Doctor Loses Appeal for New Trial Over Wife's Killing

DEDHAM, Mass. – A once-prominent doctor who allegedly killed his wife after she discovered his secret sex life has lost his bid for a new trial.

Dirk Greineder claimed that jurors who convicted him at his 2001 trial performed a "junk science" experiment with a banana and a rubber glove that was part of the evidence against him.

But Judge Paul Chernoff, who questioned six jurors during a hearing on the motion in March, ruled Friday that the experiment during the jury's deliberations did not affect the verdict.

Greineder was a prominent allergist at Brigham and Women's Hospital when he was charged with beating his wife with a hammer and slashing her throat in a park near their Wellesley home in 1999.

During his 2001 trial, prosecutors argued that Greineder killed his wife of 31 years after she discovered his dalliances with prostitutes and his attraction to Internet pornography.

Gloves that Greineder allegedly wore were found near the murder scene. Their rubber dot pattern appeared in blood on Greineder's coat, though Greineder denied wearing gloves or having any contact with the killer.

Jurors used one of the gloves to make an impression on a banana to see if the same pattern that was on Greineder's coat showed up on the fruit.