DOCTOR KILLED

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1928, Page 7

DOCTOR KILLED

CALL TO SHAM PATIENT.

PITTSBURGH, August 21. Lured from his office in Garrick, a suburb, last night, ostensibly to minister to a sick woman, Dr. Harry R. Dapper, 30 years old, a prominent physician, was shot to death, according to the physician’s father, by a man who escaped, in the. doctor’s car. Henry J. Dapper, the father, who accompanied his son and the unidentified stranger on the trip, was beaten on the head with a blackjack. He is in a hospital, where his son died early to-day from a gunshot wound. The police were mystified by the killing, because of the fact that the young physician had no known enemies. They were at a loss to ascribe a motive. The doctor’s widow and his father told the police the stranger appeared at the younger Dapper’s ’ home last night and said: “Come quick, my wife is sick.” Asked where he lived, the man s,aid his home was in the country, several miles from the physician’s home. Unable to understand why the caller would ask tho aid of a doctor so far from his home, Dr. Dapper asked his father to accompany him, the police were told.

“You sit in the front with your son.” the elder Dapxjer said he was instructed by the stranger as they were about to enter the physician’s automobile. The father said he became suspicious and wont to his home and obtained a revolver, which, however was not loaded, lie insisted on sitting in the rear scat. Dr. Dapper drove and the stranger sat in front with him. Arriving at a secluded spot in the country, the caller said they would go the remainder of the way on foot. As they,were about to leave the machine, according to the father, the stranger shot .Dr. Dapper with a revolver equipper with a silencer. The elder Dapper said lie grappled with the man and was beaten unconscious. The father said he regained consciousness in time to see the machine being driven away by his assailant. His son was lying mortally wounded in the road beside him. A passing motorist took the pair to a hospital. Robbery or revenge was advanced to-day by detectives as possible motives for the killing. Investigators were inclined to follow up the revenge theory. The clue was furnished by Dr. Dapper’s young widow, who told the police a little boy died recently while under the care of. her husband. She said, however, that relatives of the boy took their loss calmly and made no complaint. The child was of foreign parent age.

The robbery motive was given some credence when the elder Dapper reported ho had lost his wallet, containing valuable papers and checks. There was no money in the pocketbook. Thu father, vice-president, of the Fort Pitt Brewing Company, told detectives the man who killed his son spoke with a slight foreign accent and was about. 35 years old.