Said, ‘Hello, Doc’ and Opened Fire, Witnesses Says : Gunman in Slaying of MD Was Screaming About Pain

A gunman screamed about stomach problems as he shot and killed Dr. Craig R. Blundell, a colleague of Blundell’s recounted Tuesday after talking with members of the medical staff who saw the shooting.

“The minute he saw Blundell, (the man) stood up and said, ‘Hello, doc!’ Then he pulled out his gun and began shooting,” said Dr. Robert Peacock, a partner of Blundell at the Palomar Medical Group.

Peacock was the appointed spokesman for the medical group after interviewing employees who witnessed the shooting. Peacock quoted nurses as hearing the gunman yell, “ ‘So I don’t have any stomach problems! So I’m just fine, am I?’ ”

The staff told Peacock that Blundell tried to dive into an examination room to escape, and that after Blundell was shot in the head and chest, the gunman dropped his .22-caliber revolver and fled past the horrified nurses and receptionists.

Steven Alan Larsen was arrested less than 10 minutes later while driving from the scene, after nurses had provided Escondido police with a description of the assailant and his vehicle.

Larsen was being held Tuesday in the maximum-security wing of the County Jail in Vista and is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges in Vista Municipal Court at 1:30 p.m. today, authorities said.

Blundell, 37, a gastroenterologist, had practiced medicine in Escondido since 1980 and was described by colleagues as a successful professional, devoted father of two, and a devout Christian. Police have disclosed no motive for the slaying.

Larsen, 30, had been referred to Blundell by a doctor at the nearby Graybill Medical Group in early May, Les Bietz, a spokesman for Graybill, confirmed Tuesday. Bietz refused to discuss the patient’s medical history, citing state confidentiality laws pertaining to doctor-patient relationships.

Peacock said Larsen had visited the Palomar Medical Group offices Friday, looking for Blundell. After being told that Blundell was on vacation until this week, Larsen questioned nurses about the doctor’s family and place of residence, Peacock said nurses recalled Tuesday.

When Larsen returned Monday to the medical offices, he was told that he would not be able to see Blundell without an appointment, Peacock said, adding that Larsen insisted and refused to leave the building.

Although Blundell was advised by one nurse not to see the patient, Blundell waved her objections aside and walked down the hall to talk with Larsen, Peacock said.

Larsen “was very nervous; he kept bouncing his leg up and down and staring into space,” nurses told Peacock.

Larsen, who had lived at his mother’s home in Escondido for the past three months, had been suffering from severe intestinal cramps for a year, his mother said Tuesday in a brief conversation with a reporter.

Standing outside their large, white home, which is nestled in an orange grove, his mother was reluctant to discuss the case.

“He’d been in a lot of pain. Terrible pain,” she said. “And the doctors didn’t know what caused it. They said they couldn’t help him. Now get off my property!”

Larsen had been unemployed since being laid off as a petroleum engineering trainee for Atlantic Richfield Co. in Bakersfield, police said.

Arco spokesman Al Greenstein, said Larsen was terminated because of a general consolidation of the development division which employed him. Larsen was hired in August, 1984, after receiving an engineering degree from the University of Oklahoma. He had worked in Alaska for more than a year, Greenstein said.

Larsen, who graduated from Escondido High School, earned a dentistry degree from USC in 1979, and had practiced dentistry for several years before changing careers, possibly because of an injury, Greenstein said.

Services for Blundell will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Cathedral of the Valley, 927 Idaho Ave., Escondido.