Boston Hospital Shooting: Gunman Stephen Pasceri’s Mother Was Patient Of Doctor He Shot, Report Says

The Boston hospital shooting gunman, who shot a cardiac surgeon twice Tuesday morning inside Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has been identified as 55-year-old Stephen Pasceri of Millbury, Massachusetts — a well-liked, married accountant and father of four adult children, from a churchgoing family. But reports out of Boston say that Pasceri’s mother, who died last November, was a patient of the cardiac surgeon critically wounded by Pacseri.

Stephen Pasceri’s mom who was patient of doctor who was shot @brighamwomens passed away in Nov 2014. #Wcvb

— Kathy Curran (@KathyReports) January 20, 2015

Pacseri apparently killed himself after shooting the doctor, whom WBZ-TV in Boston named as Dr. Michael Davidson of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Davidson is the director of Endovascular Cardiac Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, according to WBZ.

“I can’t believe it, he’s such a nice man, and a beautiful family,” said Pacseri family friend, Michelle Piselli. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

Pasceri was liscensed to carry a firearm in Massachusetts, police said.

New info into the @BrighamWomens shooting. Friends & family of the alleged gunmen Stephen Pasceri are in shock & say he was the nicest guy

— Ryan Schulteis (@RyanSchulteis) January 20, 2015

Investigators are still attempting to determine a motive in the shooting, and have not said whether the reported doctor-patient relationship between the victim and Pacseri’s late mother, Marguerite Pasceri, who was a retired occupational therapist, had any connection to the shooting.

WBZ-TV sources, however, said that Pasceri may have held a grudge against Davidson over perceived flaws in his mother’s treatment.

According to an account in The Boston Globe, Pasceri showed up at the hospital’s Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro building, which houses the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Cardiovascular unit, at about 11 a.m. and asked for the doctor by name.

The two men then went into private room and at some point during their conversation Pasceri shot the doctor twice in his upper body with a.40-caliber handgun.

Pacseri then entered another exam room on the second floor of the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, where he shot himself in the head, and was found dead by police as they conducted a room-to-room search for what they thought was an active shooter.

Pasceri’s family members later said they noticed nothing unusual in his behavior Tuesday morning, and when he left the house, thought he was simply going to work as he would normally.

Pasceri had a run-in with the health care system before. In 2011, his father, Gregory Pasceri, suffered a massive heart attack. He was rushed by ambulance to UMass Medical Center where he died in the emergency room about 15 minutes after he got there.

But a month after her husband’s death, Marguerite Pasceri was slapped with an $8,000 bill from the hospital for its brief treatment of the elder Pacseri.

Stephen Pasceri was upset enough to contact then-Senator John Kerry about what his family considered an excessively high bill, though at the time he said he was hoping merely for an explanation of the costs, not help in paying the bill.

The doctor who was Pacseri’s victim in the Boston hospital shooting continues to fight for his life as of Tuesday evening.