Henry Cordes - Pathological: The Murderous Rage Of Dr. Anthony Garcia

PATHOLOGICAL

The Murderous Rage of Dr. Anthony Garcia

HENRY J. CORDES

TODD COOPER

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And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

CHAPTER 1: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

When police detective Derek Mois stepped over the threshold of the stately red brick home, he was immediately struck by the contrast between the everyday and the horrifying.

First to catch his eye were the cleaning supplies. A blue plastic bucket. A mop. A bright yellow bottle of Lysol. All casually set down in the middle of the entryway. And then just to the left, on the floor of an adjoining room, a waif of a boy with a knife through his neck.

It was the body of 11-year-old Tom Hunter, the gifted young son of the two doctors whose home Mois had just entered. Tom was splayed face-down on the blood-splattered dining room carpet. His spindly arms were straight as pins by his side, his bookish, wire-rimmed eyeglasses just above his head. Mois could see the knifes stainless steel handle protruding from the right side of the boys neck, surrounded by an angry cluster of crimson stab wounds, both deep and superficial.

Mois jaw tightened. A driven detective with short-cropped hair and sleeves of elaborate tattoos still works in progress going down both arms, the two-year veteran of Omahas homicide unit had, unfortunately, seen dead kids before. And his experience confronting the handiwork of societys worst had long ago taught him to check his emotions as soon as he came through that front door.

But as a father with two young sons of his own, this sight was a punch in the gut, a memory that would never leave him. Who could do this? How cold, how callous, how depraved did someone have to be to stab a little boy until his life, future and promise drain away? This was about as ugly and evil as another human being could get.

Steeling himself, Mois walked through a set of French doors into a freshly cleaned kitchen. He right away spied on the immaculate counter a Farberware knife block, the knives stainless steel handles matching what hed just seen sticking from the boys neck. Whoever killed the boy had drawn the murder weapon from right here in the kitchen.

Mois carefully stepped through the dinette, spotting Toms shoes, backpack and hooded sweatshirt, all on the floor where hed cast them off hours earlier. Mois heard an eerie sound coming from the basement stairwell, the theme music of the video game Tom had abandoned just before he died.

Following that sound, Mois turned the corner into a hallway and was confronted by a large pool of blood and the second body hed been told about. This was Shirlee Sherman, the Hunter familys 57-year-old house cleaner. Mois could see Shirlee likewise had a steel kitchen knife protruding from her neck clearly the killers calling card.

The blue paisley scarf Sherman had donned for her cleaning that day still covered her head. As with Tom, shed suffered numerous stab wounds, all concentrated along the right side of her neck.

Mois could already see this grim scene was an extreme departure from the gang- or drug-related shootings that were the staple of homicide work in Omaha, both the victims and perpetrators usually no strangers to law enforcement. Almost everything about these murders was different.

A grandmother and a young boy as victims.

Killed with knives left impaled in their necks.

In a gorgeous home filled with valuables all completely undisturbed.

And perhaps most troubling, no obvious suspect or motive.

Later as Mois worked into the gray hours just before dawn documenting the crime scene, he held an aside with his sergeant, speaking just out of the earshot of the crime lab technicians working nearby.

Holy shit, Mois told his supervisor. What the hell is this?

It was a question Mois would spend more than five years trying to answer.

CHAPTER 2: TOM AND SHIRLEE

It was a brilliant March 13, the radiant sunshine and balmy air a reminder that while winter on the Great Plains wasnt officially over yet, it was losing its icy grip.

A school bus lurched to a halt in front of a home on North 54th Street in Dundee, one of the most desirable streets in one of Omahas most distinctive old neighborhoods. Tom Hunter popped up like a gopher from his seat in the very back, glided down the aisle and bounded down to the street. Dressed for the mild weather in a lightweight, striped blue hoodie, Tom walked past the last surviving patch of snow melting in the sloped front yard and entered his house around the back.

Elsewhere around Dundee, an affluent neighborhood known throughout Omaha for its old-fashioned globe-style street lights, life on this Thursday in 2008 was moving to a familiar mid-afternoon rhythm.

Dana Boyle watched Toms 3:18 p.m. return through her living room window across the street. Five months pregnant and feeling every bit of it, she was grabbing some much-needed rest on the couch. Not for long, though, she now knew. For the sight and sound of Toms bus served as a daily touchstone for the full-time mom, a reminder it was almost time to meet her own 7-year-old son after school.

Just down the street, Katie Swanson also prepared for her kids imminent return from school. Deciding this would be a great day to shake off winter, she pulled out of storage her Slow Children at Play signs. She later placed the unofficial traffic signs down at the Pie, a wedge-shaped, grassy median where 54th Street kids had gathered to play for generations.

This was Omaha circa 2008, a thriving Midwest metropolis of some 850,000 people that was little like anything imagined by those who saw the state of Nebraska as rural flyover country. The former cow town actually boasted the headquarters of five Fortune 500 companies for its size, more than New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. It was probably best known, though, as home to famed investment wizard Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men on the planet. The Oracle of Omaha, in fact, lived in a relatively modest Dundee home just blocks from where Tom Hunter hopped off his bus.

Not far removed from his own pre-adolescent play dates at the Pie, this street and this spacious home were the only ones Tom had known in his life. Now just three months shy of his 12th birthday, Tom had grown into a bright and worldly kid who seemed destined for big things.

Tom was the youngest of four children all boys of Drs. William and Claire Hunter. Both parents worked as practicing and teaching physicians at Omahas Creighton University School of Medicine. Befitting his parents professional status, Tom enjoyed a privileged, idyllic childhood on 54th Street. Eight years younger than his next closest brother, Tom had always been a delightfully precocious child. He interacted easily with those much older, possessed a mischievous grin and always had something to say.