Doctor Suspected In Murder Attempts Suicide Physician’s Wife Died In What First Was Ruled An Auto Accident

What appears to be a fatal traffic accident turns out to be murder. The dead woman’s husband, an emergency-room doctor, tries to commit suicide.

That’s how investigators describe the case of Dr. Bruce Rowan, another blow to Olympic Memorial Hospital, which already was reeling from an investigation into the death of an infant treated by another doctor.

Clallam County Prosecutor David Bruneau said he was unaware of any connection between the two deaths, although Rowan is a key figure in both investigations.

Rowan, 34, was listed in serious condition early Tuesday following surgery for apparently self-inflicted knife wounds at the hospital in this Olympic Peninsula town about 60 miles west-northwest of Seattle.

The cause of death his wife, Debbie, 33, was not available early Tuesday. The county coroner did not return a telephone call following an autopsy late Monday.

Bruneau said Monday night she had head injuries and her death was classified as a homicide. Rowan probably will be charged with “some variety of homicide” within 48 hours, he added.

Neither Bruneau nor sheriff’s deputies would comment on a motive.

Sheriff’s officers said they found Debbie Rowan’s body in a car that had gone off a rural road and hit a fence post Monday.

What first appeared to be a fatal traffic accident turned out to quite another matter, Bruneau said.

“The appearance of the deceased in the automobile was inconsistent with the automobile accident,” he said. “One of the first officers on the scene was a sheriff’s department traffic accident reconstructionist, and he thought there were some peculiarities that ought to be looked into.”

Three deputies went to Rowan’s home. While two called from their car to obtain a search warrant, the doctor “excused himself to the bathroom from the deputy who was visiting with him,” sheriff’s deputy Fred DeFrank told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “While in there, he inflicted himself with at least five puncture wounds with a kitchen knife in an attempted suicide.”

Rowan was the emergency room doctor at Olympic Memorial when Dr. Eugene Turner, was summoned on Jan. 12 to treat a 3-day-old baby who had stopped breathing. After working on the baby, Turner ultimately halted his breathing after the infant was declared brain-dead.

The state Medical Quality Assurance Commission has accused Turner of unprofessional conduct for hastening the death of the baby. Turner’s attorney has said that Turner blocked the little boy’s dying breaths, but only after the baby had been brain-dead for four hours and could not possibly have survived.

Rowan is not accused of any wrongdoing in that case.