Ramona Doctor, Facing Charges of Child Molestation, Kills Self

A Ramona physician who was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a hearing on charges that he molested an 11-year-old boy committed suicide Monday night, closing the case just before the prosecutor was about to file new charges, authorities said.

Dr. John Byron DeKock, 62, was found in the garage of his San Diego Country Estates home about 10:45 p.m. with a gunshot wound to his head, Deputy Coroner Cal Vine said.

DeKock’s wife, Louise, and her visiting children were inside the house when they heard the gunshot, authorities said. Her son, DeKock’s stepson, rushed into the garage and found DeKock still holding a .38-caliber revolver. Paramedics who arrived pronounced him dead at the scene.

DeKock’s preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday morning on charges that for four years he sexually molested the 11-year-old, a relative who looked upon the distinguished older man as a grandfather figure. Since the arrest of DeKock last month, more than 10 people, including the alleged victim’s father, have contacted sheriff’s deputies to say that they, too, had been molested by DeKock.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eugenia Eyherabide said that, at the request of DeKock’s attorney, Jack Phillips, she had been prepared to waive the preliminary hearing Tuesday. She added, however, that she had planned to file 10 additional molestation and exploitation charges Tuesday. The charges, which resulted after further interviews with the 11-year-old, would have brought the counts to 33.

Eyherabide said she had also planned to amend her original complaint Tuesday to add DeKock’s conviction to the record. DeKock, a registered sex offender, was convicted in 1961 of molesting a 7-year-old boy.

Phillips said Tuesday that his client knew of Eyherabide’s plans but did not seem suicidal when they last talked on Saturday.

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Phillips said. “I just know that anybody under these kind of charges who’s a member of the community has got to feel an inordinate amount of stress and tension.”

DeKock’s patients, many of whom had remained loyal friends despite the charges, said they were grief-stricken that the only doctor in town who made house calls had taken his own life.

“He was the best damn doctor in town, whatever else he was,” said Gordon (Moose) Whitcomb, a retired garage owner who had known DeKock for 20 years. “And I never found him to be anything out of the way. . . . I didn’t very often go to a doctor until I came to Ramona, and now that he’s gone I don’t know that I’ll go again.”

Other doctors, Whitcomb said, “don’t hold a candle to Dr. John.”

Thelma Stansbury, a retired turkey rancher and longtime friend, agreed.

“It’s a sad thing, a waste of a real good talent,” she said. “Evidently, it was a disease like anything else. Of course, you can’t condone something done to a child. So you have two feelings: one of repulsion and one of sadness. I think most everyone feels that way. Repulsion and sympathy--it’s a two-way feeling.”

Sheriff’s Detective Michael Radovich, who was investigating the case, said it is now closed. “It’s kind of the final chapter,” he said.