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Man who killed sons, self made strange call

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 30, 2006

MIAMI - A doctor who killed his two young sons by throwing them over a hotel balcony and then jumped to his own death seemed to be hallucinating and sounded paranoid in a telephone call two days before it happened, the man's father said.

Oebele Van Dyk, 86, said he talked to his son the day before Edward Van Dyk flew to Miami to be with his wife and two sons, who were already staying at the Loews Hotel where the murders and suicide occurred. The boys were 4 and 8 years old.

"He was very distraught. I think he was seeing things that didn't seem to be real," Van Dyk told the Miami Herald Sunday in a telephone interview from his home in New York.

Van Dyk described his son as a peaceful guy, who "never, never fought" and said his son did not have a history of mental problems.

He said he and his wife did not learn of the deaths until Sunday, when his daughter-in-law called him.

Edward Van Dyk was a radiation oncologist at Alton Memorial Hospital in Illinois.

Neighbors in the Van Dyks' gated Godfrey, Ill., subdivision, about 30 miles northeast of St. Louis, said Monday they knew little about the family, but had never seen anything hinting at mental instability on the part of the father.

Dorothy Mottaz said she didn't see much of the Van Dyks, aside from hearing the children play in their back yard or seeing their mother, Qinuo Van Dyk - a fertility doctor who sidelined her career to stay at home as her husband pursued his - at the supermarket.

"It was such a shock doing something like that to young children. That's the hardest part," Mottaz said.

Van Dyk left no suicide note. His wife told police that although the couple had marital problems over the past six months, their relationship had improved and the family was at the hotel to celebrate the couple's 10th wedding anniversary.

She told police she heard one of her boys scream before she emerged from the bathroom and saw her husband leaping from the balcony.

Illinois authorities removed a computer from the Illinois home and are examining the contents.

[Last modified May 30, 2006, 05:17:45]