PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The death of a long-haul trucker in the waiting room of an unlicensed Russian dentist has gone to a jury, which will decide the dentist’s fate.
Viktor Gebauer (guh-BOW-er) is on trial for murder in Portland, Ore. He acknowledges he shot the trucker, Viktor Merezhnikov (muh-REZH-nee-koff), in February 2010, but says it was in self-defense.
Merezhnikov was found with a knife in his left hand, though he’s right-handed. Police found his cell phone buried in Gebauer’s back yard.
The 81-year-old Gebauer emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989 and practiced unlicensed dentistry on a mostly immigrant clientele for 13 years.
