Doctor Freed of Attempted Murder Count

A charge of attempted murder was dismissed Tuesday against Dr. John Frederick Kappler, a Van Nuys physician whom authorities had accused of removing, without authorization, the life-support system of a brain-damaged patient at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center last April.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Edward L. Davenport dismissed the charge after a two-day preliminary hearing in which prosecutors were unable to provide witnesses who could positively identify Kappler as having been in the hospital room of patient Ben Wytewa when his respirator was turned off. Wytewa was stabilized by nurses and suffered no unusual complications.

“I’m just very relieved,” said Kappler, 55, tears flowing from his eyes, as he and his wife, Tommie, left the courtroom.

However, the thin, graying anesthesiologist, who has worked at Hollywood Presbyterian for more than a decade, added that his future remains uncertain. The charges, he said, have scarred his reputation and altered the working climate at the hospital, where he was suspended from the staff pending resolution of the case.

“The mere fact that the charge was levied,” Kappler said, “(means) that if anything happens in a hospital and I don’t have an alibi, I’m screwed.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. David P. Conn had no immediate reaction on whether the case will be dropped, appealed ‘The mere fact that the charge was levied (means) that if anything happens in a hospital and I don’t have an alibi, I’m screwed.’--Dr. John Kappler Van Nuys physician to Superior Court or refiled.

“I can’t say this was expected,” Conn said, “and I can’t say this was unexpected. I can say we just put all the evidence on that we had.”

The April 29 incident occurred in an intensive-care unit of the 389-bed hospital, which housed four patients whose breathing was being assisted by respirators. Wytewa, a 28-year-old Los Angeles electrician who remains a patient at Hollywood Presbyterian, had been hospitalized there since apparently attempting suicide last January by jumping out of a window at his residence.

Two nurses who were working in the hospital unit April 29 testified that they saw Kappler enter about 9 p.m. and stare at Wytewa. The doctor returned, they said, about six hours later.

About 10:45 p.m. a man entered the room as nurse Hermione Roberts was busy changing the dressing on Wytewa. Roberts said she noticed the man wore hospital garb, but she did not glance up to view his face as he walked toward the other side of Wytewa’s bed.

Moments later, Roberts testified, Wytewa’s respirator, which usually makes sounds as loud as a vacuum cleaner, went silent. Roberts, who said she quickly called for help, caught only a glimpse of the man as he exited.

“It was so brief,” she said, adding that all she noticed was that he was white and wore glasses with silver side rims like Kappler’s.

The second nurse in the room could not identify Kappler as having entered at the time of the incident. A monitoring technician, Michael Inyanga, testified that he saw Kappler walking down the hallway outside the room minutes before and after the incident occurred.

Kappler, who was not Wytewa’s doctor, was arrested about seven hours later, after he had helped perform surgery on another patient.

In making his decision, Davenport said, “The description (provided by Roberts) could fit anybody.”

The fact that Kappler was in the vicinity was not conclusive, the judge added, since Kappler worked in the building. Additionally, no proof was offered by prosecutors, he said, of Kappler’s intent to commit murder.

“I suppose the only motive (he could have had) was he wanted to put this person out of his misery,” Davenport mused. “It’s a little bizarre he kept bouncing into that room. (But) maybe he’s (just) a strange and bizarre person.”

Witness Presented

Defense attorney William A. Francis presented no evidence on Kappler’s whereabouts at the time of the incident. However, he did present a witness to explain why Kappler had entered the room on the other occasions.

Patricia Shea, a former nurse at Hollywood Presbyterian, said she had called Kappler that day and asked him to check on Wytewa’s condition as a favor to her sister, who was a friend of Wytewa.

Outside the courtroom, the relieved Kappler, still wiping away tears, questioned the prosecution’s case.

“If I had done it,” he said, “obviously I would never have gone back in the damn room.”

Asked where he was at the time of the incident, Kappler said, “I was in the john in Room 426” (a room set aside at Hollywood Presbyterian where doctors working long hours can rest).