"The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery" by Barbara Damato
Written: Aug 18 '08 (Updated Aug 18 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Thoughtful perspective
Cons: Author's premise is not believable
The Bottom Line: The author and her husband championed this man's innocence. This reader was left not believing their argument.
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| patfish1's Full Review: Barbara D'Amato - The Doctor, the Murder, the Myst... |
I remember this case vaguely. It occurred back in 1967 and involved a wealthy doctor and the mysterious shooting of his wife.
The doctor was Dr. John Branion, a wealthy doctor married to Donna Branion. Donna was also from a wealthy medical family.
First things first. The contention of this novel is that Dr. Branion was innocent. Right there I have issues.
For as much as I love the True Crime genre of literature I usually steer away from any True Crime book which take the position that the story inside promotes the innocence of the subject.
Sure, innocent people go to jail and probably way more often than we’d like. I’d argue, with no handy stats save my instinct, that more guilty people are released than innocents jailed.
Author Barbara Damato didn’t convince me a whit that Dr. Branion was innocent of murdering his wife. She did, however, totally convince me that the state did not adequately prove its case.
Donna Branion was killed on 12/22/67 at an estimated time between 11:00 am and noon. The timing of the activities of John Branion on that day is crucial and by me, there’s just no way Dr. Branion could have killed his wife.
First, there’s plenty of proof that Dr. Branion was with patients up until 11:30 am. There’s also proof that he picked up his son afterward at nursery school and in addition, stopped by to pick up a family friend for lunch. Dr. Branion then came home, found his wife dead in the laundry room. Police were called at 11:58.
There’s all sorts of extraneous, conflicting and confusing information regarding timelines, including a neighbor who swears to have heard gunshots at 11:20, a time when Dr. Branion was known to be at the hospital, still seeing patients.
But even without this, we’re talking 28 minutes for Dr. Branion to get to the nursery school, pick up his son, put on his coat and boots, then stop by the friend’s real estate office only to be told that the friend was too busy for lunch. After all this we are told that Dr. Branion somehow got home, shot and killed his wife, who fought back mightily with clues from the Branion bedroom to the laundry room where Donna was found dead.
All this within 28 minutes of time?
The prosecution went with this time frame, to the point of having a test driver actually drive this route including all stops. It was possible but close, damn close. We don’t know if the prosecutors tested putting boots on a young child or not.
The author played with this timeline for the entire book and I understand why.
Only at some point later, much later in the book, does the author mention that prosecutors told her, off the record, that they weren’t convinced that it was Dr. Branion who shot his wife. Some of the prosecuting team believed that John Branion hired someone to kill his wife .
Well this is important. Although I’d argue that there’s something a bit unjust about prosecuting a case that you don’t believe which had to be the case if one is to believe those prosecutors.
I don’t buy that tight timeline at all but I don’t know why Dr. Branion couldn’t have come home earlier in the day, killed his wife, then come home later to…SURPRISE…find her dead. The author never deals with this possibility, perhaps assuming that since Dr. Branion was on duty at the hospital all morning that it was an ironclad alibi. Perhaps a reader out there somewhere knows more about this case because hey, doctors get breaks and such. Seems to me a doctor could just excuse himself, needs some fresh air, gotta run down to pharmacy to explain a prescription. Hospitals are big places.
And Dr. Branion DID live quite close to that hospital so why couldn’t he have went home and killed his wife then back to work, all busy being seen by anybody, being seen by the nursery school folks, stopping to pick up that family friend who had told Dr. Branion earlier that she wouldn’t be able to join him and Donna for lunch?
Further, the fine Dr. Branion had been having a secret affair and come on, dead wives, secret lovers, hey…not a good combination. The author obviously has great affection for Dr. Branion and his third wife, Shirley Hudson. It is nonetheless, author affection notwithstanding, that Shirley Hudson was a great big elephant in the room in terms of a motive for Branion to kill his wife.
And let it be noted that Dr. Branion did take off for overseas and was on the loose in Africa for many years. John Branion associated with many questionable characters over the years, including a very close association with the Black Panthers.
Barbara Damato’s husband helped John Branion, who was finally bought to justice and thrown in the slammer, draft up many appeals.
None of them worked. John Branion got more help with proving his innocence than most of his co-criminals behind bars. Over and over, Barbara and her attorney husband filed appeals; appeals to the state, appeals to the feds.
Could EVERYONE really be wrong about Dr. John Branion?
Yes, this reader did not get convinced that John Branion did not kill his wife. I did become quite convinced that the state did not prove its case to any proud standard.
But Dr. Branion didn’t have a half bad life during his years on the lam. He hobnobbed with African despots and dictators and Shirley Hudson was able to join him. Shirley and John had a child together, a daughter.
Donna Branion, however, died quite young and her son grew up without ever knowing his mother.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
patfish1
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Reviews written: 10
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