Suspect in Houston doctor’s slaying kills self during confrontation with HPD

Chron

The man accused of killing a Houston cardiologist last month in the Texas Medical Center killed himself Friday morning  during a confrontation with police, authorities said.

Joseph James Pappas, who was charged a day earlier with the murder of Dr. Mark Hausknecht, shot himself in the head near the 8800 block of Bob White just over two weeks after the killing that shocked the city’s tight-knit medical community.  

“It’s a sad day all the way around,” Houston police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters. “This doesn’t bring anybody back but it does bring closure.”

The slain doctor, who once treated former President George H.W. Bush, was shot in broad daylight last month as he biked to work during morning rush hour. For two weeks, the case baffled investigators. Then on Tuesday, a tipster helped identify the suspect, and authorities launched a manhunt for the gunman  harboring a 20-year-old grudge after his mother’s death.

Despite a late-night false alarm on Thursday, it wasn’t until Friday morning that police finally found the man they wanted.

It started just after 9 a.m., with a suspicious person sighting in southwest Houston. While checking a graffiti hotspot for possible vandals, a man working for the Houston Parks Board spotted the suspected killer sitting down.

When the Parks Board worker approached, Pappas started walking away – but he left behind his wallet.

The worker picked it off the ground, opened it up and immediately recognized the name.

He phoned police, who arrived just after 9:30 a.m. The first officer on scene approached the wanted man, who was wearing body armor and mentioned suicide. He refused to comply with orders, so the officer took shelter behind his patrol car.

When another officer arrived on scene, Pappas took out a .22-caliber snub-nosed revolver and shot himself in the head, police said.

Acevedo expressed relief that the confrontation didn’t have a worse outcome.

“You normally don’t put on a bullet proof vest when you’re planning to commit suicide,” he said.
“I’m convinced if we had not had that second officer arrive from a different angle we might have had a shoot-out.”

The 62-year-old suspected killer was a former lawman and expert marksman, who’d been working as a real estate agent.

In recent months, he’d amassed a detailed file of intelligence on his target’s life, routine, job and home. On one sheet of paper, he had a list of two dozen names of other medical professional and Texas Medical Center workers. Acevedo wouldn’t call it a hit list, but said the Texas Medical Center had been informed.

“We can’t put much into that other than to say it was a very extensive list of names,” he said. A Texas Medical Center spokesman declined to comment.

“Why he was going to do or did this, we’ll never know 100 percent,” Acevedo continued. “The only connection we can find despite all the speculation is that Dr. Hausknecht operated on his mom over 20 years ago.”

Pappas was charged late Thursday in connection with the July 20 slaying.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/houston-doctor-killing-pappas-2018-13129540.php