Man charged with stabbing Wichita psychiatrist more than 160 times pleads guilty
The 25-year-old mentally ill man charged with fatally stabbing Wichita psychiatrist Achutha Reddy has pleaded guilty to an amended count of first-degree felony murder, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett told The Eagle. The underlying crime to the murder count is kidnapping, Bennett said.
Umar Rashid Dutt entered the plea Tuesday, less than a week ahead of his scheduled jury trial, court records show. He will be sentenced Nov. 9 by Sedgwick County District Court Judge Tyler Roush.
Reddy, 57, was killed Sept. 13, 2017, outside of his clinic, Holistic Psychiatric Services, at Central and Edgemoor. Dutt, who had been a patient of Reddy’s, stabbed him more than 160 times with a knife and ran him over with a car before fleeing the scene, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case in 2017.
Dutt was arrested after a security guard at a local country club saw him sitting in a car, covered in blood and called 911, the affidavit says.
Reading from the factual basis for Tuesday’s plea, Bennett said Dutt went to Reddy’s office with a knife intending to harm or terrorize him, used force to try to keep him in his office and then pursued Reddy when he tried to escape. Ultimately, Dutt stabbed the psychiatrist to death in an alley behind his clinic.
Dutt is expected to receive a life prison term with no parole eligibility for 25 years. If he had been convicted of his original charge, first-degree premeditated murder, he would have had to serve 50 years before his first chance at parole.
Attorneys plan to recommend that Dutt serve the sentence in the mental health correctional facility in Larned, Bennett said.
This story was originally published September 21, 2021 at 6:05 PM.
