RHS grad arrested for doctor’s murder

Hans R. Peterson came to his high school reunion last August, and little seemed amiss.

Some of his classmates from the Roseburg High School class of ’96 said he mentioned he was making $25,000 a month gambling online, but he mostly stood calm and collected, keeping to himself, just as they remembered him.

“We went to preschool together, and grade school,” said Angela Kerwin, who now lives in Seattle. “I didn’t really know him that well. He was always nice to me.”

Peterson, 29, ran cross country while at RHS. He was never a standout, but longtime Roseburg coach Al Copeland, now of Prineville, still remembers him.

“He was a good kid. I certainly wouldn’t’ve predicted anything negative,” Copeland said. “You just never know what’s going to end up down the road for them.”

On the night of Oct. 24, according to Chicago authorities, Peterson came into the 12th-story office of Dr. David Cornbleet, a dermatologist who had treated him for an acne condition in 2002.

Peterson then allegedly bound and gagged the doctor before stabbing Cornbleet multiple times until he was dead.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the possible murderer was caught on a surveillance camera leaving and entering the building on Michigan Avenue in the downtown Chicago Loop, but no arrests were made before Peterson’s confession to French authorities Aug. 6 on the Caribbean isle of St. Martin.

Peterson turned himself in to authorities four weeks ago on St. Martin, but he has since been moved to Guadeloupe, also a French possession of the West Indies, where he has been jailed pending resolution of the case.

He reportedly told French authorities he killed Cornbleet because a prescription of Accutane had rendered him impotent.

The Tribune reported that the French have refused Cook County, Ill., authorities’ requests for extradition to the United States. Illinois Sens. Barack Obama and Dick Durbin made a special appeal to the French consulate Aug. 20, but were denied their request Tuesday.

“You don’t extradite French nationals,” said Pascale Furlong, the press secretary at the French consulate in Chicago. “He was born of a French mother. ... He was properly registered with the French authorities in August 1978.”

Furlong said that French citizenship is based on blood lineage. Even though he was born in the United States and lived most of his life here, since Peterson’s mother, Jackie Peterson of Roseburg, is French, that makes Hans Peterson French, too. French law forbids the extradition of its citizens to foreign countries for trial.

“The FBI will cooperate with that process every step of the way,” said Special Agent Tom Simon, from the FBI office in Chicago. “We’ll work to bring him to justice any way we can.”

Reached by telephone, Jackie Peterson refused to comment about her son. Hans’ father, Dr. Thomas D. Peterson of Eugene, was out of the office and could not be reached for comment.

Cornbleet, 64, had two children and had practiced in downtown Chicago for 28 years. He did not keep a secretary, according to the Tribune.

Investigators used DNA evidence to track Peterson to an apartment in New York City, where they learned he had fled to the West Indies.

Persons contacted by The News-Review had seen little of Peterson after he left high school. He attended Oregon State University after graduation, where he was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity.

“Something like this comes as a real shock,” said Copeland, the retired Roseburg cross country coach. “I really feel for his family.”



• You can reach reporter Chris Gray at 957-4218 or by e-mail at cgray@newsreview.info.