Two murders in 2008 and two murders this year equals four at Creighton University. Authorities say the quadruple murder charges against Anthony Garcia solve a mystery that has frightened the Omaha college town for several years.
A paper trail of evidence reveals that the motive for these murders actually goes back more than a decade when Garcia's resentment over being fired began festering.
The 40-year-old doctor has swapped his scrubs for an old-fashioned jailbird suit for an appearance in a downstate Jonesboro, Ill., courtroom Wednesday. Garcia had been curbed by Illinois State Police with a .45 pistol and booze on his breath just as Omaha police were going to arrest him on suspicion of four murders, including an 11-year old boy - all of them connected to top officials of the Creighton University Medical School staff.
"The task force has been monitoring Dr. Garcia's movements for a period of time," said Todd Schmaderer, Omaha police chief.
In July of 2000, Garcia had been a medical resident at Creighton in the pathology department. While police won't divulge what happened to set off Garcia, there is a paper trail that is a pathway to the answers. A termination letter reveals that Garcia tried to sabotage a fellow medical resident's career by concocting a ruse that would interrupt the student's promotional test.
Garcia left Omaha, and despite the disciplinary action, obtained a state medical license in Illinois. In 2008, police believe Garcia - fueled by revenge - returned to Omaha and murdered the son and housekeeper of a Creighton professor who had a hand in his firing years earlier.
This year, Garcia got a job at the federal prison in Terre Haute even though he was denied a state medical license in Indiana. The denial was based largely on a letter from a top Creighton official, who explained why Garcia was fired after the 2001 incident - unprofessional behavior toward a fellow resident. Six months later - last May - the man who signed the letter, Dr. Roger Brumback, was murdered, and so was his wife, Omaha police say, by Garcia.
Garcia has a current medical license in Illinois, according to state records, and has had permits in Indiana and California at various times the past decade. And he has lived in other states and may have practiced medicine without licenses. What a task force of FBI agents and Nebraska investigators are looking at is whether Garcia committed additional murders in other places.
