True Crime Campfire - Vengeful: The Murder of Dr. David Cornbleet

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

We all live our daily lives in our own little spheres. We have our work, our families, our friends, all the million little things that keep us moving from one day to the next. We sometimes think about the world beyond that stuff—like, haven’t we all walked down a crowded street and wondered about the strangers we passed? About their inner lives, their secrets? Whether we’ve ever unknowingly walked past a murderer. But for the most part, we’re all in our own worlds. We meet new people every day—touch lives for a few minutes, then separate forever. It doesn’t usually occur to us that one of those strangers might latch on to us—develop an obsession, a grudge, a rage that would smolder for years in secret, and then burst into flame, taking us with it. But it happens. Join us for a story of dark obsession, one that might make you wonder: Who might be thinking of you tonight? Sources:Crime Library, David Lohr: https://www.crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/classics/david_cornbleet/1_index.htmlChicago Magazine, Kevin Guilfoile: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-09-12-0709110582-story.htmlChicago Magazine, Kevin Guilfoile: https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/december-2007/bloodlines/ABC News: https://abc7chicago.com/archive/8448717/NBC's Dateline, Episode Appointment for Murder: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23592456Investigation Discovery's Relentless with Kate Snow, Episode Murder on MIchigan AvenueInvestigation Discovery's See No Evil, Episode The Doctor Will See YouAmerican Academy of Dermatology Association: https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/acne/derm-treat/isotretinoin/side-effectsFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. We all live our daily lives in our own little spheres. We have our work, our families, our friends, all the million little things that keep us moving from one day to the next. We sometimes think about the world beyond that stuff. Like, haven't we all walked down a crowded street and wondered about the strangers we passed? About their inner lives, their secrets, whether we've ever

unknowingly walked past a murderer. But for the most part, we're all in our own worlds. We meet new people every day, touch lives for a few seconds or a few minutes, then separate forever. It doesn't usually occur to us that one of those strangers might latch on to us, develop an obsession, a grudge, a rage that would smoulder for years in secret, and then burst into flame, taking us with it. But it happens. Join us for a story of dark obsession, one that might make you wonder, who might be thinking of you tonight. This is vengeful, the murder of Dr. David Cornblit. So, campers, for this one, we're in my old stomping grounds, Chicago, Illinois. Specifically, 30 North Michigan Avenue, right across from Millennium Park and the famous

Bean sculpture, and one of the prettiest, safest parts of the city. 30 North Michigan is a 21-story office building full of doctors, dentists, and other professionals. One of my old doctors was there, and in 2006, so was 64-year-old Dr. David Cornbleet, a much-loved dermatologist with a thriving practice. Dr. Cornbleed was one of those people you could set your watch by. He had an ironclad routine, and if something came up to disrupt it, he'd let his family know. His wife Eileen always knew he'd be home for dinner by six, give or take 15 minutes. So on October 24th, when he hadn't come through the door or called by 6.30, and then 7,

his family started to worry. His adult son John called his sister Jocelyn, who lived closer to the doctor's office. Can you go check on dad? We can't get hold of him. As she drove down Michigan Avenue toward her dad's office building, Jocelyn could already feel that something in her universe had shifted. Something was badly wrong. She just knew it. The feeling got worse when she talked to the building receptionist at the front door. You know what? I haven't seen your dad. That's weird. He always leaves at the same time,

and he always says by to me. Her stomach in knots, Jocelyn made her way up to the 12th floor in the elevator. At first, everything looked normal in the office. The waiting room was empty and quiet. but as she walked down the little hallway of exam rooms her eyes fell on a swipe of bright red across one of the doors blood jocelyn opened the door and the whole world fell in on her dr david cornbleet lay on the floor of the exam room bloody and paper white with horrible gashes on his face and hands her father was dead i can't even imagine what a moment like that must be like on the drive over she was thinking her dad might have a heart attack or something like that something natural but it was obvious at a glance that this was murder. The whole room showed signs of a mighty struggle. The doctor's glasses lay on the floor near his body. There was blood spatter all over the walls in the carpet. And somebody had put duct tape across Dr. Cornbleet's mouth.

Frantic, Jocelyn called her fiancé, and as he rushed to the Michigan Avenue office building to be with her, she had to make the hardest phone call of her life to tell her mother and brother Dad's dead. Their family was beyond close-knit, the kind who make a point of spending quantity and quality time together. John Cornbleet told investigation discovery that his dad was his best friend. They spent every Saturday together. John would work for him in the office and they'd go out for a bite to eat afterward.

And the doctor's wife, Eileen, had been in love with him for 38 years. He was her person, and now he was gone forever. Police rushed to the building and found a strange scene. You wouldn't know anything was amiss. until you got to the room where the murder took place. Nothing appeared to have been stolen. The doctor's wallet was still in his pocket, with cash and credit cards untouched.

None of the office supplies had been stolen, no computers or anything like that. There was even some cash left out. The killer hadn't touched it. So clearly, robbery wasn't the motive. That would have been obvious anyway, though, because this murder was the definition of overkill, the kind of brutality you don't usually see

unless the killing is deeply personal. Whoever did this had a bottomless, well, of rage and they'd unleashed it all on Dr. Cornbleet. The killer had beaten his victim so badly that he was barely recognizable, bound and gagged him and stabbed him more than 20 times. There were some especially awful injuries to the doctor's hands and feet. This was a torturous death. Somebody wanted him to suffer. The killer did leave some evidence behind. In a sink, CSIs found two DNA profiles, probably from where the killer had washed up after the murder. In a stabbing, the killer will usually end up cut, too, and this one had left blood behind.

Both DNA profiles were male. One would turn out to be Dr. Cornbleeds. The other was an unknown profile that didn't match any in the national database. Investigators also found a length of rope, and its original packaging from Home Depot. Could be a decent lead. A few people in the building remembered seeing a strange man that day, looking down at the floor as if he didn't want to show his face and holding a sweatshirt that looked stained with blood. One of Dr. Cornbleed's office mates, a dentist whose practice was right down the hall,

rode in the elevator with the guy and noticed the blood and what seemed to be a nose injury. A security guard noticed the nosebleed too, and she noticed that the guy was breathing hard, shaking, and seemed agitated and sweaty. But it was a building full of doctors and dentists. Blood wasn't that weird of a sight. Both the dentist and the security guard figured the guy had hurt himself and come in to get looked at. Now knowing what happened to Dr. Hornbley, they felt awful and creeped out, too, to have been so close to danger without knowing it. Dr. Cornbley's office didn't have security cameras, but other parts of the building did, and detectives got hold of the tapes from that day. It didn't take long for one man to stand out,

a young, tall white man and a red baseball cap wearing a black messenger-type bag across his chest. When he came through the front door of the building at 4.42 p.m., he was clearly trying to keep his head down so the cameras wouldn't pick up his face. face. And when detectives looked closely, they noticed something creepy. Right before he opened the door, he took something white out of his pocket, a handkerchief. Our guy was making sure he wouldn't leave fingerprints. The man clearly knew the layout of the building. He walked directly to the elevators and still using his handkerchief, pressed the button for the 12th floor. FBI agent Paulo Orya later told investigation discovery, he looks very calm, very focused.

very mission-oriented. He knows where he's going. He knows exactly what he's doing. He wrote the elevator straight up, and about 45 minutes later, the camera showed him coming back down and leaving the building. But this time, he'd taken off the red baseball cap

and was wearing a dark one instead. And he was holding a light-colored sweatshirt up in front of him, almost like a shield. The sweatshirt was clearly stained with blood. The messenger bag looked a little flatter than it had before. And the guy's vibe was very different now. where before he'd seemed calm and deliberate, now he seemed dishevelled.

He rushed his way to the front door and out into the street. In all the surveillance footage, you only get a few quick, grainy looks at his face. You could see a hint of blonde or light brown hair. So here was their suspect, but who was he? And why the hell would he want to murder the doctor in such a vicious way? Dr. Cornbley was a sweetheart, the kind of doctor who wouldn't charge you if you couldn't afford it. The kind who would switch his schedule around at the last minute if a bride was freaking out about a wedding day Zit. He volunteered after 9-11 treating burn victims and after Hurricane Katrina, too.

He'd built his practice up from nothing and ran the office by himself except when his kids were there. He loved dogs, schnauzers, especially, and he'd been the best husband and dad you could ever hope for. The cornbleeds didn't recognize the man in the surveillance footage. The investigators asked them the same. standard tough questions. Did the doctor have any enemies? Could he have been having an affair? Did he have a drug problem? Gambling? Did he like to hire sex workers? But the answer to all of them was no. What mattered to Dr. Cornbleed was his family and his work. He didn't have any risky habits or vices. I knew that he'd never hurt anybody in his entire life, his daughter Jocelyn said later.

It hurt her heart to think that the detectives might think otherwise. Her dad was such a kind, gentle man. But you can understand why investigators would ask those kinds of questions. To them, the scene didn't make a lot of sense. Nothing stolen, a brutal murder that seemed very personal. If Dr. Cornbley didn't have any secrets, why'd he ended up dead? They got to work looking through his records. Maybe the killer was a patient. The doctor kept meticulous records in the old school way, index cards and file boxes. It was going to take a while to go through a mall, but they got started. And they also traced the rope packaging the killer. left behind. It had been sold at a Home Depot. They couldn't be sure which Home Depot, but there was

one not far from the crime scene, so they figured that'd be a good place to start. Home Depot had really good security cameras, and the detectives combed through the surveillance footage for the days leading up to the murder, until they found a guy who looked a lot like the one in the CCTV from Dr. Cornbleet's building. Tall, white guy with light brown hair, same build, and there he was buying a length of rope in that same packaging. And this time, they could see his face. So as they continued to comb through Dr. Cornbleed's patient files looking for anything that stood out as suspicious, they released the surveillance video, the one from the murder and the one from Home Depot, to the media. And damn if it didn't pay off immediately. Within a couple of days, a man came forward and identified himself as the man from the Home Depot.

I had nothing to do with this murder, he insisted. I just want to clear my name and let you guys move past me. For the Cornbleets, it was a huge relief. They assumed they'd have their father's killer in jail by the end of the day. day. But it didn't turn out that way. The guy was telling the truth. He had a solid alibi for the time of the murder. It wasn't him in that surveillance footage from Dr. Cornbleet's building. It couldn't have been him. It was just a coincidence that he'd bought the same kind of rope from Home Depot not long before the murder. As the detectives were figuring out that their new suspect was a no-go,

the Cornbleet family were burying the man who had loved them more than anything else in the world. It was a dark day. And after the burial, John Cornbleed asked for a few. moments alone with his dad. John had been the one, a few days earlier, who had to identify his father's body, and he knew he'd never get the images out of his head. Now he knelt down by the gravesite. Dad, he said, I'm not going to come back until I find justice for you. And by God, he meant it. Once they realized that the Home Depot lead had fizzled out, John and his sister Jocelyn set out to do everything humanly possible to help the investigation along. They posted flyers with images from the surveillance footage at the doctor's building. They offered a $25,000

reward for information. They spoke to the media. And then they did something that would turn the case around. The guy in the CCTV footage looked young. So they figured if we want to reach somebody who knows him, we should go where the young people are getting a lot of their news. At the time, that was MySpace, a new social media platform. The Cornbleeds created a MySpace page about their dad's murder and before long, tips started trickling in. People tried to help them figure out where the man had gotten his red baseball cap. Somebody thought he was probably a delivery man or a messenger. Somebody else felt sure he was a college student. Lots of people wrote in to say how much they'd liked Dr. Cornbleet. Months went by with no major leads in the case. It was threatening to go

cold. But then, six months after Dr. Cornbleet's brutal murder, his son John opened his email and saw one with the subject line, Jonathan, do not delete. Later, John said he had a feeling about the email before he even opened it. When he read what it had to say, he felt sure he was looking at the tip that would lead to his father's killer. The sender was a U.S. Marine. He introduced himself, told John his rank and where he was from. He'd just gotten home to New York, on leave from Iraq, and he'd have to go home soon.

But before he did, he needed to get something off his chest. I'm pretty sure I know who killed your father, the guy wrote. I've called the Chicago PD about this, too. That really made John Cornbleat sit up and take notice. A U.S. Marine is probably not going to bullshit the cops. The Marine Corps doesn't super love when their people get into, like, shenanigans. Yeah. You know?

No. No. John wrote back immediately and said, Call me as soon as you can. And the next day, the phone rang. The Marine told John that when he found, first got home from overseas, he met up with one of his best friends to catch up, and the guy was a mess, paranoid, scared, just practically bent over it with the weight of some awful burden. The Marine

finally managed to get the story out of his friend, and it was hair-raising. I think my former roommate killed a man, the friend said. I'm almost certain of it. In 2006, the Marine's friend had lived on the Upper East Side of New York with several roommates, and one of them had been on a downward spiral for pretty much the whole time he was there. In an email to Dateline, the Marine explained what his friend told him about the creepy roommate. He was increasingly antisocial, manic, prone to isolationist behavior, the Marine wrote, and he was obsessed with one particular topic. A doctor he believed had ruined his life. Dr. David Cornbleet. Wow. The roommate wanted this man dead. He talked about it all the time, how the doctor deserved to die.

And then, in October of 06, he'd packed a bag and left the apartment for a few days. When he got back, he packed up his stuff and bugged out, and he never came back. A couple weeks later, the other roommate saw something on the news about the murder of a dermatologist in Chicago. When the newscaster said the name, they couldn't believe what they were hearing. It had to have been him, their angry roommate. Wow. Listening to this, John Cornbleed must have felt like his heart was trying to fight its way. out of his chest. What's his name? He asked the Marine. Hans, the guy said. Hans Peterson.

The name meant nothing to John and his family. They'd never heard of the man. But when the investigators went back to check Dr. Cornbley's patient records, there it was, Hans Peterson. One appointment in the spring of 2002, four years before the murder. This was a weird place for Hans Peterson's life to end up. He started off strong. His dad was a doctor, just like John Cornbleeds, and Hans grew up a pretty happy kid in Oregon. He was shy, a little bit clunky at social interactions, but people liked him. He played football in high school. He was smart. But he couldn't seem to get into the swing of things socially in high school. He confided in his dad that he felt like girls weren't interested in him and he was lonely.

He'd have bouts of depression. His life seems to have been sort of up down, up down. He went to college, joined a frat. Sometimes he'd ace a semester. other times he wouldn't do so well. He'd go through periods where he'd sleep a lot and lose interest in food and not feel like doing the stuff he normally like to do classic symptoms of depression. But he graduated from college in 2000 with a degree in economics and philosophy. He clerked for a stockbroker in Philly for a while and then moved to Chicago, and it was there

in the spring of 2002 that he decided he wanted to do something about an acne issue that had given him trouble for years. The acne must be the reason why I can't get women interested in me, Hans figured, if I can fix it, maybe I'll have better luck. He made an appointment with Dr. David Cornbleed, who prescribed him the medication acutane. He took it for two days. When he developed a bad headache, Hans went online and read about the side effects of the drug. He called his doctor father, Thomas Peterson, and told him he wasn't feeling well. He still had that bad headache, and he was depressed and having trouble concentrating. You shouldn't take the acutane anymore, his dad told him. Oh, I already stopped, Hans said. Over the next couple months, Hans's health

continued to go downhill. He developed tinnitus, ringing in the ears. His depression came back and he couldn't sleep. His dad told him to just come home to Oregon for a while, and he did, but it didn't seem to help. Hans wasn't sleeping. He wasn't eating much. He was hyper-sensitive, like if his dad put music on, he'd say, turn it off, it hurts my head. And he was convinced that the reason for all these symptoms was those two doses of acutane he'd taken a couple months before. Acutane has been associated with some gnarly side effects, and there have been lawsuits over the years, so it would have been easy for Hans to find information that confirmed his suspicions that the drug was the cause of his symptoms. He joined an internet forum called

Acutane Roacutane Action Group under the username Hans P. In July of 2002, just a couple months after seeing Dr. Cornbleet for the first and only time, he made his first post. Hans wrote, In late April, I went to see a dermatologist for my very mild but persistent acne. He was an unethical old man who suggested acutane. He said that it was a very safe and popular drug with no serious side effects. I was never given a blood test. He never showed me the consent forms that he is required by law to make me sign. And by the way, I'm not sure that's accurate.

He keeps saying that in the blog post that the law requires that a doctor give you a consent form to sign. I've come across several sources that say that you don't have to make a patient. sign a consent form before taking the stuff, at least like not by law. Some doctors do, like it says, you won't take it if you're pregnant because it can cause damage to the fetus, but I don't know if they have to. If you know, let us know, I'm not sure one way or the other. It was hard to find a definitive answer on that. All right, so back to his post. I was started on 80 milligrams per day. I weigh around 190. He said that I could take the entire day's dose at once. When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist conveniently forgot to give me the FDA required medication guide. When I picked up the

medication, I was under the impression that acutane was an extremely safe drug. I took it for two days. Then I got a bad headache and read about the side effects. I stopped right away. I thought that I was safe, having only taken a few pills. However, about five days later, I got really depressed and couldn't sleep. My ears started to ring around this time and a lot of hair around my hairline began to fall out. The roots of these follicles were black. Normally they're white. My appetite went away around this time as well. A couple of days after this, my libido vanished and I lost virtually all sexual sensation. It has been over a month and a half since my very brief experience with acutane and most of these effects have not improved at all. I sleep a little better as I'm starting to get

used to the ear ringing, but that's about it. Am I permanently affected from taking an acne medicine for two days? This was just the beginning of Hans Peters's spiral into obsession and rage. Over the next four years, he'd devote countless hours to posting on internet forums about acutane, raving about what Dr. Cornbleed's prescription had allegedly done to his life. Hans went to doctor after doctor. Neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and ear specialists had test after test. He told them about the acutane and again and again, the doctors would tell him they couldn't find any connection at all between his symptoms and the drug. But Hans believed it to his core. Acutane was the reason for all of it.

In 2003, he decided he wanted to go to law school. He aced the LSAT and enrolled on a scholarship at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. He moved in with some roommates in the East Village. He was supposed to graduate in 2005, but he had trouble concentrating on his studies. And the reason for that, he believed, was Accutane. On one of his internet forums in 2003, he wrote, tasks like paying attention and concentrating are not as easy as they were before I took acutane. Perhaps I can use whatever legal knowledge I can to take my revenge.

I have nothing else to live for. Yeah. Clearly my dude was not in a good headspace. His dad stopped hearing from him for so long that Dr. Peterson finally left him a message like, look, if you don't get in touch with me, I'm going to call the police and report you missing. After that, Hans called him back. He dropped out of law school months ago. He was making money internet gambling, which, oof, that's a red flag.

He claimed he was making $130K a year at it, though, so who knows? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure some people are great at it, okay? And I'm equally sure that most people probably end up losing their shirt, pants, shoes, and accessories. Homes, families, kneecaps. I have no proof of this. This is all alleged. Put a big alleged sign. over my head right now, okay?

I don't think he was making that much money. I think he was fucking lying so his dad wouldn't worry about him. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. I'm inclined to agree, allegedly. We need to license some neon allegedly signs so we can sell them. Anyone know how to do that?

Obviously, his dad was concerned, and he would have been even more worried if he'd known what Hans' roommates knew, that Hans wasn't interested in his life anymore. He wasn't interested in friends. He wasn't interested in school. His focus had narrowed to a fine point. He spent most of his time hold up in his room playing video poker, and capital O obsessing on the internet forums about acutane. In one post, he wrote, since taking a relatively high dose of acutane for a very short period of time seven months ago, I have been experiencing persistent sexual problems. I would describe it as a loss of libido and sexual sensation.

I have lost virtually all interest in sex. When I do engage in sex or masturbation, the act is no longer pleasurable. I can get an erection and otherwise function normally. The pleasurable sensation is just gone. In another, he wrote, I will never again know what it is like to pleasure a woman because I no longer have any sexual sensation. I will never again experience what silence is due to the constant ringing in my ears. Has the word sensation lost all meaning to anyone else?

Just me? Sensation. Sensation. He says a lot, yeah. So much. No matter what his doctors told him that they could find no evidence that acutane had caused any of his symptoms, Hans continued to obsess. And the main target of his obsession and rage was Dr. David Cornbleed. Hans' life had been on a downward turn for a while.

And as FBI agent Pablo Ariya says, Accutane was a way to put everything together and point the finger. at somebody, and in my opinion, Katie's opinion, specifically to point it at someone else. It had gotten worse and worse as the years went by. So obviously, it looked like there was a buttload of circumstantial evidence pointing to Hans Peterson. The posts on the Accutane message board, the things he said to his roommates about wanting to kill Dr. Cornbleed, the fact that he disappeared for several days in October of 06, and one of those days was the day of the murder, it was a lot. But to get an

arrest warrant, you've got to have something more concrete. So, the Chicago detectives flew to New York to comb through the apartment where Hans Peterson used to live, hoping to find something with his DNA on it. And they hit pay dirt. All those nights smoking siggy after siggy came back to bite Hans in the ass when a cigarette butt in his old room came up as a perfect DNA match to the unknown blood at the murder scene. Boom. It was time to put the habeas grabus on Peterson. But there was just one little problem with that. See, Our boy Hans wasn't in Chicago anymore. He wasn't in New York either.

In fact, just two months after the murder of David Cornblit, Hans had taken off. To St. Martens, an island in the Caribbean. Why? Well, because St. Martens is governed half by the Netherlands and half by France. Hans' mother was a French citizen, which meant Hans could go to France or any French-controlled territory and fall under the jurisdiction of the French legal system. France doesn't like to extradite French citizens back to other countries. and the French legal system, folks, is way, way more lenient than the American one.

Hans had found himself a loophole. A French loophole, by the way, is the worst French export. Like, French kissing, great. French fries, better. And I'm always partial to a croissant. But loopholes, the worst. Also, if you are French or speak French, please say the word loophole in a French accent for me and send it to

True Crime Campfirepot at gmail.com. I would love to hear it. Thank you. Katie's kinkshaming corner. It's coming for you now. It's just going to be French people yelling at me, which is I love when French people yell at me. My mom is French-Canadian.

That brings me back to my childhood, man. I love it. Aw. That's very, very sick. You're a sick individual. Okay. Anyway. So, yeah, this was infuriating.

For the moment, at least, the U.S. detectives couldn't touch him. John Cornbley remembers thinking, what does this have to do with France? Hans Peterson had never lived in France, a day in his life. He was no more French than I am, and now here he was taken advantage of the French legal system to try and slide out of any consequences for his crime. And he was still posting online about acutane and the evil doctor who prescribed it. In July of 2007, months after Dr. Cornbleed's murder, he wrote, justice will not be found through the legal system

would taking some of their money even be justice their lives would go on just with a little less money our lives will never be the same well Dr. Cornbley's life didn't go on did it Dick Flute and interestingly now that he'd murdered the doctor who ruined his life Han seemed to be developing a new theory on why he'd always struggled in life he started spending a lot of time on a website about Asperger's syndrome he wrote I have always been different for most of my peers

extremely quiet, unable to engage in any sort of small talk, somewhat obsessive, yeah, just a scotch, right? Intelligent and somewhat unable to make friends. Many of these qualities I attributed to the fact that I grew up in a house in the middle of nowhere with no immediate neighbors and the way that my parents were rather different than most people in the town that I lived near. White trash town. My father is a doctor, my mother from France, and not used to many American customs.

I was always considered talented and gifted in school, but I struggled so. socially. Many people felt I was mute. And I have never been in a real relationship in my life, despite my above average physical attractiveness. I am now 28 years old and recently moved from the United States to an island in the Caribbean. He doesn't mention the reason for the move, obviously, right? He sounds like Elliot Roger. He sounds like E. Raj. He sounds like E. Raj so much. That's why I was laughing. I have above average attractiveness. Shut the fuck up. Shut up. So what? Now it's Asperger's that made you do it? Really do? Like that part especially chaps my ass because some of the dearest, most loving people in my life are autistic,

and they would never hurt anybody in a million years. So gross. For years, the Cornbleet family worked their asses off to try to get Hans Peterson extradited back to the States. They got senators involved. They wrote letters. They went on TV shows like Dateline. And the whole time, there Peterson sat snug as a bug on the French side of St. Martin's of their reach. But, campers, justice was coming. The U.S. government was taking an interest in the case and putting pressure on the French government.

And Hans must have gotten a bit nervous at this point, thinking maybe France would give in and hand him over, and he'd have to go back to Chicago to stand trial. So on August 6, 2007, Hans Peterson walked right into the police station on the French side of St. Martins and confessed. Yep. He killed Dr. Cornbleet, that, quote, unethical old man. had ruined his life, Han said. But his original plan hadn't been to kill him, he insisted. The plan was to cut off his hands, cauterize the wounds with a blow torch, which he brought along

with him in the black bag, and leave. Dr. Cornbleet would survive, but he'd never be able to practice medicine again. But the doctor fought back. He was 64, but David Cornbleet was in great physical shape, and he was fighting for his life. So Hans had to abandon his plan. After a for a ferocious struggle during which the doctor sustained some massive head wounds, Hans finally managed to tie him up and put duct tape over his mouth. And then he stabbed him to death and got out of there. Now, I don't know if I believe this hand slash blow torch thing or not. I mean, the idea that somebody is supposedly smart as Hans would be enough of a dipshit to think you couldn't practice dermatology with prosthetic hands is pretty absurd to me. Yeah, like he's not a brain surgeon, my dude. He

would manage, right? Yeah, but that was his claim. Anyway, he says he brought up a blow torch, which is just horrifying. God. I think he probably just planned on killing the doctor from the start and maybe, like, just thought the story made him sound cool and innocent. But I guess we'll never know for sure.

To me, it sounds like he watched too much criminal minds between episodes of insane forum posting. Right. You know how I'm like in criminal minds? It's like, my mother slapped me with her hands. And so now I must cut off the hands of every woman. That's like, that's not how serial killers work. That's what I mean when I say you watch too much criminal minds because, God, yikes.

When he'd finished his confession, he said he felt like he'd done the world of service by killing Dr. Cornbleed. And then he said he'd like to be tried in St. Martins. Please and thank you. Ugh. The cornblades hoped that the confession would be enough to pressure France into putting Hans's butt on a plane and sending him back to Chicago. I mean, do you want him hanging out on your, like, beachy French shores? God. But after years of back and forth, France said, no.

They were going to try him themselves. And if he was convicted, he'd be sentenced under French law. What a bunch of bullshit. a man who never lived in France, wasn't born in France, didn't do the crime in France. It's just bizarre to me, but there you go. Yeah, it is infuriating. Uh-huh. The trial didn't start until 2011 on the French island of Guadalupe, and the Kornblit family

had to fly there on Thanksgiving to be there for it. I'm sure it was pure hell for them to have to sit and listen to Hans describe their father's murder, which he was still clearly pleased his punch about. Hans' defense tried to argue, of course, that he was psychotic at the time of the murder, that Accutane had fundamentally changed his brain. His doctor father went so far as to call Dr. Cornblit one of the victims and one of the villains in this case. I mean, look, I'm sure this has been hell for Hans's father. I can't imagine, but maybe keep that thought on the inside, man. Ew. So, the defense was a reach. By Hans Peterson's own admission,

the crime was premeditated, carefully thought out. He made an appointment with the doctor under a fake name. He rented a car. He memorized where the security cameras were in the building so he could avoid as many of them as possible. He wore a baseball cap to prevent the cameras from catching his face. He bought rope, duct tape, a knife, a blowtorch, a change of clothes. The murder was calculated, executed quickly and efficiently,

and then the killer had fled the country. And not just to anywhere. to one of the few places on earth where he would be shielded from consequences, from so he thought anyway. No doubt he knew it was wrong, no matter how proud he was of himself for doing it. If you don't know you're doing wrong, you don't take so many steps to avoid getting caught. So this definitely didn't meet the legal standard for not guilty by reason of insanity. Dude was definitely obsessed, though. During the trial, he said he'd called Dr. Cornbleed's office over 500 times over the years, always under an alias.

just, I guess, just to hear the doctor's voice, which is just so creepy to me. The jury didn't buy the defense either. They convicted him of murder with acts of barbarity and sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 22 years. That's the best they could do, the longest sentence available under French law. Peterson's serving his sentence in France, and he'll be out in his early 50s. His release date is in 2031. To the cornbleeds, it really didn't feel like justice. And unsurprisingly, they don't buy the Accutane defense.

Dr. Cornbleet wasn't the unethical old man, Hans Peterson had called him on the blog post. He was a conscientious doctor. In all his decades of practice, he'd never been sued. He'd never had any kind of disciplinary action from the medical board. To the prosecution, Accutane was basically a red herring in the case, just an excuse, a scapegoat. The motive for murder, but not the reason. And look, we don't have a dog in the whole Accutane fight, okay? I'm not here to defend an acne drug.

It could be the devil itself, for all I know. From what I've read in the recent literature, and, you know, this murder happened way back in 2006, so there's been a lot of years for the research to keep going. There are quite a few studies out there, and there's a pretty well-established list of side effects that they're sure about. Like, we know it's real bad if you're pregnant. It can cause serious issues for the baby. With some of the stuff Hans Peterson was claiming, though, it's hard to get a definitive

answer. There's conflicting info out there. an article put out by the American Academy of Dermatology just this past September said that the research doesn't yet show whether the drug can cause suicidal thoughts, depression, and some of the other more serious side effects that people have reported. And then other articles I read seem to suggest that a link to depression and suicidal thoughts has been established in rare cases. Now, evidently, at one point at least, the patient information that came with the drug said to stop taking it right away if you experience depression or suicidal thoughts. So it's hard to know for

sure, but sometimes it can look like you've got causation when really you've only got correlation. I mean, I suddenly started getting sick a lot in my early 20s, and I had no idea why, and there are any number of things that I thought at the time might have caused it until I finally got a diagnosis. There was an interesting study a while back where subjects were given an antidepressant drug to test, and a whole bunch of the test subjects developed these awful side effects and reported them to the research and everything, but then they found out that they hadn't actually been given a drug. They'd been given a placebo. The side effects had nothing to do with a drug. So who knows? You know, maybe Hans Peterson had a horrendous reaction to acutane.

Maybe he'd have developed these symptoms regardless. We just have no way to know for sure. And what we do know is that Homeboy only took two doses of this stuff. That's it. Two days, by his own admission. I won't say that one or two doses of a drug can't cause permanent damage. That might be possible in rare cases. I don't know. I've heard of some chemotherapy drugs causing permanent side effects. Yeah. But Peterson was having some pretty significant problems before he ever touched acutane. He's already struggling with depression and maintaining relationships. That's why he went to see Dr. Cornbley in the first place, because he decided his acne was to blame for his failure to hold on to a relationship. And depression does not

cause you to murder somebody. Sexual dysfunction doesn't either. Tinnative doesn't lead to homicide. Plenty of people live with severe chronic illness. I know a few of them. It's a hard life, but most people in that situation would never, ever dream of killing somebody over it. Right. I mean, if you believe that an acne medication ruined your life, there's legal recourse you can

take. You can sue the shit out of the drug company or the doctor who prescribed it or both of them. And frankly, you know, if the evidence is as convincing as Hans Peterson and his family have claimed it is, then that should work out fine. get a good lawyer go for it you know or if you don't want to do that you can go on a media tour and raise awareness about it but the point is you don't have to take a life and you do not have the right to and i find it especially gross that this guy has never shown an ounce of remorse the opposite in fact he's proud of it oh yeah after the trial john cornbleat told cbs news

how hard it was to sit in the same courtroom with this man and listen to him brag about the murder that had torn the Kornblit's lives apart. Quote, he got up and basically said that his lawyer is not accurate. He knew what he was doing. He concealed his face. He is very proud of what he did and that he needs to go to jail and not to an insane asylum. Yikes. We can have compassion for Hans Peterson for what he's been through with his mental

illness and physical symptoms and whatever else. But that is just despicable. I'm not seeing somebody in the grip of psychosis with that. I'm seeing somebody who has zero empathy for other people. Yeah. And even if he is mentally ill, here's the thing. We say this a lot, but it's always worth saying again. People with mental health issues are much more likely to be victims of crime than for the perpetrators.

That's a provable truth. And you know I have to drag out this quote, too. It's a plain old fact that your mental illness isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility. And when Hans Peterson was going through, whatever the cause of it did not justify the torture and murder of Dr. David Cornbleed, not even a tiny little bit. Doesn't justify it and doesn't absolve him of responsibility for it either. Hell no. But, you know, as awful as this case is, it's inspiring to know how hard Dr. Cornblit's family

worked to bring his killer to justice, and I mean for years and years and years. As dark as these stories are, and as much as they can make you question humanity sometimes, there's often this little ray of light that comes through, where you see people come together to make sure justice is done and to help each other heal. It's the flip side of the darkness, and I think it's important to tell that part of the story, too. My guess is Dr. Cornbley would be incredibly proud of his family for how they handled this whole situation. Shows what an unbreakable love they all have for each other. I hope they're finding some peace in their lives now. So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week.

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