BALTIMORE, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A man who shot a Johns Hopkins doctor Thursday shot later killed his hospitalized mother in a "mercy killing" before killing himself, Baltimore police said.
Paul Warren Pardus, 50, killed his mother, Jean Davis, 84, in her hospital bed after learning she was paralyzed after cancer surgery, hospital personnel told The Baltimore Sun.
Pardus, of Arlington, Va. -- initially identified as Warren Davis because that is how he identified himself to hospital staff -- had just received the news of his mother's condition, around 11:11 a.m. EDT, from Dr. David B. Cohen when he "became emotionally distraught," Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld said.
Pardus allegedly took a semiautomatic handgun from his waistband, shot Cohen in the abdomen and barricaded himself in his mother's hospital room, police said. Police sent in a robot with a camera around 1:30 p.m. and found bedridden Davis dead with a gunshot wound to the back of the head and Pardus on the floor, shot through the mouth, the Sun said.
Investigators believe Pardus shot Davis in the back of the head so she wouldn't see it coming -- a "mercy killing," as one veteran officer described the shooting to the Sun.
Pardus had a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia, records indicated, and he appeared to have no criminal record beyond traffic violations, the newspaper said.
Cohen, an orthopedic surgeon from Hunt Valley, Md., who specializes in spinal surgery, osteoporosis and scoliosis, was in stable condition Thursday night, the hospital said.
Cohen, a father of two whose wife is a Johns Hopkins nurse, has worked at the hospital for more than a dozen years and is known as a great magician as well as an excellent surgeon, people who work with him told the newspaper.
Johns Hopkins is the birthplace of many medical specialties and is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as the best overall hospital in the United States.
