Exam Ordered for Doctor Held in Hit-Run Death
A Los Angeles doctor accused in the hit-and-run death of a jogger in Cambridge, Mass., was ordered Friday to undergo a psychiatric evaluation there to determine whether he is competent to stand trial on manslaughter and other charges.
Dr. John Kappler, 60, appearing in Cambridge District Court, pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the accident that killed an Arlington psychiatrist and severely injured a Cambridge woman.
Kappler is accused of driving the car that struck and killed Dr. Paul Mendelson, 32, of Arlington. Mendelson, a psychiatrist at Boston’s New England Medical Center, was hit last Saturday while jogging along the Alewife Brook Parkway in Cambridge.
Authorities located Kappler two days after the accident in a New York psychiatric hospital, where he had checked himself in.
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