Strange Case of Dr. Kappler - Hardcover

Ablow, Keith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0029001617 ISBN 13: 9780029001615

Publisher: Free Press, 1994

Synopsis

A chilling portrait of a psychopathic anesthesiologist who, despite multiple psychotic episodes and four attempts to murder patients, was freed on a technicality, and left unhindered by his evaluators to resume medical practice and finally to kill two strangers.

About this title

From Booklist:

This is an unsettling story of how an unstable physician committed harmful acts against his patients and had them covered up by his colleagues and nurse-wife. Anesthesiologist John F. Kappler Jr. continued practicing despite giving near-fatal injections to several patients and shutting off a respirator, almost killing another. He had been hearing voices for several years and had been in and out of hospitals for psychiatric problems, yet no one blew the whistle. Finally, in 1990 he turned his car onto a jogging path and killed one runner--a young psychiatrist who was a friend of the author--and terribly injured a young mother. A detailed report of the ensuing trial that finally put Kappler in prison takes up one-third of the book, and Ablow, a psychiatrist, uses the whole story to plead for changes in psychiatric education and practice as well as for higher social consciousness among physicians and hospital administrators. William Beatty

From Library Journal:

Dr. John Kappler was convicted of murder, armed assault, and assault and battery after he drove off a Massachusetts parkway and on to a jogging path, deliberately running down two pedestrians in 1990. The incident capped decades of hospitalization and treatment for depression, hearing voices, strange behavior, and fatal or near-fatal incidents where Kappler worked. Almost more chilling than the actual tragedy on the jogging path was the way Kappler's behavior was hidden or explained away by his family, co-workers, and even his psychiatrist. The author, himself a doctor, addresses the question of biology vs. environment in mental illness and also whether or not Kappler really was ill or just faking his symptoms to excuse his behavior. A well-written look at decades of unheeded warnings that culminated in murder.
Christine Moesch, Buffalo & Erie Cty. P.L., N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0029001617
• ISBN 13: 9780029001615
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300