Police: Dispute over pills may have led to fatal shooting of doctor at Ky. medical clinic

Doctor shot to death at rural Ky. medical clinic

CORNETTSVILLE, Ky. — A “disgruntled patient” shot his doctor to death Tuesday at a rural southeastern Kentucky health clinic in what might have been a dispute over prescription pills, officials said.

John Combs, 46, is charged with murder in the slaying of Dr. Dennis Sandlin, said Kentucky State Police Trooper Tony Watts. Combs had been a patient of Sandlin’s earlier in the day, returned with a gun and fired at the 57-year-old doctor, Watts said.

Combs had asked for narcotics but was required to take a urine test first, which he refused to do, said Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Sam Mullins, who responded when the clinic reported that a patient had threatened the center.

“From that point, he got real angry, he just went crazy, and he made a threat he was going to come back and blow up the building,” Mullins said.

Combs was arrested at his home in the Redfox community in Knott County. Watts would not say what type of gun was used and did not know how many shots were fired at the Leatherwood-Blackey Medical Clinic.

Michael Caudill, CEO of Mountain Comprehensive Health Corp., which runs the country clinic, described the shooter as “a disgruntled patient” but did not elaborate. Watts said police don’t yet have a motive. An official at the Perry County Detention Facility did not think Combs had an attorney.

Clinic officials didn’t want to press charges, Mullins said, so he left.

“They didn’t think he was going to follow through,” the deputy said. “I asked did they want to press charges, because it was a terroristic threat, a very serious one. We see threats all the time. This is one of those occasions, someone followed through with a threat.”

After the shooting, state police took over the investigation, Mullins said.

Combs spotted Sandlin in the doctor’s treating area, which is separate from the waiting room, and fired, Watts said. Patients were at the clinic, but Watts did not know how many because they had cleared out by the time police arrived.

Watts said he had no knowledge of Combs pointing the gun at anyone else.

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, also a physician in Perry County, knew Sandlin.

He said if the killing had to do with the doctor refusing to give the patient prescription pills then “this drug problem is tearing the fabric of our communities, of our society, and I’m angry.”

“Now it’s impacting a place where you expect to be safe, and that’s a doctor’s office,” he said.

About an hour after the shooting, Kathy Haney came on duty as night manager at Ramey’s BP gas station and convenience store a few blocks from the clinic.

“I’ve had grown men stand here in tears,” Haney said of customers. “I’ve had people tell me, ‘He helped my mother stay alive for 30 years.’ It’s been the talk of the store all day long.”

Caudill said employees were shocked by the death of the well-liked Sandlin, who had worked as a primary care physician at the clinic since 1990.

“It’s got us kind of back on our heels right now,” Caudill said.

Mongiardo called Sandlin, “a kind, big-hearted, gentle person.”

“He started a clinic in a rural part of Perry County, far away from where most doctors and clinics were,” Mongiardo said. “(He went) closer to where people needed health care. He was loved by his patients.”

Sandlin graduated from the University of Louisville medical school and had been a doctor in Kentucky since 1978. His license was in good standing with the state board. He concentrated his practice on older patients with chronic illnesses and was active in Hospice, Caudill said.

Mountain Comprehensive’s Web site says the nonprofit corporation’s clinic is one of the largest rural health centers in Kentucky.

Associated Press Writers Beth Campbell, Brett Barrouquere and Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Roger Alford in Frankfort, and Joe Edwards in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.