Dr Achutha Reddy, a 57-year-old Indian-American psychiatrist hailed by several of his patients and associates as a “caring” and “compassionate” doctor, has been stabbed to death allegedly by a young Indian-American patient near his clinic in Wichita, Kansas.
Police have arrested 21-year-old Umar Rashid Dutt and charged him with first-degree murder of the doctor, who was chased and stabbed repeatedly after a meeting on Wednesday evening. Dutt was being held in prison on a $1 million bond.
The motive behind the killing was not immediately known. Reports from Wichita said that an office manager, who heard a disturbance, arrived on the scene and tried to intervene, enabling the doctor to run away.
But the attacker chased Dr Reddy out of the building into a nearby alley where he was apparently stabbed repeatedly. Police said the victim died of multiple stab wounds.
An alumnus of Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad from where he graduated in 1986, Dr Reddy moved to the US and did an internship at St. louis University in 1994 and residency at the Kansas University School of Medicine-Wichita in 1998.
Dr Reddy, who ran his Holistic Psychiatry Services in Wichita for more than a decade, also treated chronic physical pain through “Absolute Yoga”, according to YouTube videos of his clinic.
The doctor was pronounced dead on the scene, lt Todd Ojile of the Wichita Police Department told reporters in Wichita. He said the suspect was arrested after a security guard at the Wichita Country Club reported a suspicious person with blood on him who was sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot.
“During the investigation, we learned that the 21-year- old suspect was a client of Dr Reddy and had been at the office. The suspect was in the business for a short time. He left and then later came back with Dr Reddy and they went into an office there,” Ojile said.
“After going to an office, a disturbance was heard. An office manager entered into the office and observed the suspect assaulting Dr Reddy. She attempted to stop the assault which allowed the doctor to flee the office,” he said, adding the suspect chased the doctor out of his office and stabbed him multiple times.
Dutt, whose mother reportedly hails from Hyderabad and father from Bengaluru, did not complete his graduation although he did a few semesters at Wichita State University after completing high school in 2014.
local TV station KWCH quoted neighbours and a former teacher as saying that although Dutt was “kind and very quiet”, he could also be “rebellious and involved with wrong company”.
One of his high school teachers told the TV station that Dutt had differences with his parents over his future. During his time in high school, discussions were also on about sending him to India as of several ideas to “get him on a better path”.
Dr Reddy’s widow, Beena, who is also a doctor, broke down as she described how her late husband was adored by his family and patients. “He was so devoted — so devoted to his patients, so devoted to his family,” she said. “He was truly a wonderful man, a wonderful physician.”
One of his patients, Elizabeth Danley, said in a blog: “Dr Reddy saved my life. He was a wonderful, caring and kind man….I am sending out love and and prayers to everyone who was blessed to have known him as family member, doctor and friend.”
Brenda Trammel, the outpatient clinician at Dr Reddy’s clinic, remembered him as “an amazing, compassionate man that was kind and loving to anyone he met”. “He had a gift of knowing what each and every one of us needed and gave it freely. He would often tell me you have to live life to the fullest and this is how he lived his life,” Trammel said in a statement.
The death of Dr Reddy is said to be Wichita’s 24th homicide of the year. He is the second Indian killed this year in Kansas. Another Telangana resident, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a software engineer, was shot dead in February in a racist hate crime.
Mourning Dr Reddy’s death, Cultural Association of India-Wichita said: “With a heavy heart, we regret to inform our community, that a member of our Wichita Indian Community has lost his life last night…Our thoughts and prayers to family and friends affected by this tragedy.”