Dr. Diane Merrifield

A few feet away, the doctor's wife, Diane, held the elevator open.She shook her head and urged her husband to get going.
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Diane Merrifield came to Charleston from Louisville, Ky., where her father had sold heavy equipment, Dunn said.
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Dunn worked as a lab tech in Dr. Merrifield's office, Dunbar Medical Associates.
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Throughout his career, Dr. Merrifield held a number of posts in the medical community: chief of staff at Thomas Memorial Hospital; president of the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians; and medical director of the SunBridge nursing home.
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A few feet away, the doctor's wife, Diane, held the elevator open.She shook her head and urged her husband to get going.

But Dr. Merrifield kept talking.

"You keep asking me questions," he told the reporters."And I'm just not good at saying no."

Some say Dr. Merrifield was a man who didn't say no when he should have - with deadly consequences.
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Diane Merrifield came to Charleston from Louisville, Ky., where her father had sold heavy equipment, Dunn said.
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Dunn worked as a lab tech in Dr. Merrifield's office, Dunbar Medical Associates.
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Throughout his career, Dr. Merrifield held a number of posts in the medical community: chief of staff at Thomas Memorial Hospital; president of the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians; and medical director of the SunBridge nursing home.
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Esber Tweel, a retired Episcopalian priest, met Dr. Merrifield at a local gym more than 20 years ago.

Tweel has a rare disease that has attacked his muscles, leaving him in a wheelchair.A decade ago, Dr. Merrifield was the first to recognize Tweel's symptoms and urged him to get help.

"I found him as a physician to be a healer, not a high-tech analyst," Tweel said."If it hadn't been for him, I don't know where I would have been."

John and Diane Merrifield had two sons: Michael in 1975, and Patrick two years later.
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In the 1980s, Diane Merrifield taught etiquette classes to children, according to a feature article written about her in 2001 in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.
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Both John and Diane Merrifield converted to Catholicism as adults.
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"If anything, John and Diane gave too much," Dunn said.
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John and Diane Merrifield filed a protection order against their son.