Assassination Figure. He was an American physician from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was implicated in the assassination of U.S. Senator Huey Long at the Louisiana State Capitol on September 8, 1935. Born Carl Austin Weiss into a Roman Catholic household, his parents were Dr. Carl Adam Weiss, of Jewish ancestry, and Viola Maine. His grandfather, Professor Carl Theodore Weiss, a German immigrant arriving in 1870 at the age of 26, became an acclaimed New Orleans music teacher, who was praised by critics in the "New York Times". Following attending local schools with honors, he earned his bachelor's degree in 1925 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. After his postgraduate work in Vienna, Austria, he practiced in Paris, France at the American Hospital and was awarded internships in Vienna and at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1932, he returned to Baton Rouge and entered in his father's prominent eye, ear, nose, and throat medical practice. His father had Long for a patient once. Described as a dedicated professional perfectionist, he was listed in the medical building directory as "C. Austin Weiss" to distinguish himself from his father or grandfather. In 1933, he married Yvonne Louise Pavy and the couple had one son, Carl Austin Weiss Jr., born in 1935. Politically, his in-laws were part of an anti-Long faction as Weiss' father-in-law, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who served as the Sixteenth Judicial District Court state judge from St. Landry and Evangeline Parishes since 1910, was an outspoken critic of Long and his ruthless politics. His father-in-law did not seek reelection in 1936, after Long had the legislature gerrymander the seat to include a majority of pro-Long voters within the revised, yet maliciously manipulated, boundaries of Pavy's district. Besides this incident, members of the Pavy family and others had been terminated from their teaching positions in public schools for being outspoken against Long's regime. Even with this, Weiss had not been known to be politically motivated. At 9:22 PM on September 8, 1935, Weiss confronted and allegedly shot Huey Long in the abdomen while he was walking down a corridor at the Capitol building. Long had surgery and died two days later of a hemorrhage. According to the Weiss inquest, he was killed in the hallway by Long's bodyguards after being shot thirty-one times with .38 caliber automatic pistols. The five bodyguards were part of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, which became the Louisiana State Police the next year. Weiss, who had planned a surgery for the next day, came to the capitol building with a gun, knowing that he would be killed if he attempted to use it. Weiss's parents indicated that he had seemed quite happy earlier on the day that Long was killed, giving no warning of what was going to occur. Since the original investigation, there have been several other investigations done by private and governmental agencies and most not reaching the same conclusions. His family firmly believed that he was innocent of the crime. There was the theory that Weiss did not actually murder Senator Long, speculating that Long was killed by one of the bullets fired from a bodyguard's gun, which ricocheted after hitting the marble walls. Donald Pavy, a medical doctor and relative of Judge Pavy, conducted a scientific investigation and concluded in his 1999 book, "Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting," that Weiss did not shoot Long. A Louisiana State University Professor, T. Harry Williams authored "Huey Long," his 1970 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, stated "...no one had taken it very seriously, for unless all the witnesses to the event were lying or mistaken, only four shots had been fired while Huey was still in the corridor, the two from Weiss's pistol that struck Huey and (bodyguard, Murphy) Roden's wristwatch respectively and the two from the revolvers of Roden and (bodyguard, Elliot) Coleman that dropped Weiss. By the time the other guards had taken their guns out and started to fire, Huey had run from the scene," dismissing the theory that Long was killed by a stray bullet fired from one of the bodyguard guns. After the family's permission, Weiss's body was exhumed in 1991 to be studied by Professor James Starr, forensic expert at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. with an inconclusive report published in his 2005 book "A Voice for the Dead." These are theories from only three of the at least five textbooks covering the death of Senator Long. Shortly after the 1935 shooting, Weiss' gun became missing evidence until 1991 when the gun was found in an old safety deposit box of Brigadier General Louis F. Guerre, the head of Bureau of Criminal Identification until 1940. After the gun was returned by court order to Weiss' son, the gun was donated to be on display at the Old Capitol Building. For whatever reasons, thousands of people attended his funeral. Weiss' widow remarried in 1948 and his son became a successful orthopedic surgeon and businessman.