On Monday, 83-year-old Robert Elmo Lee from California was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole due to his involvement in the murder of his late wife’s podiatrist.
Lee was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2018 killing of Dr. Thomas Shock with a special circumstance of murder for financial gain. Lee had hired three men to carry out the crime, with Mallory Stewart as the shooter and Christopher Costello and Raymond Austin Hassan Jacquett IV also being convicted in connection to the crime.
When police officers arrived at Shock’s home in Lodi, which is situated about 40 miles south of Sacramento, they discovered him with gunshot wounds to the chest, head, and arm. Nearby, a single page from a California Medical Board document was located with Costello’s fingerprint on it. This page contained a complaint about Shock’s treatment of Lee’s wife, Bonnie, who was 73 at the time she saw Shock for an ingrown toenail. It alleged that Shock’s negligence had led to the partial amputation of her foot, and she subsequently died from an infection in her foot in 2016.
A further search of Lee’s house revealed the additional pages of the medical document found at the scene of Shock’s murder. The District Attorney praised the Lodi Police Department and former Deputy District Attorney Edward “Ted” McGarvey for bringing justice to the Shock family, who were targeted by Lee due to his warped obsession with Dr. Shock, which had stemmed from his love for his late wife.