Glenn Eschtruth
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Glenn J. Eschtruth, M.D. was a Methodist medical missionary who operated a mission hospital in Kapanga, Zaire]] (now Congo-Kinshasa) from 1960 with his wife, Lena Eschtruth. He was originally from St. Clair Shores, Michigan.
In early 1977 Soviet- and Cuban-directed mercenaries invaded Zaire from Angola. With a number of other missionaries and aid workers in the Kapanga region, Glenn and Lena were placed under house arrest by the invaders. When Zairian forces, with Western assistance, successfully repelled the invasion, Glenn, on or about 15 April 1977, was seized by the mercenaries as they evacuated Kapanga, and his body was found in a shallow grave not far from Kapanga. Eschtruth was the only American (in fact, the only foreign national) to be killed in the course of the invasion.
A protégé of Eschtruth at the mission hospital was Steven Hatfill (later Dr Hatfill), the "person of interest" linked in media reports to the 2001 anthrax attacks upon US Senators and media outlets, but never charged. Hatfill married Eschtruth's daughter Caroline in 1976. He often told colleagues that his father-in-law's brutal murder had "caused me to undertake some actions other people wouldn't understand".
