Lansing Heppe Bennett, a 66-year-old physician, was killed on the morning of January 25, 1993, in a tragic and random act of violence at the entrance to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Dr. Bennett had a distinguished career, having served in the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He later worked as a physician in both the private sector and for the U.S. government. In 1991, he joined the CIA as a physician in the Directorate of Intelligence, where he was responsible for monitoring the health of foreign leaders.
On that fateful Monday morning, Dr. Bennett was in his vehicle, waiting in a line of cars to turn into the CIA's main entrance, when a gunman began moving from car to car, firing a rifle. Dr. Bennett was fatally shot, as was another CIA employee, Frank Alanson Darling, who was 28 years old. The shooting was a brazen attack that sent shockwaves through the intelligence community and the nation.
The perpetrator was identified as Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani national. After a worldwide manhunt that lasted for more than four years, Kasi was apprehended in Pakistan in 1997 and brought to the United States to stand trial. He was tried and convicted of capital murder and other charges. In November 2002, Mir Aimal Kasi was executed by lethal injection for the murders of Dr. Lansing Heppe Bennett and Frank Alanson Darling.
