By Steve Timko, Reno Gazette-Journal

A former Douglas County emergency room doctor, scheduled to be released Sunday from Nevada on second-degree kidnapping charges, was charged Friday with capital murder in the death of the ex-husband of the woman he kidnapped.

Arkansas authorities will seek the extradition of Richard Conte, 61, to face murder charges in the May 18, 2002, deaths of Carter Elliott, 49, and his employee, Timothy Robertson, 25, in Conway, Ark.

Both Conte and Elliott had been married to Lark Gathright-Elliott. Conte’s marriage to her in 2001 lasted three months.

A month after the pair were slain in Arkansas, Conte kidnapped Gathright-Elliott from Utah and took her to his Clear Creek Canyon subdivision home. A contract physician with Carson-Tahoe Hospital, he drugged her. Sheriff’s deputies rescued her.

Conte pleaded guilty in 2003 to second-degree kidnapping and to illegally administering a controlled substance and received a 15-year sentence.

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