Dr. Sebastian Russo was in many ways a classic, old-fashioned family doctor of the sort that barely exists anymore. Born and educated in Italy, the physician emigrated to the United States in the 1950s and became certified as a doctor in America. He set up an office on Hartford Road in Northeast Baltimore, Maryland, in which he worked extremely long hours and charged his patients five dollars or less for his services. A devoted family man, with a wife and daughter, the community perceived him as a compassionate, dedicated man, something akin to a saint.
Tragically, however, the life of this beloved figure would be cut short for seemingly the most trivial of reasons. On the evening of February 27th, 1981, a neighbor heard an alarming noise coming from Dr. Russo’s establishment, and phoned the Baltimore police.
When officers arrived, they found the doctor lying face up on the floor, dead from a single shot through the chest. His keys lay alongside him, and the drug cabinet was wide open, leading investigators to assume that Dr. Russo had been murdered by someone looking to steal pharmaceuticals.
According to a handful of other patients, a man had come into the office earlier, ostensibly for an appointment, but left shortly afterward. He returned some time later and then waited an hour for the doctor to see him. The other patients said that the man was still there when they left, along with an unidentified woman, though no one knew if the man and woman were acquainted with each other.
Police were uncertain if the man was the killer, but even if he was, they were never able to identify or locate him, and the case quickly went cold. It remains unsolved to this day, more than thirty years later.
Dr. Russo’s impact on the community was later honored with a wrought iron clock dedicated to him in the Hamilton Hills neighborhood, and an award named after him that was established in 2007.
Crime Immemorial 