Cops identify victim, suspect in Austin hospital murder-suicide

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A doctor had terminal cancer when he burst into an Austin, Texas, hospital late Tuesday, killing another physician and himself, police said at a briefing Wednesday.

Police identified the suspect as Dr. Bharat Narumanchi, 43, who had a practice in California and once interned at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Manhattan, and the victim as Dr. Katherine Lindley Dodson, also 43.

Police responded to Children’s Medical Group in downtown Austin around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Four hostages had been released when police arrived, the department said.

“When the suspect arrived, he displayed a gun and told the hostages to tie themselves up,” Austin police Lt. Jeff Greenwalt said. “Some of the hostages were able to escape and some of them were ultimately released.”

Greenwalt said investigators do not know why he targeted the hospital, but said he had applied for a volunteer position there within the past two weeks but was turned down.

Narumanchi also had terminal cancer and “was only given weeks to live.”

Greenwalt said he had several guns on him.

“He displayed a gun immediately upon entry,” Greenwalt said. “The specific details of what happened after that are not being released at this time.”

By Wednesday afternoon a memorial for Dodson had sprouted up outside the clinic, with flowers piled up near the entrance and a brief message scribbled with chalk on the sidewalk: “We Love You,” KVUE-TV reported.

Clinic staffers and others also formed a prayer circle outside to honor Dodson.

Narumanchi, who attended medical school at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada until 2008, interned at the now-defunct St. Vincent’s in 2010, according to online profiles.

He completed his residency at the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2013, the profile shows. 

Narumanchi went on to establish a practice in California. 

His more recent ties to Texas are unclear, but Greenwalt said there is no known link to Dodson — except that they were believed to have met when Narumanchi applied for the volunteer position.