Anthony Garcia is the doctor and former Creighton University pathology resident who became a serial killer, murdering four people in Omaha, Nebraska between 2008 and 2013 in revenge against two faculty members he blamed for ending his medical career. He killed an 11-year-old boy, a housekeeper, and later a married couple, was convicted in 2016, and was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel in 2018. He remains on death row at the Nebraska State Penitentiary after the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected his most recent appeal in December 2024.1Justia. State v. Garcia
The Grudge That Started in 2001
Creighton University Medical Center fired Garcia from its pathology residency in 2001 after documenting a pattern of erratic and unprofessional behavior. Two faculty members handled the termination: Dr. William Hunter, a professor, and Dr. Roger Brumback, the department chairman. They delivered the decision and signed the paperwork.
Garcia never accepted the firing as his own doing. He had already been dismissed from a New York residency in 1999, and after Creighton his professional life kept unraveling. Florida disciplined him in 2006. Louisiana denied him a medical license in 2011. Indiana twice signaled it would deny his applications, allowing him to withdraw instead. In one 2012 filing he wrote that his conduct did not “rise to the level of a denial” and said he had been “aggrieved” by being unable to work as a physician. His temporary Indiana license expired in January 2013.2LSBME – Louisiana.gov. Opinion and Order – Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners
Every rejection deepened his fixation on Hunter and Brumback as the men who had ruined everything.
The 2008 Hunter Home Killings
In March 2008, Garcia drove to Omaha and entered the home of Dr. William Hunter and his wife, Dr. Claire Hunter. Dr. Hunter was not there. Garcia instead found the couple’s 11-year-old son, Thomas, and the family’s 57-year-old housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman. He stabbed both of them to death.1Justia. State v. Garcia
Investigators had no obvious suspect and no clear motive connecting anyone to a child and a housekeeper. The case went cold for five years.
Mother’s Day 2013
Garcia struck again on May 12, 2013. His first stop that day was not a Brumback address but the home of Dr. Chhanda Bewtra, another Creighton pathology professor he had clashed with during his residency. Two days earlier, someone had searched Bewtra’s name on Garcia’s tablet. The Bewtra family was out at brunch when Garcia arrived. He tried to force a back door, set off the burglar alarm, and fled. The family was less than three minutes from home when their security company called.
Garcia then searched his phone for Dr. Roger Brumback’s address. At the Brumback home, he shot Dr. Brumback in the doorway and stabbed him. He also stabbed Mary Brumback to death inside. The Douglas County coroner attributed Dr. Brumback’s death to the gunshot wound and Mary Brumback’s to stab wounds.
The stabbings looked like the 2008 Hunter household attack. That similarity brought the cold case back to life.
How Police Tied Him to Both Scenes
Omaha’s cold-case unit and a multi-agency task force focused on what Hunter and Brumback had in common: both had been part of Garcia’s firing from Creighton. The electronic record filled in the rest. Cell phone data placed Garcia’s phone in Atlantic, Iowa, on the day of the Brumback killings. His debit card was used at a restaurant near 72nd and Pacific in Omaha the same day. The tablet search for Dr. Bewtra sat two days before the failed break-in at her house. Garcia had claimed he was nowhere near Nebraska.
On July 15, 2013, Illinois State Police stopped Garcia in Union County in southern Illinois. He appeared intoxicated. Officers found a .45-caliber handgun, and ballistics later matched it to the bullet that killed Dr. Brumback. He was extradited to Nebraska.
Trial, Verdict, and Death Sentence
Garcia went to trial in October 2016 in Douglas County District Court. Prosecutors laid out a calculated, years-long revenge plot supported by the Creighton history, the electronic trail, and the ballistics match. Garcia sat through the proceedings unresponsive with his eyes closed. His attorneys argued diminished mental capacity.
The jury convicted him on all counts: four counts of first-degree murder, four counts of use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, and one count of attempted burglary for the Bewtra break-in. The same jury found aggravating circumstances on the murder convictions.1Justia. State v. Garcia
Under Nebraska law, a three-judge panel handled sentencing. At the June 2018 mitigation hearing, Garcia was wheeled into the courtroom with his eyes closed and his chin on his chest, and his defense team openly questioned whether he was competent to be sentenced.3Nebraska Public Media. Garcia Death Sentence Comes Ten Years After First of Four Omaha Murders The panel found he had acted in “an especially depraved frame of mind” and with premeditation, and imposed the death penalty on each of the four murder counts. He received more than 130 years on the remaining felony counts, with sentences of 19 to 50 years on the weapons charges and up to five years for the attempted burglary.4Nebraska Judicial Branch. State v. Garcia
Where the Case Stands Now
Nebraska automatically reviews capital sentences, and in 2023 the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed Garcia’s convictions and death sentences on direct appeal, rejecting arguments that included challenges to his competency during trial.5Nebraska.gov. State of Nebraska, Appellee, v. Anthony J. Garcia, Appellant
Garcia then moved for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence: his positive response to involuntary psychotropic medication in January 2019 and a September 2020 diagnosis of profound hearing loss. He argued these findings showed he had not been able to meaningfully participate in his defense. The district court denied the motion without an evidentiary hearing, calling it both untimely and insufficient. On December 20, 2024, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed, holding that later improvement on medication did not establish incompetence during the earlier proceedings.1Justia. State v. Garcia
Garcia remains on death row at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Nebraska has carried out only one execution since reinstating capital punishment, and in 2025 the state legislature introduced a bill to authorize nitrogen hypoxia alongside lethal injection. When or whether his sentence will be carried out is unresolved.