Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Killed 60 of His Patients - The Michael Swango Story

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Michael Swango is a former American physician and convicted serial killer believed to have caused the deaths of up to 60 individuals across the United States and Zimbabwe.

This is your fix. I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone face consequences. It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu, and Hulu on Disney Plus. So this guy is gonna poison a bunch of people, I guess for the lulls? Now the guy's name is Swongo and Swongo is around 30 when this story starts and he's a resident at the Ohio State Medical University Center. And Swongo, he's a psychopath.

He is obsessed with killing people. And one day in 1984, he decides to start murdering his own patients, like he'll sneak into a patient's room and inject them with stuff and they end up dying really quickly. And he does this to a bunch of patients. And over time, the nurses who work at the hospital, they get suspicious. Because a large percentage of his patients are dropping dead. And they suspect that he's behind these sudden deaths and they report him.

But the hospital can't really prove anything. And so they don't really do anything about it. And so Swango keeps going. And he decides to murder his own co-workers by poisoning them. And so he buys a bucket of takeout chicken and he puts arsenic in it and he brings it to work. And soon his co-workers eat it. And pretty quickly they start throwing up and having diarrhea. They get real sick. And this is not the first time he's suspected of poisoning people. So his co-workers know Swongo's weird ass is behind this. They just can't prove it.

And so they formally complained to the hospital. And the hospital knows that they can't keep ignoring all these complaints against Swongo. And so when his internship ends, the hospital doesn't let him stay on as a resident, which quietly forces him out. However, instead of banning him from medicine for life, like they should have done, for some reason, they actually give him a good recommendation, and that helps him get his medical license, and it allows him to get jobs elsewhere. And so this same year, 1984, Swango gets a job somewhere else. This time, it's as a paramedic at a county ambulance service in Illinois. And this is where he gets to. goes right back into doing what he loves. Poisoning people. Like one day he shows up to work with some

donuts laced with ant killer spray which has arsenic in it. And I guess he's like, hey guys, I got donuts for everyone. And his coworkers are like sweet. And they eat them. And soon enough, they're all sick and they're all throwing up. And to make it even creepier, after work, Swango calls one of them just to ask how bad the pain was and if they thought they might die. And this, of course, weirds the coworker out and he tells the rest of the co-workers, and now they're all suspicious of Swango. And so they decide that they're going to test to see if he really did poison them. So one day, they leave a pitcher of iced tea around the workplace to see if Swango does anything to it. And sure enough, when he's sure no one is looking,

he takes some ant killer out of his bag and he adds it to the tea. And so the co-workers take it and they have it tested, and boom, it tests positive for arsenic. And so they look through his stuff at work, and they find that there's ant killer in his bag, and they go straight to the police. And so the police, they get a search warrant, and they search Swango's place, and they find it's like a full-blown poison lab in there. They find arsenic and ricin and botulism and pesticides, all kinds of stuff. And so, bam, Swango is arrested.

Here's a mugshot. And so he takes a plea deal, and he takes a plea deal. and he gets sentenced to five years for poisoning his coworkers. Plus, his medical licenses in Illinois and Ohio are both revoked. And while he's in prison, his story blows up in the news, and he gets interviewed on a well-known news show called 2020. But see, prison isn't going to stop Swango. Because, you know, he's still a psychopath, and he's still obsessed with killing people.

In fact, his story gets even darker. So it's now 1992. And Swango decides to apply for residency at the University of South Dakota's medical school. And to cover his past record, he forges a document claiming that his prison sentence was only for six months, and it was only because he got into a bar fight. No big deal. And I guess the hospital doesn't look any further into it. And they're just like, cool, man, just, you know, don't fistfight anymore. Welcome aboard. And he gets the job. And so pretty quickly, he starts up his bullshit again because, you know, little by little, more patients around. him mysteriously start dying.

And eventually, once again, the hospital staff realizes what a weird fucking guy he is, and they get suspicious of all these deaths surrounding him. And then they finally start investigating his background more, and while they can't prove that he's killing his patients, they do discover that he lied about the real reason he went to prison. And so, boom, he gets fired. Then, by 1993, Swango ends up in New York, where he applies to a psychiatry residency at the state university. And on his application, of course, he forges some more documents to cover up his prison record

and the fact that he's been fired from multiple hospitals for poisoning people. And I guess this new hospital also doesn't perform a thorough background check. I guess they just look at his resume and they go, wow, you've worked in so many hospitals, you must have a lot of experience. And from here, he's transferred to a VA hospital in Northport, New York. And yeah, Bro continues killing patients there too. He injects three elderly patients with poison, and unfortunately, they die. And to make it even more sinister, when his coworkers try to save these patients, Swango tells them that the patient's family had signed Do Not Resuscitate orders,

and so the hospital staff just has to stand there and watch these patients die, because they were told not to resuscitate. Now again, it doesn't take long for his coworkers to start connecting the dots, and they notice his weird behavior, and they get suspicious of him. And around that same time, remember that 2020 interview Swango did back when he was in prison? Well, that episode gets re-aired on TV, and a bunch of people see it, and now everyone around him knows exactly who he really is. And so, boom, he gets fired. Not only that, one of the staff finally reports him to the police.

And so now he's a wanted man. So what does he do? Well, he straight up flees the country. And he goes all the way over to Zimbabwe in Africa. And there, of course, he doesn't tell anyone that he's a wanted criminal and he's able to get a job at a new hospital. And so we're in 1994 now. And of course, at this new hospital. hospital swango's working at, patients start dying there too. And by 1995, the staff starts getting suspicious of him and the fact that all these patients are dying around him and they actually suspend him while they investigate him. And so he eventually flees there and by 1997 he ends up in Saudi Arabia. And there he's somehow able to use a fake resume and get a job at yet another hospital. Man, hospitals

is really not very thorough during this time in their background checks, are they? Anyway, and so it seems like this dude is just going to keep jumping from country to country, killing people with poison, and the dude's just like never going to get caught. Until.

But here's the thing, though. Before Swango can properly resume his job in Saudi Arabia, he's required to get the right visa. And he has to do it back in the U.S. And I guess he thinks that the feds back home have just like given up on him. I mean, it has been several years now, so maybe they have. And so he flies back to the U.S. to get that visa. Here's the other thing, though. Unbeknownst to

him, the feds in the U.S. have not given up on him. They've been tracking him ever since he murdered those three elderly people back in Northport. And as soon as they realize that he's returned to the U.S., bam, they arrest him right at the airport. Here's his mugshot. And he's eventually convicted and he gets life in prison. Good. They suspected he killed somewhere around 60 people total. So he deserves life in prison.