A doctor who performs abortions returned to work Friday less than 12 hours after being shot, and his accused attacker - a homemaker active in the pro-life movement - was in custody.
Wearing bandages on both arms, Dr. George Tiller arrived at Women's Health Care Services at 7 a.m., stopping outside to thank those who tended to him after Thursday evening's shooting.About a dozen pro-choice activists showed up at the clinic and heckled a half dozen pro-life protesters.
Rachelle Renae "Shelley" Shannon, 37, of Grants Pass, Ore., was arrested early Friday at the Oklahoma City airport in connection with the shooting.
She was later charged with attempted first-degree murder and, at a hearing in Oklahoma City, waived extradition to Wichita, about 160 miles north. Friday evening, she was being held in the Sedgwick County jail in Wichita. Bail wasn't immediately set.
Shannon told officers at the time of her arrest that "if there ever was a justifiable homicide, this would have been it," according to a police affidavit obtained by The Daily Oklahoman.
At the hearing, her attorney, public defender Bert Richard, said she had inquired about Tiller.
"She seemed relieved to hear that he had not been seriously injured and she inquired if he went to work today," Richard said.
Tiller, target of six weeks of protests in 1991 by Operation Rescue, was the second physician to be shot outside an abortion clinic this year. The first, Dr. David Gunn, was fatally shot in Florida.
Tiller, 52, had said during the 1991 protests he wouldn't allow pro-life forces to intimidate him or drive him out of business.