Police: Breakup led N.Y. doctor to kill lover, self
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A former Army weapons expert suspected of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend apparently killed himself with a gunshot to the head, quelling the risk of more bloodshed and silencing perhaps the only voice that might have answered the central question: Was a breakup enough to cause a gifted trauma surgeon widely beloved as a lifesaver to end two lives in a spasm of violence?
After a two-day nationwide manhunt, police found Dr. Timothy Jorden's body in thick brush a half-mile from his Lake Erie shoreline home. A neighbor had reported hearing a gunshot from the area Wednesday morning, and police with dogs found the body, dressed in surgical scrubs, Friday morning.
Authorities had been searching for Jorden since Wednesday morning, when 33-year-old Jacqueline Wisniewski was found shot to death in a stairwell at the Erie County Medical Center. Friends said Wisniewski was afraid of the 49-year-old Jorden and had broken off their relationship some time ago.
Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said Jorden went to the hospital with a shotgun and a .357 Magnum pistol intending to kill Wisniewski because of their breakup. Jorden lured her to the hospital basement, where he shot her five times at point-blank range, police said. He then is said to have run from the hospital and drive home, where surveillance video showed him arriving about 30 minutes later.
Just four minutes later, Jorden is seen leaving the house, down a path to a ravine and disappearing into the woods.
Derenda said Jorden killed himself with one shot to the head from the .357 Magnum and didn't leave a suicide note. He had withdrawn large sums of money recently and had given friends gifts.
As Jorden's tailspin accelerated, friends, neighbors and colleagues painted a picture of a man in decline. Jorden, once 250 pounds and clean-shaven, had lost up to 75 pounds and let his face get scraggly. His neatly manicured lawn got overgrown. He just didn't seem the same; not as "nice" as before, was how neighbor June Dupree put it.
At the medical center, staff members were left to mourn the death of a respected administrative assistant and try to fathom how two lives could end this way.
"We are just starting the healing process and trying to cope with an incomprehensible event," said Jody Lomeo, the hospital's chief executive officer.
On Thursday, neighbor Tom Wrzosek told police he had heard a gunshot from the steep, thick terrain behind Jorden's house the morning before, about 90 minutes after Wisniewski was gunned down at the hospital where she and Jorden worked.
Some of her friends told local media outlets that Jorden stalked her after she ended the relationship. One of her friends told WIVB-TV that Wisniewski told her the doctor had put a GPS tracking device in her car and once held her captive in her home for a day and a half, wielding a knife.
A woman who answered the phone listed in the name of Wisniewski's parents said the family would not be commenting.