Lawyer says Georgia doctor framed by friend who was having affair with his wife

Posted 2:43PM on Wednesday 20th February 2002 ( 22 years ago )

BRUNSWICK, Ga. - A doctor accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife gave an undercover agent $250 and a gun because a friend duped him into thinking he was helping with a police training exercise, his lawyer said Wednesday. Dr. Carl M. Drury's friend Steven Whatley devised the ploy because he was having "a relationship" with Drury's wife, defense attorney Ed Garland said in opening statements. Prosecutors argue that the doctor asked Whatley, a federal firearms instructor, to help him find a hit man to kill Mary Drury. They say Whatley told the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms about Drury's request, and Drury was given a phone number for an undercover agent who posed as a hit man. Federal agents audiotaped Drury on Aug. 24 asking the agent to kill his wife, and he was arrested at a grocery store pay phone moments later. Mary Drury was never harmed. Garland said Wednesday the doctor was only pretending to order the killing. "When Dr. Drury spoke these words, he is no more guilty of a crime than John Wayne is of killing Indians," Garland said. "He is play-acting. There is no meaning behind the words." Drury, 62, faces up to life in prison if convicted on federal charges that he used interstate phone calls to arrange a murder and provided a handgun, his wife's, for the crime. Drury, a former state legislator, asked to stand trial in the same small port city where he opened his family practice 23 years ago. Thus the jury pool included former patients, a golf buddy, a member of his son's Sunday school class and many who have followed his case through news reports and water-cooler gossip. Many know about his first wife's mysterious death in 1989. They also have heard stories about his generosity -- how he sometimes accepted snap peas and homemade pies as payment from poor patients. Lawyers spent 10 hours Tuesday sifting through the biases and personal relationships of potential jurors before seating a panel. An undercover agent has said Drury wanted his second wife, Mary Drury, dead because he believed she ruined him financially. He has since filed for bankruptcy. Drury's son, Mark Drury, says his father's financial straits resulted from his own generosity. U.S. District Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. excused several potential jurors who said Drury's arrest reminded them about his first wife, Peggy Drury, who was found dead in her bathtub in 1989. After conflicting reports from medical examiners, a coroner's inquest ruled she died from unknown causes. No criminal charges were filed. Several potential jurors told the judge they'd heard so much about the case -- as well as Peggy Drury's death 13 years ago -- that they couldn't be objective.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/2/198537