place. We're not an
evil family. We hope they find peace somehow."
During
the trial, prosecutors presented massive amounts of circumstantial
evidence, including credit card and cellphone records placing Garcia in
and around Omaha the day the Brumbacks were killed. One receipt showed
Garcia eating a meal at a chicken wings restaurant within two hours of
when police believe the Brumbacks were attacked.
Prosecutors
also presented evidence that Garcia had sought to attack another
Creighton medical school faculty member on May 10, 2013 — the same day
the Brumbacks were killed. Prosecutors said Garcia pushed in a back door
of that woman's home but fled when the home's alarm went off. Police
believe he then found the Brumbacks' address on his smartphone and
attacked them.
Roger
Brumback was shot in the doorway of his home and then stabbed. His wife
was stabbed to death, much the same way Thomas Hunter and Shirlee
Sherman had been stabbed, according to investigators.
Nebraska
had not executed an inmate in more than 20 years until last month, when
Carey Dean Moore died by lethal injection for the 1979 shooting deaths
of two Omaha cab drivers.
However,
the state's mode of execution remains riddled with controversy and
legal challenges in the face of difficulty in obtaining some of the
drugs used to carry out lethal injection.
Under Nebraska law, Garcia's sentence will be automatically appealed.
Friday's
sentencing was briefly interrupted when the lead judge in the case
suffered a medical emergency and had to be carried from the courthouse
on a stretcher. Gage County District Judge Rick Schreiner took over,
explaining that Randall had undergone a medical procedure earlier in the
week that caused him extreme back pain.
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