Police trace gun to doctor accused in Neb. deaths
OMAHA, Neb. — Police say an Indiana doctor accused in the killing of four people in Omaha stabbed each of his victims in the right side of the neck, according to a court documents unsealed Thursday.
The affidavit also says parts of a handgun found at the scene of two of the slayings match the model of weapon that Dr. Anthony Garcia bought just two months before those deaths.
Garcia was arrested Monday in southern Illinois and awaits extradition to Nebraska, where he will be charged with four counts of first-degree murder. He’s accused of killing Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary, at their Omaha home in May. He’s also suspected in the March 2008 deaths of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and his family’s housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, in the Hunter’s home in a posh Omaha neighborhood, just blocks from the home of Warren Buffett.
Thomas Hunter’s parents and Roger Brumback worked at Creighton University Medical School, which fired Garcia in June 2001. Police have cited the personal and professional effects that the firing had on Garcia as a possible motive in the killings.
One of Garcia’s attorneys, Bob Motta, said Wednesday that his client denies the charges and described Nebraska authorities’ efforts to brand Garcia a serial killer as “patently absurd.”
According to the warrant affidavit, the killer stabbed each of the victims several times in the right side of their necks using knives found at their homes. The killer left the knives at the scene.
Roger Brumback also was shot, the affidavit says. Parts of the handgun used in that attack were found inside Brumback’s home. Police say they matched the parts to a Smith & Wesson SD9 handgun. Investigators found that a gun retailer in Terre Haute, Ind., where Garcia has been living, sold one of those models to Garcia on March 8.
The affidavit also cites credit card purchases and a cellphone call Garcia made in or near Omaha on May 12, the day the Brumbacks were killed in their west Omaha home. A photo of a man who looks like Garcia was taken inside a convenience store on the east side of Council Bluffs, Iowa.