Doctors Who Kill

by Davis, Carol Anne; Davis, Carol Anne

  Nevertheless, detectives were convinced that they had a case, and, in December of that same year, Orville was arrested and charged with the murder of seven patients. Shortly afterwards, the authorities exhumed another 15 bodies and found that 6 of these deaths were attributable to epinephrine and potassium chloride, which often leave no trace in the body. (Kristen Gilbert also used these drugs to murder patients in her care.) Vials of both drugs were found in Orville’s former home and in his van, alongside syringes and other medical paraphernalia that should not have been taken from the hospital.

  Trial

  Though the licensed practical nurse was suspected in the murder of 130 patients of both sexes, he was only charged with six, the oldest victim being 89 and the youngest 56.

  The defence said that the nurse was being scapegoated because the authorities had spent a fortune on the investigation and had to blame someone. Orville himself said that he was taking the brunt of poor practice in his former workplace, that he had always given his patients good care. Several doctors testified for the defence team, stating that these could have been natural deaths.

  However, the prosecution produced witnesses who testified that almost twice as many patients had died on Orville’s shift as on any other nurse’s shift. The other nurses admitted that they even took bets on which of his patients would die next. When the other medics fought to save someone, Orville would often plead, ‘Let them die.’ On one occasion, he’d been found sitting next to an alert female and another nurse had asked him why he was keeping watch, to which he’d replied that he was waiting for the patient to expire. His nursing colleague was baffled as the woman seemed to have made a good recovery – but, moments later, she died.

  Bizarrely, Orville seems to have murdered some patients in front of their sons or daughters. He’d kiss the patient on the head, murmur that there was nothing more to worry about and then inject them. Most died within a moment, much to their relatives’ shock.

  On 17th October 1999, Orville Lynn Majors was found guilty of murdering six patients and was sentenced to serve 360 years. He showed no emotion, though his sister said that he was being scapegoated and his mother wept, insisting that he hadn’t killed anyone. Like most Angels of Death, he has continued to protest his innocence.

  PART FOUR

  DEADLY DENTISTS

  The crimes committed by these dentists were largely up-close and personal. One man was believed to have killed his adoptive daughter after allegedly sexually abusing her, whilst another apparently killed his wife after a furious row. Clara Harris was convicted of deliberately aiming her car at her adulterous husband, moments after finding him at a hotel with another woman. Only the late Glennon Engleman had a financial motive for his murder spree, often persuading his friends to take part in his heinous insurance schemes.

  19 Dr Samuel Perera

  This dentist was sufficiently arrogant that he convinced himself that he would never be charged with murdering his adopted daughter, despite the fact that he hid some of her body parts in the house.

  Early success

  Samuel Perera was born in 1943 in Ceylon. A bright child, he went on to study Medicine at Colombo University, specialising in oral biology. Samuel then moved to England and studied at a dental school attached to Newcastle University, enjoying a three-year scholarship.

  During his scholarship he met a Hindu woman called Dammika and married her, though he insisted that she convert to his religion, Catholicism. Samuel became a lecturer in dentistry at the Leeds School of Medicine and he and Dammika set up home in Wakefield, where they had two children – both daughters – in the late 1970s.

  Samuel’s students looked up to him and he expected the same level of hero-worship from his wife and children. He saw himself as superior to all females and expected to be waited on hand and foot.

  A slave

  In 1981, Samuel decided to adopt a little girl from his native Sri Lanka. He and his wife went out there and bought a ten-year-old girl from an impoverished family who lived in a modest, straw-roofed dwelling. Her name was Nilanthe but he decided to call her Philomena. He referred to her as ‘a jungle girl’ and police were later convinced that he wanted to raise her as a household slave.

  For the next two years, neighbours sometimes saw Philomena with the rest of the family and felt sorry for her as she looked downcast and spoke little English. But, from November 1983 onwards, she was never seen outside. When they enquired about the child’s health, Mrs Perera said that Samuel was very strict and that he’d locked the twelve-year-old in a room for making eyes at men.

  The months passed and the neighbours grew even more concerned at the little girl’s nonappearance. In April 1984, Mrs Perera said that her husband had sent her back to Sri Lanka to live. Unconvinced, the neighbours contacted police.

  Detectives arrived at the Perera household and immediately became aware of the dentist’s poor attitude towards women as he angrily ordered his wife and daughters upstairs. He then described taking Philomena to Sicily to visit his brother, after which she’d been put on a plane back to her native land. However, inquiries showed that Perera hadn’t travelled to visit his brother and Philomena’s family hadn’t seen her since the informal adoption took place. Police became convinced that the man had murdered the little girl and speculated that he may have sexually assaulted her and feared that she would tell.

  Body parts

  On 4th February 1985, one of Perera’s colleagues was looking in a drawer when he found a human jawbone and pieces of a human skull in a large envelope. A further search revealed three containers of decalcifying fluid with bone fragments inside. Given time, these bones would have disintegrated, leaving no trace.

  The shocked man called the police and they took Samuel Perera into custody. They also began to dig up the garden of his home and soon found a bone, tooth and human hair.

  Entering the house, they found three large plant pots containing small, withered geraniums. Examining them more closely, they smelt the sweet stench of decay. One of the officers took the central plant pot outside and gingerly turned it upside down. Entwined in the roots, they found an entire human spine. The other two pots contained lumps of rotting human flesh.

  Despite the evidence against him, Samuel Perera was convinced that he could talk his way out of a murder charge. He said that the flesh was pork and that he’d been trying it out as a fertiliser. He tried to explain away the bones in his laboratory by claiming that they were legitimate samples used in his experiments, but forensic tests showed that these were the remains of a girl aged between twelve and fifteen, the former being his adopted daughter’s age. The dentist then declared that he’d purchased a body in Sri Lanka and brought it back in his hand luggage for the purposes of dissection. The detectives then travelled to Sri Lanka and interviewed the medical university’s authorities, ascertaining that the dentist had never purchased a body there.

  At Leeds Crown Court, a jury found him guilty of unlawful killing and on 11th March 1986 he was jailed for life.

  20 Dr Clara Harris

  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as Clara’s husband found to his cost when he cheated on her.

  Early bereavement

  Clara Suarez was born in 1957 to a Roman Catholic couple in Colombia. Unfortunately, her father died when she was six. This may have left her with a fear of abandonment and goes some way towards explaining her desperate later attempts to save her marriage.

  Fortunately Clara’s mother ran a successful seamstress business and Clara thrived at school and university. She graduated from dental school and set up her own dental surgery in Colombia, later moving to the United States. She practised dentistry in Houston and even entered a beauty competition in 1991, taking first prize.

  Marriage

  Happily settled in the United States, Clara fell in love with a fellow dentist, David Harris, and married him on St Valentine’s Day, 1992. He had been previously married but had divorced his wife when their daughter, Lindsay, was fo
ur.

  For many years, Clara and David had a loving relationship. They built up a thriving dental practice that employed fifteen people and were well liked by both patients and staff. Devout Baptists, they often hosted church socials at their palatial home and David played in a Christian band.

  They wanted children, but Clara had to endure repeated bouts of fertility treatment before she finally got pregnant. In 1998, to the couple’s delight, she gave birth to twin sons. She put on a little weight and obviously had less time to devote to her appearance or to David, especially as one of the boys was asthmatic. She also had a strong temper and liked to get her own way. Over time, her husband began to feel neglected and found himself increasingly attracted to Gail Bridges, their dental receptionist.

  David began to work out at the gym, lost twenty pounds, and had a hair transplant. He was more short-tempered with Clara and with the twins but she put it down to the fact that they were having a new clinic constructed, so it was a particularly expensive and anxious time.

  But, in the spring of 2002, a friend told her that David was having an affair with Gail, a mother of three who shared his passion for religion. Clara confronted him and he readily admitted it. Clara immediately fired Gail and had a long talk with her husband. Afterwards, the Harrises made love and vowed to make a new start.

  Clara decided to rejuvenate herself for David so immediately went on a diet, joined a gym, coloured her hair and planned to have a breast enhancement. It was a lot for a 45-year-old mother of two to go through, but she was determined to keep her man. She also gave up work so that she would have more energy for her marriage and she began to read self-help books.

  Desperate to find out something bad about Gail, she hired a private detective agency to carry out surveillance on her. Meanwhile, she bombarded Gail with hate calls and threatened to kill her until Gail was in fear for her life.

  On 24th July, the detective agency phoned Clara to say that her husband had booked into one of the bedrooms at a local hotel. Enraged, she drove to the hotel with David’s sixteen-year-old daughter Lindsay. Spotting Gail’s car in the car park, Clara bent the wipers, scratched the paintwork with her keys and finally etched the word adulterer.

  She called her husband from her mobile phone, telling him that one of the children was sick and that he had to return home. When he came out of the elevator, holding hands with Gail, Clara attacked her rival, pulling her hair, wrestling her to the ground and even biting her on the leg. Meanwhile, Lindsay hit her father with her bag and told him that she hated him. Hotel staff helped break up the fight and Clara left the building in tears.

  She got into the driver’s seat of her Mercedes and Lindsay got into the passenger seat – but, instead of leaving the car park, Clara circled around it before driving at David and Gail at top speed. Gail managed to get inside her car but David was hit hard and thrown 25 feet. As he lay there, Clara aimed the car and ran over him three times, reversed, then drove forward over his body again, with Lindsay screaming for her to stop.

  When the Mercedes halted, Clara got out and said to her dying husband, ‘David, look what you made me do.’ She was escorted back into the hotel by horrified staff.

  A passerby tried to help David but his ears had been torn off, his ribs were caved in, his pelvis was broken and it was obvious from his breathing that one of his lungs had collapsed. He died shortly afterwards at the local hospital.

  Arrest and trial

  Clara Harris was swiftly arrested for her husband’s murder. By now she’d gone into shock and was semi-conscious. She was bailed and returned to live at the mansion with her twin sons, but David’s daughter was devastated by the bereavement and twice tried to commit suicide.

  At the trial, Lindsay alleged that Clara had told her, ‘I could kill him and get away with it for all he’s put me through.’ She also claimed that Clara had said, ‘I’m going to hit him,’ as she aimed the Mercedes at the startled-looking man.

  A witness testified that Clara had not been crying or emotional when she got in the car and drove it towards David. Rather, she’d looked angry. Everyone agreed that she’d driven over her husband several times before parking and running over to him as he lay, bleeding and struggling for breath, on the ground. A woman trained in first aid who had approached David in the hope of helping him had heard Clara say, ‘David, look what you made me do.’

  Clara Harris wept as she heard details of her husband’s injuries and became so emotional that the judge, determined not to have histrionics in her courtroom, briefly had Harris removed from the court.

  Later, Clara took the stand and described how David had talked in glowing terms about his lover, praising her good communication skills, soft voice, slender body and big breasts. In contrast, he found his wife acerbic and difficult to talk to. She had felt humiliated and hurt.

  However the scorned wife was less believable when it came to describing the events in the car park. She said that she’d closed her eyes as she drove, that she didn’t mean to hit David and that, afterwards, she couldn’t understand why he was lying on the ground.

  Questioned by the prosecution, Clara had to admit that she and David had discussed divorce and had talked about a property settlement. He had told her that he wanted her to be happy, that she could have the house and car.

  The prosecutor described how Clara had felt towards her husband in the car park and suggested, ‘You were angry.’

  ‘No, I was hurt,’ Clara replied. But later she agreed with the lawyer that she had been furious.

  The defence concluded that Clara hadn’t meant to drive into her husband, and that she deserved to be freed to return to her twins. She had told friends that she would probably commit suicide if she went to prison, but her defence team said that they were sure that the jury would find her innocent.

  In summary, the prosecution said, ‘If a man is cheating on you, you take him to the cleaners. You take his house, you take his car. But you don’t kill him.’ Harris had robbed three children of their father and a couple of their son, yet Clara believed she would be found not guilty as her church, community and friends were all praying for her. She said that her deity would not let her go to jail.

  The jury returned the following day with a guilty verdict. Clara Harris closed her eyes and was visibly shocked. Later, as her stepdaughter and David’s father made their heart-wrenching impact statements, she wept. Five hours later, the jury came back with a sentence of twenty years, whereupon the dentist collapsed and had to be escorted from the court.

  Clara Harris is serving out her sentence in Mountain View Prison in Gatesville, Texas, where she sometimes works in the prison’s computer laboratory. Her sons are being raised by her former neighbours, though David’s parents have visitation rights.

  In September 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals turned down her request for a new trial. She will be eligible for parole after serving ten years.

  21 Dr Glennon Engleman

  The Engleman case is unusual because Glennon was a dental surgeon who could have made more money from his dental practice than he did from his deadly insurance scams. It’s also a bizarre case as he killed in partnership with someone else, although his partners changed from time to time. Finally, the case is extraordinary due to Glennon’s belief in astrology, which eventually led him to admit to several of the murders.

  Astral projection

  Glennon was born on the 6th February 1927 to Frank and Annora Engleman. The family – which included another son and a daughter – lived in St Louis, Missouri. Frank worked long hours as a railroad clerk then came home and drank beer and chewed tobacco. He was a quiet, law-abiding man. Annora, a housewife, had a more critical outlook on life and mocked Frank for paying his utility bills quickly. She believed in astral projection and astrology and told Glennon that she could astrally follow him around. He was her favourite child and she encouraged him to read as voraciously as she herself did, and told him that he could become a professional man.

 
; Unfortunately Glennon’s teachers had little faith in him, assuming that he’d become an unskilled worker like his father. He railed against this and got into various clashes at school, so was expelled several times. Despite raising hell as a teenager, he went on to become a qualified dentist and set himself up in practice in an indigent St Louis neighbourhood.

  Contradictions

  From the start of his professional life, Glennon Engleman was a mass of contradictions. He sometimes treated his hard-working but impoverished patients for free, though he refused to treat anyone that was on welfare. He was proud of his profession yet wasn’t very good at it, and as a result his wealthier new patients often got their teeth refilled elsewhere.

  Glennon clearly saw himself as a rising star but spent so little on clothes that even his poorest patients noticed, yet he insisted on picking up the tab whenever he took friends or relatives to lunch and was equally generous with his lovers, often giving them cash. He adored his sister so much that he allegedly contributed to the upkeep of her mansion, yet he often failed to pay his taxes and would spend hours doing DIY tasks badly rather than call in a professional.

  The dentist was rabidly homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist, yet his mother, whom he adored, was from parents who were half-Cherokee. He boasted that he’d fathered several illegitimate children and often had two or more lovers in his thrall at a time, yet he found pornography offensive and tried to have a local porn store closed down.