Leaning against one of the outer doors of a set of medical offices in Bethesda is a bouquet of geraniums and yellow roses that pretty much says it all.
The handwritten letter slipped under the cellophane is part thank you note, part solemn goodbye from a former patient to prominent psychiatrist Wayne Stuart Fenton.
“[You] helped me in my time of need to lead a happier life,” the note reads. “You are a hero to many … [your] memory will never be forgotten.”
It was this bond with patients that Dr. Fenton lived for, but it?s also what police are saying he died for.
Montgomery County police on Monday charged Vitali A. Davydov, a 19-year-old patient, with the murder of Fenton, associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health as well as a clinical doctor in Bethesda.
Davydov, according to Lt. Eric Burnett, a police spokesman, had been in Fenton?s office Sunday evening for a scheduled appointment when something went terribly wrong.
The 19-year-old?s father later told authorities that he saw his son outside of the office building on Old Georgetown Road acting oddly ? and with blood on his clothing. Davydov?s father ran in, found Fenton and called the authorities at about 5 p.m. By the time emergency crews arrived, Fenton was dead.
His patient was apprehended minutes later a few blocks away and was officially charged Monday with first-degree murder, Burnett said.
It?s believed Davydov acted alone, police said. But authorities won?t say how the well-respected psychiatrist was killed, except to rule out the possibility that he was shot to death.
One day after the killing, Fenton?s office still looks like a crime scene. Below New York-themed posters and chocolate brown furniture is a blood-saturated carpet, a large boulder and a completely knocked-out window. Outside are heaps of broken glass, with a yellow broom standing idly by. Fenton?s blue Audi is parked out front with the license plates covered by cardboard.
Family members declined to comment about the slaying on Monday. But throughout the day, neighbors filed in and out of the Fentons? upscale Parkedge Road home in Rockville.
Speaking for the family, William T. Carpenter, director of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and a colleague of Fenton?s for 30 years, called his friend an outstanding leader in the field of schizophrenia and a caring doctor who “died in the line of duty for a patient.”
“He was the person you went to when you needed the best,” Carpenter said. “He was just a tremendous human being, and that showed in the way he handled his work.”
Career highlights
Some of Dr. Fenton?s medical accomplishments:
» Authored textbook chapters and more than 50 scientific papers on diagnosis, treatment, outcome, and service delivery for schizophrenia
» Served as a consultant to the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division
» Regularly recognized in the Best Doctors of America
