Editor's note: The following is a reprint of a distressing article that appeared in The Sacramento Union, July 21, 1971 and submitted by a reader. It's used here because the subject in question was featured on our cover January 1968.

Dope Ends Doctor's Career

By Mike Otten
Sacramento Union Staff Writer

Dr. Craig Arthur Whitehead and his wife, Jacquelyn Anne, seemed to be the kind of people that were really going places.

But Drugs that started, as just a thing to give them a little more pep turned everything into a bizarre trip. Court officials now hope it eventually may be ended with psychiatric help.

Whitehead, 36, went through medical school and extra training to become an ophthalmologist specializing in corneal transplants.

He was also a physical culture enthusiast, an avid weightlifter and a "Mr. Body Beautiful", finishing second in the Mr. Universe contest in Teheran, Iran, in 1965. For eight years he was an Air Force medical officer, discharged in 1969 as a captain.

Mrs. Whitehead, 28, whom he married a year after his discharge, is the daughter of a Baptist minister. She became a cosmetologist and an airline stewardess.

The bizarre drug trip came to attention last March 27 when neighbors reported gunshots in the Whiteheads' rented duplex at 3507 Grant Park Drive in Carmichael. At the time, Whitehead was a $2,000-a-month eye doctor at Kaiser Hospital.

A neighbor told sheriff's deputies Whitehead handed his wife a pair of wire cutters and she, gun in hand, climbed on to the roof and cut the guidelines to the television antenna, causing it to fall.

Deputies said the house was a wreck. The Whiteheads had ripped out the toilet, tore up the walls and fired bullets into the walls, all in an apparent search for imagined bugs of both the live and electronic variety, they said.

Officials said they found numerous lewd books: pornographic magazines and photographs; both commercial and home made; two films; a switchblade knife; a whip; and a cup with "marijuana" painted across the top.

Scattered about were numerous knives and spears; a large number of syringes and hypodermic needles, both new and used, and a kitchen cabinet filled with drugs, said the deputies.

While investigating the case, officers got a call from Mrs. Whitehead. She was at a service station at Florin Road and Stockton Boulevard. She reported there were suspicious wires hanging out of her car.

Deputies who searched the car found no wires but did turn up a tear gas canister; a loaded rifle and two pistols; a metal box with numerous drugs; syringes and hypodermic needles, a boning knife and a switchblade knife. Her daughter was in the auto too and the trunk was full of bags of dirty clothing and garbage.

Officers said both Whiteheads appeared to be high on drugs and "related that someone was using high intensity radio waves to control their moods". Both had numerous needle marks on their arms.

Their landlord, Ramey Osborne, said the Whiteheads caused nearly $2,000 in damage to the new duplex.

"Until approximately one year ago," probation officer Gloria Louie said, Whitehead "was considered to be a competent ophthalmologist. He began to use the drug, Retalin, to give him more pep and energy while training and competing in weightlifting contests.

He was third in the Mr. America contest in 1963, fourth in the Mr. Paris contest in 1964 and second in the Mr. America contest in 1965.

"It is very ironic," said Mrs Louis, "that this same drug appears to have led to (his) downfall in becoming addicted and dependent upon it to the point that medical authorities have determined that it has caused (him) to become paranoid and incompetent in his medical practice."

Mrs. Whitehead pleaded guilty of illegal possession of dangerous drugs and her husband of possessing concealed weapons. Other charges were dismissed.

Mrs. Louie said the Whiteheads seemed to think everything, including their daughter's doll, "was bugged and people were following them."

"He is in dire need of psychiatric counseling along with very strong controls," said Mrs. Louie, who recommended jail terms for both to help them dry out. She noted that as late as June 23 the couple unlawfully used Kaiser Foundation prescription blanks and a $40 bad check to get drugs from a San Francisco pharmacy.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Fred Dawson said as far as he knows nothing has been done about restricting Whitehead's license to practice medicine or prescribe drugs.

Monday, Municipal Court Judge Arthur E. Eissinger placed both Dr. and Mrs. Whitehead on three years probation on condition they undergo psychiatric care with Whitehead going to Napa State Hospital and Mrs. Whitehead home to her parents in San Antonio, Tex.