In March of 2008, the quiet city of Omaha, Nebraska, was shaken by a brutal and seemingly senseless crime. Shirlee Sherman, a 57-year-old female housekeeper, was found dead inside the home of her employers. The shocking discovery was made by Dr. William Hunter when he returned from work to find both Sherman and his 11-year-old son, Thomas, had been fatally stabbed.
The viciousness of the attack, with knives left in the victims, suggested a deep-seated rage, yet investigators could find no immediate motive. There were no signs of forced entry or robbery, leaving the community fearful and police searching for answers.
For years, the case grew cold. Investigators explored various theories, looking into the backgrounds of both victims, but no viable leads emerged. The lack of DNA evidence at the scene further complicated the investigation, leaving the families of Shirlee Sherman and Thomas Hunter in a painful state of limbo. A sketch of a potential person of interest was released based on witness descriptions of a man seen in the neighborhood, but it did not lead to a breakthrough. The community was left to wonder if the killer who had so brutally taken two innocent lives would ever be brought to justice.
A break in the case finally came five years later, in 2013, following another double homicide in Omaha. Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary, were found murdered in their home in a manner eerily similar to the Sherman and Hunter killings. This new tragedy led investigators to revisit the cold case from 2008 and look for connections. The link, they discovered, was Creighton University Medical Center, where both Dr. Hunter and Dr. Brumback had worked. The investigation soon focused on a former pathology resident, Anthony Garcia, who had been fired by both doctors in 2001.
The motive, it turned out, was a long-simmering quest for revenge. Investigators determined that Garcia blamed Hunter and Brumback for his dismissal and the subsequent ruin of his medical career. Less than three weeks before the 2008 murders, Garcia had been denied a medical license in Louisiana, a decision influenced by his termination from Creighton. Phone records and other evidence eventually placed Garcia in Omaha around the time of both sets of murders. He was arrested in July 2013 and, in 2016, was convicted of all four murders. Anthony Garcia was subsequently sentenced to death, bringing a close to a decade of uncertainty and pain for the victims' families.
