Gunman Opens Fire in Doctor’s Office; Kills 1, Self

A man walked into a doctor’s office Tuesday and opened fire on patients and employees, killing one person and wounding three others before fatally shooting himself, authorities said.

Edward Hunter, 45, of Richmond, walked in the back door of Dr. Edward E. Haddock’s office armed with a shotgun and pistol, police Maj. V. Stuart Cook said.

“The place has been shot up and we’re in an acute emergency state right now,” Haddock, a general practitioner and a former mayor of Richmond, said shortly afterward from the three-story renovated brick house in the city’s Fan district.

Died Four Hours Later

Hunter died about four hours after the attack, Medical College of Virginia Hospital spokeswoman Stephanie Halloran said. He reportedly suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

Virginia Prillaman, a 26-year-old nurse who was shot in the chest, died in the emergency room, Dr. Alfred S. Gervin said. A woman patient, identified as Teresa Stratton, 30, was shot in the spine and was in critical condition, he added.

Haddock suffered a superficial arm wound, but his wife, Connie, 51, who also worked as a nurse, was in stable condition with head and chest wounds, a spokeswoman said.

The injured patient’s 10-month-old boy also was taken to the hospital, but the spokeswoman said the child was not hurt. The baby apparently fell off an examining table during the shooting.

Cook said Hunter was not a patient of Haddock and had no known connection with other people in the office.

Believed Random Attack

“At this point it appears to be a random shooting,” Cook said. He provided no other information on Hunter.

Karen Taylor, a patient in the waiting room, said she ran from the building when the gunman walked in. “I didn’t hear him say anything,” she said.

Another patient, Pearl Wiener, said she was “on the way out of the office and I heard a loud noise. The receptionist just pushed me out of the door.”

Haddock, 75, was Richmond’s mayor from 1952 to 1954. A Democrat, he served in the Virginia Senate for four years beginning in 1956. In 1963, citing increasing professional responsibilities, he decided against seeking a third two-year Senate term.