The dangerously incompetent, and allegedly malicious, North Texas neurosurgeon we told you about in 2013 remains imprisoned, thanks in part to a haunting and revealing e-mail he wrote to one of his employees in 2011.

Christopher Duntsch, MD, who managed to continue practicing for years despite leaving a trail of paralyzed and dead patients in his wake, was arrested and jailed in Texas in July on 5 counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and a count of injuring an elderly person, the Dallas Morning News reports. He's also under investigation for events related to at least 10 other surgeries.

Last week, Dr. Duntsch, 44, sought to have his $600,000 bail reduced, but was denied after prosecutors presented a 2011 e-mail in which he told an employee, "I am ready to leave the love and kindness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold blooded killer." Prosecutors also argued that he was likely to flee Texas, noting that he's been shunned by medical peers and would likely be subject to intense media scrutiny if he remained.

The botched surgeries took place between 2011 and 2013. In the days before Dr. Duntsch's license was finally suspended, one of his physician peers, Randall Kirby, MD, pleaded with the sluggishly deliberate medical board, calling him a "sociopath" and saying he needed to be stopped "or he will continue (to) maim and kill innocent patients."

Jim Burger