Monday, February 13, 2006

John Baxter Hamilton, Abortionist and Wife-Killer

Somebody was searching for John Baxter Hamilton.

Hamilton was convicted of the Valentine's Day 2001 murder of his wife, Susan, and sentenced to life without parole. Mrs. Hamilton worked as a physician's assistant at her husband's abortion facility.

The day of the murder, one of Hamilton's patients had been at a hospital, sedated and ready for surgery, when Hamilton called and said he'd be arriving ten minutes early for surgery. But Hamilton was late, not arriving until 9:30. The patient had been left in a sedated state while staff awaited the doctor. Hamilton was more talkative than usual during surgery, explaining to a student nurse about anatomy and disease. He whistled at a nurse rather than calling her by name when he wanted the light moved.

Hamilton initially gave no reason for being late, but later told another doctor that he'd been late because he’d been shopping for a Valentine present for his wife. Records from a flower shop showed that Hamilton had paid for $158 worth of flowers on February 12, but did not come on Valentine's day to pick them up. A Valentine card, chocolates, and stuffed bear for Mrs. Hamilton were in the house; a Valentine card for Hamilton was found in the couple's Jaguar.

Evidently Hamilton went home after he'd finished the surgery. At 11 a.m., 911 got a non-specific trouble call from the home. When police arrived, they found the couple's cars, a white Corvette and a beige Jaguar, parked in front of the house. inside, they found Hamilton inside, barefoot in the kitchen wearing a bloody sports coat, dress slacks, and dress shirt, but no tie. Hamilton's wife was found lying on the bathroom flood, bloody and nude, with a man's tie around her neck. Police believe Susan Hamilton had been dead for hours when her husband called 911.

Hamilton was kept in a patrol car outside his house until he was taken to the police station at 1 PM. He was interviewed for about five hours. Cops said the videotape showed that Hamilton would weep and act worried while police officers were in the room, then pace and stop crying when left alone.

Mrs. Hamilton had been strangled with a necktie, hit with a blunt object, and had her face slammed repeatedly onto the marble floor of the master bedroom of the couple's house. The attack had taken about two minutes. Jurors wept looking at autopsy photos of the hole in Mrs. Hamilton's skull. She evidently took three blows to the head. An expert believed that Mrs. Hamilton had attempted to remove the necktie from around her neck, but was “taken down almost immediately and spun onto her face.” Marks showed that she had injured her own neck with her fingernails attempting to rip off the necktie.

A defense expert admitted on cross examination that "the most probable" explanation for the blood spatter on Hamilton's shirt sleeve was that he'd beaten his wife over head with a blunt object. Blood on his shoe indicated that he had trod in a pool of blood. Hamilton held that he was covered with blood because he'd moved his wife to perform CPR and remove the tie from around her neck. He said his shoes had fallen off as he'd jumped over her body to assist her, and that he'd tried to put them back on and kicked them aside and ultimately moved them to another location.

Prosecutors said that Hamilton had fingernail scratches on his shoulders at the time of his arrest. No bloody footprints lead outside although bloody footprints were abundant in the house. Mrs. Hamilton's flesh and blood were found inside Hamilton's car; police believe they fell off his clothes and the blunt instruments as he took them to dispose of them.

Hamilton claimed that he'd gotten in the car, bloody from aiding his wife, when he realized that his car would block the ambulance, but that he was shaking too much to get the key in the ignition, but no footprints lead to the car, as would have been expected if his story was true. Hamilton also couldn't explain how, if he was bloody from trying to aid his wife, there was no blood on the door handle of the car, on the key, or on the outside of the car.

An investigator thought that the killer took a long shower, then pulled drain cleaner down to get rid of any blood in the drain.

The family's housekeeper said that a marble statue was missing from bathroom; it might have been the murder weapon. The housekeeper also said that on two occasions she'd seen bruises on Mrs. Hamilton.

Another woman, Mrs. Hamilton's friend, said that she and Mrs. Hamilton had shared their stories of being abused by their spouses over a five year period, and had joined other abused women in support group. Mrs. Hamilton had suspected that her husband was having an affair with a topless dancer, Alliena Aguirre. Mrs. Hamilton had found the dancer's number 60 times on Hamilton's cell phone bill. Aguirre, aka Nina, said she first went to Hamilton for an abortion in the early 1990s, but also saw him at his gynecology office. She denied that the two had an affair or any type of personal relationship. Aguirre testified that she had done table dances at two Oklahoma City clubs for Hamiliton. She said he paid her $100 and $80 for dances that ordinarily cost $20 each. She said that he called her 10 or more times a day. She said that on February 8, after Mrs. Hamilton learned of the phone calls, Hamilton wrote Aguirre a letter saying he could no longer be her doctor. During his trial, Hamilton claimed that Aguirre was a manic-depressive, suicidal patient and that he'd only been trying to help her.

The couple had discussed divorce two days before the murder. The couple had fought two months before the murder over Hamilton giving his son money behind Susan's back.

  • Abortion Violence: Oklahoma
  • Abortion Practitioner's Murder Trial Continues in Oklahoma

    UPDATE: The link in another Hamilton post expired, and some guy called Peter came complaining that I must have made the case up since he couldn't find it. Well, I Googled and found the following:

  • Murder trial for city doctor to begin Dec. 3

    Plus these articles archived from The Oklahoman:

  • Doctor arrested in wife's death
  • Few details released on arrest of doctor
  • Doctor to attend wife's service
  • Slaying shocks neighborhood
  • Suspect loses bail appeal - Doctor charged in wife's death to remain in jail pending trial
  • Prosecutors say doctor abused wife
  • Daughter testifies slain woman was scared, upset
  • Colleagues say doctor was late for surgery on day wife was slain
  • Valentine's Day cards illustrate conflicts
  • Attack held intense violence
  • Autopsy photos in Hamilton trial make jurors cry
  • Doctor on trial tells of day wife was slain

    Here is Hamilton's appeal.

    There's this.

    The Discovery Channel did an episode about the murder.

    Does that help, Peter?

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  • 15 comments:

    Aaron Taylor said...

    Hamilton used to own a restaurant in Oklahoma City that we boycotted while he was still at large. When we went there to eat recently, my priest suggested that we remember Hamilton serving as someone's boy-toy in prison while we enjoyed our food!

    Christina Dunigan said...

    We're supposed to pray for their repentance and salvation, not giggle happily that they're getting their comeuppance. I can go seek the scripture if you like.

    We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the guy is behind bars, and we can all wish for him to remain there. But Christians are called not to wallow in delight at our enemies' misfortunes. And while Hamilton deserves to be in the pokey -- and perhaps even to be executed -- he doesn't deserve ongoing prison rape.

    Unknown said...

    On the contrary, God may choose to allow this butcher to be repeatedly raped in prison as a consequence of not only murdering his wife, but murdering multitudes of babies.
    Seems a fitting consequence to me, and the bible states there will be consequences "Your sin will find you out"Numbers 32:23. We can hope and pray he finds Christ as a result of the consequences of his sin, since he did not repent previous to the consequences!

    Unknown said...

    Dear Sue. Your way of using the bible is probaply not how its ment to be used. What you write is shocking. That "God may choose to allow this butcher to be repeatedly raped in prison"... is that really how you see God?

    Im not a Christian myself, but I have a lot of Christian friends here in Norway, and your barberic approach is far beyond anything Ive heard before.

    In general, I watched the documentary on Discovery yesterday on the case, and from what I see Im not sure that he`s done the murder. It might be that he has done it - but as far as I could see, it has not really been proved. Further more, it seems to me that the Police very early on (to early) decided that he was the killer. And a remark from the chief investigator; "There were noone else to suspect" makes me very suspicios on their whole investigation. Even though "there were noone else to suspect", doesn`t mean that he did it.

    About the abortion aspect of it, Sue, - he`s not sentenced for "murdering mulitudes of babies" as you write. Im from Norway, but I guess the law also in USA is above different interpretations of the bible.

    Thaddeus said...

    Can you imagine a priest encouraging friends and/or parishioners to "remember" (imagine?) as a joyful activity during dinner someone being sexually abused in prison? In how many ways is this obscene? Should we judge priests and pro-life people on the basis of this one table of sick souls? Is it still possible for a Catholic priest to approve of sexual abuse in any setting? Is the male-on-male sexual fantasies (boy toy?) of these so-called "pro-lifers" indicative of the gynophobia and fear of female sexuality often ascribed to pro-lifers?

    teresa said...

    Sue, I think that yuor opinion of what God would allow to happen to Dr. Hamilton is very unreal. God is not evil, he forgets the seiners. God is love says the bible in John first, chapter 4, vers 5.

    Unknown said...

    Maybe the story is true but your ridiculous and ignorant statement "what abortion lobbyists don't want you to see" is not. How does his wife's murder have ANYTHING to do with abortion?! It doesn't. So abortion lobbyists wouldn't care who knows about this case. Don't link totally separate issues to further your cause- it's what leads to lawsuits and terrible journalism (not that I'd call tHis journalism). Ridiculous.

    Christina Dunigan said...

    Brittany, the main thrust of the blog is abortion death and malpractice. The Hamilton murder is a tangential story.

    Unknown said...

    Someone explain to me..if he murdered her at 9..why did he still have that shirt on after he came back home and after a surgery. Why wouldn't he have thrown the shirt away with the weapon?

    Unknown said...

    Makes me wonder why he apparently disposed of his bloody trousers along with the murder weapon and didn't change his shirt!! How did he get back to the hospital with all that blood on his shirt without anyone noticing it???? Common sense dictates if he's going to take the time to change his trousers, he'd obviously take an extra two minutes to put on a clean shirt, which had the most "obvious" blood on it!!

    Nothing makes sense in this case. His behaviour is very strange and finding tissue from his wife's body inside his car, does, I admit, look very bad for him. This being said, it is not for us to judge him. He's paying for his crime and will, eventually, have to answer to a higher power for sins he's committed.

    As it says in the bible, "Let those amongst you without sin, cast the first stone."

    mrviejo50 said...

    Although GrannyGrump he does NOT deserve to be repeatedly raped but when applying the "cause and effect" rule he brought this on himself.

    Unknown said...

    That's a good question.

    mikekellyiniowa said...

    He ran out of time

    Anonymous said...

    Ya better READ the word of God and not quote one verse. Obviously, you don’t know the Word in its entirety.

    Sue Joan said...

    I watched the Discovery channel show. It should be noted that the discovery group is owned by Oprah Winfrey who is very pro choice so that they made a show about this doctor is interesting. Many other interesting facts about the perp.