Reno Medical Center Murder-Suicide over Botched Vasectomy

On Tuesday, a man walked into a Reno Nevada Medical Center and went on a shooting rampage that killed one doctor and critically wounded another before turning the gun on himself committing suicide.

Urologist Dr. Charles G. Gholdoian, 46, was shot and killed at the scene. Dr. Christine Lajeunesse and a visitor to the hospital, Shawntae Spears, 20, were each shot once, but survived. Reno Police were investigating the shooter identified as 51 year-old Alan Oliver Frazier and examining his medical records to see if Frazier had any prior connection with the doctors.

Frazier had complained to his neighbors that he had a botched vasectomy surgery and was still suffering from intense pain. Mario Tognotti and his wife Jari said that Frazier had frequently complained to them of his pain and was seeking legal action for malpractice in regard to the surgery. The couple said that Frazier had also voiced his complaints in an online chat group. 

Dr. Paul Turek, president of the Society of Male Reproduction and Urology, would not comment on the case but said some men experience pain for years after the procedure, with up to 70 per cent developing an allergy to their sperm. “Developing over time can be a low-grade discomfort in the scrotum that’s basically relieved by reversals because it’s due to congestion that causes back pressure,” Turek told the AP.

Reno Deputy Police Chief Mac Venzo, said that “the fact the shooter went through the first and second floor, made his way to the third floor of the building, would indicate to me it is not a random event.”  According to police at the scene it was obvious that Frazier was there to create mayhem but had specific targets. When Frazier arrived with a 12-gauge shotgun in hand, he told all of the patients and children in the waiting room that “`You need to get out, you better get out, you should get out.”

Police found a  suicide note left by Frazier indicating that the planned  attack’s  “focus was on the physicians at the specific office.”  Another neighbor of Frazier’s, Mike Hawthorne, commented to the Reno Gazette Journal that Frazier’s last words to him were, “he wasn’t coming back.”