Geza F. P. de Kaplany | |
|---|---|
| Born | Geza F. P. Kaplany de Kaplanyhaza[1] (1926-06-27)27 June 1926 (age 99)[2] Mako, Hungary |
| Other names | The Acid Doctor |
| Alma mater | University of Szeged |
| Occupation | physician |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Criminal status | Paroled |
| Spouse | |
Geza de Kaplany (born 27 June 1926) is aHungarian-bornphysician who emigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. In 1963, he was convicted offirst-degree murder inCalifornia aftermutilating his wife with ascalpel andcorrosivestrong acids, thus causing her death.
De Kaplany was born and raised inHungary, in a wealthy family. He lost the sight in an eye during a beating by his father, who died in 1938. He studied medicine at theUniversity of Szeged and graduated with honors in 1951. He went into practice inBudapest as acardiologist, but clashed with officials in theHungarian Revolution of 1956,[3] fleeing after it failed. He visited England and Denmark, writing a book calledDoctor in Revolt about his alleged experiences as a freedom fighter in Hungary.[1][4]
He settled inBoston,[5] intending to resume his practice, but discovered that his degree was not recognized. He retrained as ananesthesiologist, interning atMilwaukee Hospital from August 1957 to August 1958. He then attendedHarvard and taughtanesthesiology atYale.[1][6] He moved toSan Jose, California where he worked at San Jose Hospital.[2]
In June 1962, he met Hajna Piller, also from Hungary. She was 25, a former fashion model, showgirl atBimbo's 365 Club[7] and beauty queen, daughter ofGyörgy Piller.[8] The two had a whirlwind courtship and married that August. A few weeks after their marriage, de Kaplany heard from a friend[9] that his wife was having an affair.[2]
On the evening of 28 August 1962,[10] de Kaplany carried out his plan to punish his wife for her supposed infidelity. He tied her to the bed in their apartment, played loud music and disfigured her body with a scalpel. He dabbed a mixture of hydrochloric, sulfuric and nitric acid in the cuts, causing her to suffer third degree corrosive burns over most of the front of her body.[11] After three hours, he called police.[12] He told police that he had wanted to destroy herbeauty, but not kill her. She recovered enough to give a statement,[13] but died on 30 September in St. Francis Memorial Hospital.[10]
De Kaplany's trial commenced on 9 January 1963.[14] He was initially charged with attempted murder, and was later charged with murder by torture after his wife died.[6] De Kaplany pleadednot guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyer, Edward de Vilbiss, claimed that he suffered frommultiple personality disorder and that the crime was committed by his alter ego, "Pierre de la Roche." Prosecutor Louis P. Bergna[15] brought a witness, Ruth Krueger, a former lover who testified otherwise.[16][17] He was declared legally sane,[18] though medically insane.
He was convicted offirst-degree murder, but the testimony of a psychiatrist who claimed that de Kaplany had become a "paranoid schizophrenic withlatent homosexual tendencies"[19] because of abuse during his childhood prompted the jury to bring a verdict oflife imprisonment on 1 March 1963.[2][19] Superior Court Judge Raymond G. Callaghan formally sentenced him on 15 March.[20] He was sent toCalifornia Institution for Men.[21]
His license to practice was revoked by the California Board of Medical Examiners on 9 March 1964, for violating sections 2378 and 2383 (moral turpitude and unprofessional conduct[22]) of the Business and Professions Code.[23]
He appealed his conviction in the California state andfederal courts, but theNinth Circuit ultimately upheld his conviction in a 1976 opinion that issued after de Kaplany had already been granted parole and left the United States.[6]
In 1975, de Kaplany was granted parole in a controversial[24] decision marked by accusations that postmortem photographs of his victim were removed from his file by Raymond Procunier, the chairman of the California state parole authority for men, prior to review of de Kaplany's case by the parole board. As a result, the ability to be paroled while under the sentence of life imprisonment was removed.[disputed –discuss]
The parole board under Procunier[25] allowed de Kaplany to travel to Taiwan on 13 November 1975, to work as a medical missionary doctor serving poor patients in a Catholic hospital inLutsao.[26] De Kaplany left the United States before his prosecutors and the general public knew he had been paroled. Negative public reaction followed, with legislators calling for Procunier's ouster.[12] Procunier resigned the following year, citing "personal reasons".[27]
De Kaplany worked at the Lutsao clinic for the next four years, and remarried. Tired of constant parole checks, he left Taiwan in late 1979 and dropped out of sight.[12] When California corrections officials discovered he was missing, a warrant was issued for his arrest and his name was submitted toInterpol. However, a 2002 investigation by theSan Jose Mercury News indicated that California officials were made aware of de Kaplany's whereabouts several times over the next few years, and once even contacted him to warn him, as required by law, about an anonymous threat on his life, yet failed to take any steps toextradite him.[12]
He re-surfaced briefly inMunich, Germany in December 1980, where a hospital fired him from a staff position after a German women's magazine happened to publish an article on infamous crimes including his case.[12]
For a time in 1983, he worked in the U.S. Army Health Clinic inGrafenwöhr, Bavaria.[12]
In 2002, reporters for theSan Jose Mercury News located the 75-year-old de Kaplany and interviewed him at his home inBad Zwischenahn, Germany.[28] Two years prior, he had become a naturalized German citizen, making it impossible to extradite him for the parole violation.[12]
De Kaplany is a medical doctor who fled Hungary during the 1956 revolution.
Mrs. De Kaplany married the successful doctor five weeks ago after leaving an engagement as a showgirl in Bimbo's 365 Club.
In one day, he was released from the California Institute for Men at Chino[..]
The parole board is under fire for releasing Geza De Kaplany, San Jose physician [..]
Now 49 years old, De Kaplany is a physician at a Catholic hospital in Lutsao, Taiwan.
Kaplany Geza. Pedagogiai eloiteletek es a kozepiskola reformja, Huszad.