Tributes to Dr. Anthony Allee accumulated quickly on Facebook. He was a “great and kind guy,” one person wrote Sunday, and “a very caring psychiatrist,” another said. A nurse who had worked with Allee added: “I marveled at how much he loved helping his patients.”
Another friend, though, alluded to a darker side: “Tony Allee,” she posted, “was a fine person whose life took a tragic turn.”
Allee, 45, of Rome, died late Friday from a gunshot wound during a two-hour standoff with SWAT officers from the Floyd County Police Department. State medical examiners ruled his death a suicide.
The standoff began after three officers responded to reports of shots fired at a Floyd County residence, according to the Rome News-Tribune. Allee shot at the officers, who returned fire, police said.
SWAT officers tried to talk to Allee by telephone and in person, but he did not respond, the Rome newspaper reported. Officers fired tear gas canisters into the house and found Allee’s body when they entered.
Four years ago, Allee was a respected psychiatrist in his hometown. Allee, who graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1991, treated patients at three Rome hospitals and maintained an apparently impeccable reputation.
Since then, however, he had been convicted of stalking a former patient and harassing her husband. The state medical board had revoked his license. And, according to his own posts on Facebook, Allee had battled the kind of depression he once treated in others.
“Life has been kind of tough lately,” he wrote, “and it sure helps to talk to others and know others are out there.”
Allee’s troubles accelerated in 2007 when a long-time patient ended their relationship. Allee had treated the woman for obsessive compulsive disorder since 1996, according to records filed with the state medical board, and he had discussed numerous personal problems with the patient, including confrontations with his wife.
The records, which were reviewed by the AJC, show that Allee repeatedly sent personal e-mails to the patient during the summer of 2007.
“I know maybe it does not completely follow all of the rules,” he wrote in August 2007, “but I cannot help it, I love just seeing your name on my e-mail. … There has always been something very special and unique about you.”
Two days later, he wrote: “I hate to hear you are crying – I know it is wrong but it makes me want to hold you and tell you it will be OK and you are wonderful and appreciated.” Finally, he wrote, “I am going crazy just wondering if you are OK.”
After the patient asked him not to contact her again, Allee “lashed out” with threats against the woman and her husband, according to the medical board’s records.
At least once, records show, Allee told the woman: “There’s nothing more dangerous than a shrink who has nothing to lose.”
Allee pleaded guilty to stalking and harassment charges in Gordon County Superior Court in 2008. A judge placed him on probation for five years.
When the medical board investigated a complaint against him, Allee said he had been under “extreme stress” because of “a pending divorce, serious medical conditions, financial difficulties and inadequate office staff.”
The board, however, said that, as a psychiatrist, Allee “is in a profession where patients are in a vulnerable position and can be greatly harmed.”
The board revoked his license in February 2009.
On his Facebook page, Allee described his occupation as “retired physician.”
In another online forum over the weekend, a friend said Allee’s troubles had left him “overwhelmed.”
“A devastated life,” the friend wrote, “can sometimes drive one to do things that are not in one’s nature.”
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