True Crime All The Time - Michael Swango "Dr Death"

Episode Date: July 23, 2017

Michael Swango, also known as Dr Death, is an American doctor who is believed to be responsible for as many as 60 deaths throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Swango targeted both patients and colleagues in the United States and abroad as he changed jobs, states, and even countries.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Swango and how he was able to get away with his actions for such a long period of time. How did his known past not prevent him from getting job after job? How did the system fail to realize what Swango, who held such a powerful position within society, was doing through the years?Visit the shows website at truecrimeallthetime.com for all contact and merchandise information.You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 37 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime Mike Gibson, aka Ghibi. Gibby what is going on? Hey man. Hey man. I'm good. I'm fly. Yeah, you did kind of go back to the 60s right there for a little bit. I did. Didn't I? 60s slash 70s. That's right. All right. Gibbs. So let's kind of jump into Patreon. We've got a bunch of new supporters this week. We have Linda Nielsen. From the Nilsie Ratings.

From the Nielsen Ratings Corporation. Yeah. Jen Storms. Gabby Baez. Warchi. Warci. Just Warci. Wachie.

Jennifer Rogers. Ariel Melton. Jen Medeiros. Maderos. Who jumped out at our highest level. And the other thing about Jen that I really appreciated is she sent me a message with the phonetic spelling of her name. Well, I could use that on a lot of things.

So I probably still butchered it. Don't get me wrong. Probably did. But it helped out a lot, maybe, if I got it right. She'll let you know. She'll let me know. And then we have Steve Cantrell. And I think Steve found the podcast recently, but he's been all over it, man.

He's in the Facebook group. He's posting a lot. Probably sitting right here in the studio. Yeah, we got Steve in the studio. Now, I just mailed him out a bunch of T-Cat swag. So we appreciate Steve because, you know, I think he found us. He binged us. And we're hearing that a lot.

You know, people just finding the show and they're binging and then they're kind of jumping on board on social media. And that is so, so cool. Then we have Jen Rodriguez. She jumped out at our highest level as well. And then last but not least, we have Chris Ryan. So Gibbs, as always, we say, much appreciate. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. To both the new Patreon supporters and all of the people that continue to support us on Patreon. And on top of that, just the people that support us through social media, telling their friends, rating us on iTunes or whatever app they listen to. All of that is amazing for us and the show and is very much appreciated. They're right up there. They're my bartender. Up there as far as your favorite people?

Yeah. right up there with your bartender that's pretty high for you. Yeah, that's pretty high. Exactly. And then we have a new tradition that we started last week gives, which is just giving a shout out to a Patreon supporter that's been with us for a long time. And this week, that is April Hitchner. Yeah, April.

April's been with us, you know, from very close to the beginning. T-Cat Day 1. Yep. So we have to give a lot of love out to April. We appreciate it. And I want to give a great big shout out to our. writer, researcher, extraordinaire, Maggie. Maggie, thank you so much for everything you've been doing. It is very much appreciated. Let's talk a little bit about true crime all the time unsolved

Gibbs. We've got a fascinating case dropping at the same time that this case is going to drop. And it's about the tank lifts or tank lifts. Fascinating case. Because this is one of those ones. we've done a couple of these where the crime is solved and then it's unsolved because the person that they end up putting away, they find out later that they have to exonerate that person. So it's very interesting because we're talking about the crime. We're talking about the conviction. But then you go back and you talk about the underwinding of the conviction and then all the suspects. Exactly.

The other thing we have going on with true crime all the time is you're going to see a, The other thing that we have going on with true crime all the time unsolved is you're going to see a new logo that we're unveiling that closely aligns with our true crime all the time logo. So that's pretty cool. It is cool. All right, Gibbs got just a couple of quick voicemails we're going to play. Hi, Givie. Hi, Mike. It's Jessica calling from Arizona.

I just want to say I love the podcast. And I was listening to the end of Joel Riscan. And Mike, how could you cut out the part where she was saying? how much she loves Givie is not fair. So with that, hashtag Team Givie, we love you. Anyways, stay safe and keep your own time taken. So we love that voicemail from Jessica. Jessica, Team, hashtag Team Ghibit.

Everybody's hashtag Team Ghibi, and I'm very cool with that. But in my own defense, that was a great voicemail we had last week, but it was two, three minutes long. It was very long. So I had to cut out all the part. that was gushing about the love for Gibby. It had to be done. You know, I get very, very few things in my life.

It wasn't out of jealousy. It was out of production for the show. Okay. Anyway, thanks, Jessica. I wish I had something super clever to say, but I don't. So I, of course, love the podcast. I know that I've gotten in touch with you guys on Twitter and Facebook. So social media is great to keep up the good work, guys.

Julie is my go-to podcast. So stay safe and keep your own time ticking. So Gibbs, we love Katie. She's very active on social media. Yeah, a lot of back and forth with Katie. And Katie made a really good point. You don't have to have a super clever voicemail. I mean, what she said was perfect.

Love it. Supports the show, keep your own time ticking. We love to hear that stuff. And don't worry, we won't bombard you with a bunch of voicemails. We know you want to hear the case, but we do want to play some of them. Yeah, a couple, an episode I think is perfect. Yep. All right, Gibbs.

So speaking of that, it's a good segue. Let's jump into this case of Joseph Michael Swango, born in Tacoma, Washington, October 21st, 1954, but he actually grew up in Quincy, Illinois. Parents, Muriel, and John Swango. And his name is Joseph Michael Swango, but I'm going to go with Michael Swango. We just put the whole thing in there, because. Because as a killer or serial killer, right, you have to say all three names to differentiate between the other Michael swangos of the world.

You don't want to give those people a bad name at all. So Michael was the middle child out of three other brothers. So you got three male swangos running around. And his mother from a very early age was telling Michael that he was going to be the most gifted of everybody. So for whatever reason, it seemed like to me, Gibbs, that he was her favorite. Sounds like it. And because of that, you have to talk about, you know, what does that do to a kid's ego? It's got to be pumped sky high, right? You would think. I was a middle kid. I was named Michael. Look how I turned out. And you're a suspect. And I'm a suspect. So there you go. And I had an older and

younger brother. So I'm fitting the profile. That's the problem. You fit so many profiles, I do. It's scary. I'll be locked up one day, I guess. Well, I hope not because I don't know how you do a podcast with me here in the studio and you in prison. So the patriarch of the Swango family was an army officer. And whenever you have this Gibbs, you end up having the situation where the family is moving around a lot, right? That happens kind of being in the army. It's just part of life. Especially back then. They really moved them around a lot. And so the family settles down in Quincy in 1968. And this is, so Michael's 14 years old at this point.

And a couple of things about the dad. He was very strict and he ran the house like a military operation. And I think you get that a lot. I've heard that about people in the military. I think people in general run their household, how they run their business or where they work at it, you know, if they're in that type of position. You could.

Yeah. But especially with military people, it's so regimented. You get into that mindset. It has to carry over into your family life. I would think it would. I think it would be hard to separate. Now, the other fact is that the dad was an alcoholic. And so you mix that, right, the drinking, the running of the household in a very strict manner,

that can cause some issues. And then you have the mom who is probably running the household and maybe trying to diffuse some of that, but just keeping the kids moving down the right path. So Swango attends Christian Brothers High School. And what's interesting about this Gibbs is that he is the only one of the three. His other two brothers attended public school. Well, his mom favored him. And it goes back to that, right?

She saw something in him from an early age and said, hey, you're going to be the one. You're going to be the one to shine. And so we're going to give you every opportunity. And your brothers are going to go to public school. And you're going to go to this other school and thrive. I wonder what the other kids thought about that. So while in school, he was in the band, played the clarinet. I think he was pretty gifted in a lot of areas because he could sing.

He could play the piano. He could play other instruments, read music. But could he dance? I don't know. And that's key. That's key. If you can't dance. Why even bother?

Forget it. It's right. Sit back down. But it was said that he actually toured with this in college with an ensemble playing the clarinet. So he must have been pretty good. Now, one point, Swango is tested and it comes out that his IQ is 160. Now, Gibbs, that's even higher than yours.

Barely. Barely, but higher than you. than yours. So we're talking about a very intelligent individual here. But I had a rough day that day. When you took your test? Yeah. I didn't get my full eight hours in sleep in my big breakfast in the morning. So if you retook it on what we call full gibby. Yeah, all the charts. You'd probably be in the 170s, you think? Is that the max? No, I don't know. Hey, neither one of us are smart enough to know what the max is. Yeah. But getting back to Swango, you know, just kind of talking about. You know, just kind of talking his early life. I mean, he was named as the high school student of the year by this national

merit organization. That's impressive. No, it is. Especially if there's more than a dozen kids in your class. I don't think this was just his class. I think this extended, I don't know how far, because he was a valedictorian of his high school. Oh, so this is like even bigger than that. Yeah, I'm thinking this extended out over, I don't want to say the whole country, but a much larger area. I just, I say it because I want to point out that this is the type of intelligence. This is the type of student that we're talking about. Sure. No doubt about it.

He's gifted. Yeah. It's germane to the story, word of the day, because of what's going to come down the pike, right? Right. So Gibbs, Swango ends up attending Milliken University. This is in Decatur, Illinois, on a full music scholarship. He's very smart.

probably could have received an academic scholarship as well, I would think. Yeah. But he's also musically talented and ends up getting a full ride on those abilities. Very high grades in the first couple of years that he was in college. But something happens about halfway through his college career. He has a girlfriend, but that relationship ends. And the way that it ends, somehow, I don't have all the details on this Gibbs,

but it ends in a way that he becomes quote unquote a social reject. And I hate to, I don't know if that's the right term to use, but he's ostracized in some way because of this breakup. So this is, this is like germane to the story now. It is germane. But going back to his childhood, right,

he didn't have a, what I would say was a bad childhood. You and I talk about this all the time. He had a, what was probably a very strict upbringing, but we're not talking about physical abuse. We're not talking about head trauma. We're not talking about a lot of the things that you and I talk about

in the childhoods of killers. But he does start to change while he's in college. And he just ends up quitting music and school altogether because of this incident. I don't want to make a huge deal out of it, but that had to have been some. something very traumatic to him to cause this guy who's going down this academic path, this musical path and he's doing great in school to all of a sudden say, you know what?

I quit. And he ends up joining the Marines. So how different can you get from going from life and academia and, you know, playing music and all this kind of stuff to the next thing you know, in boot camp. Well, boot camp to him was probably not too much different than living at home with, you know, his military dad. Well, that's a great point. Yeah, kind of germane there. It's very germane. No, no, it is a good point, but it's still miles away from the path that he was on. So while in the Marines, he ends up developing some sharpshooting skills, but I think he quickly

realizes that he doesn't really want a military career. And once his service ends, he decides he wants to go back to college. And now he wants to focus on being a doctor. So he gets his honorable discharge from the Marines in 1976. And he returns to Illinois and begins attending Quincy College working towards a degree in chemistry and biology, right? Going down the path of becoming a doctor. Swango does something very strange in submitting his application to Quincy College, Gibbs, because he starts to lie about his military history. And in some of the forms that he submitted, he indicates that he earned a bronze star and a purple heart while he was in the Marines. So Gibbs, we're not talking about some little honors or medals, right? The bronze star and the

Purple Heart are pretty prestigious when it comes to military service. You know, the bronze star is what you get for some type of heroic action, heroic service while you're in the military. And then a Purple Heart is what you get when you suffer some type of injury while in combat or some people get it posthumously, right, because they died in combat. Right. But military people take the. very seriously.

This is not something that you would want to say that you received if you really hadn't. It's not cool. No, not cool at all because, you know, there are veterans that have received these honors or these medals that did something, you know, put their life on the line and received these because of that heroic actions or they were injured, you know, they sacrificed. And because of that, they were given these. medals. So for somebody to come along and and either act like they got them or pretend that they got them, man, you don't want to come face to face with a, with a veteran and have that come out.

No. They're going to put you on your ass real quick, I would think. Really fast. But let's talk Gibbs about why would somebody do this? What would be the impetus behind wanting to lie about this fact? Because he actually did have a military record. He didn't have to lie about that part. What he's lying about or what he's pumping up is how distinguished that military service actually was. And the only thing that I can think of is to go back to what his mom had put into his head when he was younger, that he was going to be the superstar, right? So he had a military career. Let's say it was rather ordinary.

And maybe that's not good enough for Michael Swango. So he has to say, yeah, I had the military career, but it was superlative. because I did this and I received X. I don't know, Gibbs. What do you think? Does that seem logical? Yeah, I'm in line with that. So we get into Swango's senior year of college.

And it's at this point that he's writing his chemistry thesis. And what he chooses to write about is the death of a Bulgarian writer named Georgie Markov. And Markov was poisoned, murdered through the year. use of a pellet that contained ricin. And this is, I don't know if you've ever heard this story, Gibbs. It's actually a pretty famous story in the world of espionage. Yeah, I actually have heard it. Because somebody's walking along.

They've got this umbrella. And it said that it was somebody from the Bulgarian secret police. But this umbrella had been altered to be able to shoot this pellet, right? So they get up right next to him, shoot this pellet into his lapel. leg and anybody that knows anything about ricin, that's some deadly shit. That will kill you. But the reason why we're talking about it, Gibbs, is because ultimately, swango is going to be a poisoner. And a lot of people will tie this back to the point where he would become very obsessed with poisons. And even more specifically, different types of poisons that could be used as what they would

call a silent killer, right? These are poisons that can't be detected by the normal tests. And the people that die at the hands of these types of poisons, a lot of the time, it just ends up looking like they died of natural causes. So Swango graduates Sumacumlaughty from Quincy in 1979. He earned a bunch of awards. He did really well, right? This is a smart guy. These are real real awards. Yes, these he actually earned. And after graduation, this is when he makes the decision, he's going to go to medical school. But getting into medical school in the 1980s was not the easiest thing to do. And the reason for this is because there were a lot of applicants back in the 80s trying to get into different medical schools, more applicants than they had spaces. But Swango is able to

get in to Southern Illinois University. And there are varying accounts of his time at Southern Illinois because a lot of people came out and said he was very serious about his academic studies, but there was also rumblings that he was not quite as ethical as you would think a person in his position would be. We're talking about allegedly taking shortcuts during tests, not doing all of the work needed for his group projects. This is not the type of reputation you want to have while you're in medical school. Anything to do with the medical discipline, right? The one thing you don't want to have attached to it is the word unethical. Never good. Never good. Usually not good in most fields, I guess, I would say. So during Swango's very first

year of medical school, he ends up getting a job as an ambulance driver. And because of this job, it was said that he didn't have a lot of interaction with his classmates, he was alienated, and this may have led to some of the, what we talked about, people saying he didn't participate. Again, he's working a job and trying to go to school. But this is not any job, right? This is not, and I don't want to put down any jobs, but being an ambulance driver is a very stressful job. Being in medical school is very stressful. So add those two components together, they don't seem to mix well.

It's not a good formula. No, I mean, you would think if you're going to get a job, get something with a little less stress because you're already stressed to the max just trying to get through medical school. So Gibbs, we fast forward to Swango's third year of medical school. And this is when he would start to have interactions with patients. And the reason I bring that up is because at least five, patients died during this time frame coinciding with the fact that they had received a visit from Michael Swango.

Coincidence? I don't know Donald Harvey, is it? Right. Because, you know, you bring up Donald Harvey, this is a, we got some Donald Harveyish situations that are going to occur. But I don't think anybody had any real suspicions of Swango at this point. But what was said was that classmates, knew about it and they joked about it to the point gives that they they started calling him

double oh swango basically saying he had a license to kill so i don't i don't think they thought that he had anything to do with these murders but they're joking about it with him saying hey you know these people died while you were around you're tainted man exactly students that attended medical school with Swango would later come out and say that the general consensus on him was that he was lazy, he was incompetent,

and he was strange. I mean, those are not three words that I would want associated with me in any form or function Gibbs. No, because now you are getting germane to the story. It's very germane.

Very. And a little bit Tito. A little bit Tito. We're not yet to Michael. Not yet. And we probably won't get to Janet. No. Just germane.

Just germane. Jackson. So one thing we have to talk about is Swango developed an obsession with violent deaths. And this occurred pretty early in life. He was obsessed with stories about the Holocaust. I mean, it was said Gibbs that he even collected pictures from the death camps in Nazi Germany. That's sick. Seriously.

That is sick. Because those are pictures most people have seen. And when you see them, you know that that's not something you ever want to see again. Some of those pictures that came out from that time frame are some of the most horrific things that I've ever seen. But that's not the end of it because Swango kept a scrapbook. And other pictures in the scrapbook were from fatal car wrecks. and different horrific crimes. So to make this even more strange,

it comes out that his mom is giving him some of these pictures. She knows he's keeping this scrapbook. And she's saying, here, I ran across this gory picture. You might want to add this to your scrapbook. So she's just being a loving, caring mom. I know you have a little hobby of collecting gory pictures. And I found this one for you. and I'd just like to give it to you to add to your collection.

Happy birthday, son. Yeah, but that's strange. So we kind of jumped back in time there to talk about these scrapbooks. You know, getting back into the medical school, he brought these scrapbooks with him and was known to regularly take them out, go through them, pour through them, looking at these pictures. And all it does is point to the fact that Michael Swango had some type of obsession with violence and death. Now, we talked about him working as an ambulance driver and this job

Gibbs is going to allow him to add to his scrapbook. I was just thinking that. Because what better job if you want to see gore and, you know, car accidents and people being hurt. And if you have an obsession with that, what better job can you have as an ambulance driver? You're getting on the scene. And hell, he could have had like a little pocket camera. He could have been taking pictures for himself for all I know. So in his last year of medical school, Swango has a mentor that is a neurosurgeon. And Michael starts sending applications out for internships and residency programs, as you would do. And this mentor of his is actually writing a bunch of letters on his behalf saying what a gifted student he is and what he's going to be.

this great doctor. What ends up happening is Swango gets a residency in neurosurgery at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. But the one thing I found interesting about this Gibbs is he's still finishing out his last year, but he knows he has this residency waiting on him in Iowa City at the University of Iowa. But as soon as he learns about this, he does, he stopped showing up for some of his shifts in school. He's like, I got it. I don't need this anymore. Right.

So what he's supposed to be doing during this last year of medical school is, you know, watching specific surgeries, learning techniques. And he's skipping out on some of this stuff. And these are things that he's going to need as he jumps forward into this residency. So Gibbs, we have to talk about the doctor that was in. charge of watching Swango while he was in school. Now, he hasn't made it to the residency yet. He's still in finishing up medical school at Southern Illinois. And this doctor's not liking the way that Swango is going through his last year of medical school. And there's one story in particular that comes out

about an assignment that Swango has where he's supposed to do an examination on. on a woman that's about ready to have a C-section. So he's supposed to do the examination and then work up a history. But what ends up happening is the doctor who's keeping an eye on Swango sees him go in to the woman's room and sees him come out about 10 minutes later. And then the doctor gets this unbelievably detailed report from Swango on the patient. And the doctor knows there's no way in 10 minutes that Swango could have vetted out all of this information and that the majority of it was made up. I mean, this guy is just cutting corners left and right.

So when this all comes out, the doctor's upset with Swango and decides that she's not going to let him graduate because of this. And it ends up in a battle with the school administration. And you've got people on both sides. Yes, they get an attorney. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a big deal. So you've got the doctor writing letters saying he's incompetent.

Some of his peers come forward and say that he should be expelled. The double, double swango. Double swango should be expelled. Like you said, he hires a lawyer. But what ends up happening, Gibbs? And this happens in a lot of cases where the college becomes so worried about being sued by Michael Swango that they cave in and agree to a compromise. They're going to give him one more year and they lay down this set of rules for him to follow. And if he does, they'll let him

graduate. So the one thing that this does gives, it causes Swongo to lose his residency in Iowa. But the other thing that it causes, it causes him to refocus on getting through this medical school. And he does. And he starts to reapply to a bunch of other residency programs. And despite all of this trouble that he's had, poor evaluations, all of these things, he's able to get a surgical internship at Ohio State University. The Ohio State University, go Buckeyes. O.H. I. I. That's right.

Gib and I are about two hours from Ohio State. Much closer in our heart, though. So Gibbs, we know Swango is smart. He didn't apply himself. And then all of a sudden he's forced into a situation where he has to. He gets this residency program at Ohio State. And one of the most interesting facts about it is that it came down to 60 applicants for this program. And he was the one that was chosen.

And the reason for this that would come out from several people is that he just killed it in the personal interview section. But is that surprising? Because we talk about a lot of serial killers being con men. We already talked about Swango starting to con about his military service. So I think because of his intellect, he was able to snow people. So he gets to Ohio State. This is 1983. And it's not long after he gets there, that there is a bunch of unexplained deaths of people that were pretty healthy Gibbs. I mean, these are not, so a little different from when we talked about Donald Harvey, right? Because Donald Harvey was working with people that were very, very ill. He would say he was ending their suffering by taking their life. So these deaths are people that were pretty healthy

before Swongo started taking care of them. And one of the patients would tell a nurse that Michael Swango had injected something into her right before she became very ill. And this is where we really start to get into it, Gives, because you've got nurses telling hospital administration pretty quickly about their concerns on Michael Swango. You know, he's in patients' rooms at very strange times. There were a number of times where patients were found either dead or to the point of almost dead right after Swango had left the room. And because of this, the hospital launches an investigation. But like we talk about in a lot of cases, it doesn't go anywhere because a lot of the eyewitnesses end up getting discredited. and the whole thing is kind of,

I don't want to say it's swept under the rug, but nothing comes out of it. So as a result of the investigation, swango is basically cleared. And the only thing they do to him is they moving to a different area of the hospital. It's like just getting your wrist slap, you know? Yeah, slap on the wrist.

And I know, I know you hate that because we see it so often. As soon as he moves to this new area of the hospital, guess what? We've got more. People end up dying. Yeah, he can't control himself. No, he can't at this point. And it's not just the deaths, right?

There were deaths during this point in Swango's career, but there was a whole bunch of people that were made sick. It's just unproportionate to what you would normally see in those type of facilities. So I'm sure, you know, it jumped out to his peers. Much more so than in the case of Donald Harvey, and I don't want to keep harping on Harvey, but those individuals that he killed, they were very,

very ill. Like I said, a lot of those deaths were easily looked at as they were close to dying. Right. And so when they did pass away, there wasn't so much suspicion. But this case is different.

These people were not dying or near death. And so for them to end up passing away, It's went in for a hangnail removal. I mean, they had to have, some of this stuff had to have been looked at as unbelievably mysterious. Yeah, exactly. So around that same time, Mike, Swango went out and got some chicken for a bunch of people, and they all got sick, except he didn't get sick, which is kind of suspicious when you go out to get chicken for everybody on the floor, and they all get sick.

And you eat some of the chicken with them, but you don't get sick. That's a problem. But it's telling me that, you know, again, this guy's very intelligent. So did he poison all the pieces of chicken except for the ones that he knew he was going to eat? And he knew which ones those were. Devious, man. That is. He didn't like patience.

He didn't like peers. And this is not going to be the last time. We're going to be talking about Swango poisoning co-workers because this is the thing. He didn't just go after patience. He went after his coworkers as well. So what happens at Ohio State is after that first year, they decide that they're not going to invite him back for the second year of residency. I mean, obviously, a lot of shit went down already.

And I think they must have known that something was going on with Michael Swango. And they said, you know what? We just don't want you back. So he's getting ready to move back to Quincy, Illinois. which he ultimately ends up doing. But before that, he somehow gets his license to practice medicine from the Ohio State Medical Board. And he gets that approved in late 1984.

So he moves back to Quincy, lies to his parents and all of his friends, doesn't tell him that he wasn't invited back, you know, tells him that he just couldn't get along with the doctors and that's the reason why he's not going back. But what he does is he starts working again for. another ambulance company. He likes that gore. He does. And so at this point, he's working as an EMT.

But one of the issues is they didn't do a background check on him. So a lot of the issues that he had had in the past were not uncovered. Right. So he was fired from that first ambulance company for some issues. Those didn't surface before he got hired. And it's pretty quickly with this new ambulance company. company Gibbs that he gets a reputation as a strange dude. You know, very strange behavior.

He starts to bring out his scrapbooks again. Oh, those are always fun at lunchtime. Yeah, you know, that's what you want to see your coworker doing while you're all sitting around eating lunch. And now he's not keeping them to himself. He's actually showing coworkers his scrapbooks and bragging about them, acting like, you know, they're the greatest thing he's put together. together. The other thing that would come out from coworkers at this ambulance company is that

he made a lot of inappropriate comments about death and other people dying, almost like he was, I don't want to say excited by it, but something along those lines. They knew it wasn't normal. And his fellow co-workers were, I guess, uncomfortable. I don't know how else to say it gives. They didn't want to be around him. Well, bad things happen when people were around them. Well, that's true. I think they were just creeped out by his odd behavior. So at one point, Swango starts bringing donuts in for his co-workers.

Now, they're not going to know this, but we know this. Don't eat anything that Michael Swango brings in. Never. Because it's not going to turn out well for you. No surprise. Everyone gets violently ill to the point where several people had to, to go to the hospital because he had poisoned these donuts. So everyone's suspicious. They end up having the food tested and it comes back positive for poison. And this sparks a whole police

investigation. They get a search warrant for Swongo's home. And when they get inside, they find a bunch of drugs and they find a whole bunch of ant poison containers. Swango gets arrested and he gets charged with battery. And in August of 85, he ends up getting convicted of aggravated battery. And he gets five years in prison for this. And on top of that, he loses his medical license in both Ohio and Illinois. Now, as part of this investigation they did of putting him on trial, they start digging into his past.

And they start to find out about some of these incidences of patients, dying when he was around. This is back at Ohio State. And at some point, the news agencies start to get wind of this story. And they're putting pressure on the university to disclose information. And ultimately, what comes out of this investigation is that they felt like the hospital should have reported some of these incidents to the police. And then the police could have decided if any criminal charges

should have been brought. At one point Gibbs, prosecutors in Ohio, they thought about charging Swango with murder based on some of the things that came out of this investigation. The problem was they didn't have the evidence because I don't think a lot of the records of that initial investigation, if that's what you want to call it, back when he was at Ohio State, was still around. So ultimately what came out of it was, prosecutors, in Ohio, they just felt like they didn't have enough evidence to charge him, even though I think they thought he was guilty of some murders back when he was at Ohio State. So Swango only ends up serving two years of his five-year sentence. He gets released in August of 1987. Now, before going

to prison, Swango had had a girlfriend, and she actually stuck with him during these two years while he was in prison. They end up moving together to Hampton, Virginia. So Swan goes in Virginia. He applies for a medical license, but it ends up getting denied. So that's the good thing. They looked back through his criminal record and said, hey, you ain't getting a license here in Virginia. Yeah, we're not going to do that, bud. So he ends up taking a job as a counselor working for the state.

But again, weird, strange things start happening with coworkers. They start getting nauseous. They're having severe headaches. He's also back to looking up articles and putting him in his scrapbook when he's supposed to be working. Well, he's like volume 10 of the scrapbook now. He's got to be. So a lot of strange behavior. And this results in him being asked to leave in May of 1989.

From there, he gets a job as a lab technician in Newport News, Virginia. He also ends up getting married. But that relationship's not going to last very long at all. Basically about two years, they end up divorcing in 91. So Gibbs, swangos at this new company. And again, very quickly, co-workers, including the president of the company, they start to get stomach cramps, nausea, muscle weakness. Obviously, swango is poisoning these people.

And one of the executives of the company, he ends up going to the hospital and was almost like comatose because of this severe poisoning. But while he's at this company, they don't put it together that it's him. He's going to escape before they find out, aren't they? Yeah, because he leaves and he decides that he wants to be a doctor. So again, he starts applying for residency positions. But he's got this past Gibbs that he can't escape. And so what Michael Swongo ends up doing is legally changing his name in 1990 to David Jackson Adams.

Jackson. Action Jackson. So he applies for a residency program at the Ohio Valley Medical Center. And this is in Wheeling, West Virginia. And the chief of medicine there is talking to Swongo. And he's questioning him about why his medical license had been suspended. and then ultimately revoked. And Swango is able to lie convincingly enough

and tell the chief of medicine that, because obviously he can't come out and say, yeah, hey, I poisoned a bunch of people, tenuously linked to the death of a number of people in a bunch of different institutions. He can't say that. So what he says is that he was involved in some kind of fight in a restaurant. That's how he got the battery charge.

And that's why his license got revoked. But the doctor doesn't take him at his word, right? He's got to validate this stuff. So what Swango ends up doing is falsifying some documents that convinced the doctor that he was convicted of battery for getting in a fight. But he doesn't stop there. Swongo also types up a letter from the governor of Virginia stating that his application for restoration. of civil rights has been approved. So basically what this means is that he was a felon, a convicted felon, and because of that,

he lost some rights. But now he has a piece of paper, you know, it's falsified, but he has a piece of paper from the governor saying that all of his rights have been restored. So basically like sponge in his record. Exactly. He doesn't talk about felonies or anything. He's good to go. Let me practice.

If you were to do some. real digging, you would find out that's not the case, but he has what appears to be official documents. But luckily, the chief of medicine is not willing to go on that alone. And he ends up verifying this with the authorities. And it pretty quickly comes back that this is all bullshit. And because of that, he rejects Swango. His criminal past is still intact. He finds all of this stuff out. So good on him because how many stories have we covered Gibbs where that was not the case, right? People were able to get by with conning and Swango went to great lengths to try to do it, but this, this chief of medicine at the hospital was doing his due diligence and found him out.

But this doesn't stop Swango because he just goes to apply in South Dakota at the University of South Dakota and he ends up getting accepted this time. He goes through a series of personal interviews. They don't uncover his past. So he gets accepted. Dream coming true. Exactly. So Gibbs, we talked about Swango being accepted into this residency program at the University of South Dakota. At this same time, he meets a woman named Kristen Kinney. And at this point, she's engaged to be married to another man. but she calls off this engagement to date swango but somehow her friends get some information about swango's past and they tell christin this she can't put it together with the person that she knows to be swango well that makes sense right we talk about and we said it earlier

these guys are pretty good con men yeah when they want to be they can really turn it on yeah and she's obviously infatuated with him because when he gets this resolution residency in South Dakota, she agrees to move there with him. And they end up living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She gets a job at a local hospital. He starts his residency at the University of South Dakota. And he changes his ways a little bit here because at this point, he stops talking about his obsessions with violence. He's not pulling out the scrapbook and showing people all of his strange photos, he stops doing some of the things that had caused him problems at his previous jobs. And actually, things are working out really well for the two of them. But it would come out that

the university thought that Swango was an excellent doctor. So he is getting this reputation now that he had never gotten before, right? People think he's actually good at what he's doing. But remember, Swango doesn't have a license. This is what's so strange about the whole thing. And what is even stranger is that he decides that he's going to try to join the AMA, the American Medical Association. But that seems like a strange thing to do, Gibbs, right? When you're living what is essentially a con man type of life to apply to the medical

Association, you know they're going to do a thorough background check. Well, at least you hope they would. Well, they do. And what comes out is all of his past convictions. They reach out to the University of South Dakota and they tell them about all the issues from Swango's past. At the same time, they're mentioning the suspicious deaths of the patients that we talked about that Swongo had been around in the past. and how no criminal charges had ever come up around those. So because of all of this, Gibbs, Swango has to resign again.

And it's probably starting to become pretty clear that he's never going to become a doctor. Now, Kristen at this point, even though I think some of her friends had hinted that they thought something was wrong with him or he might have had a past, she's pretty shocked to find out all of these things. And over the next few months, Kristen begins to suffer violent headaches. And she changes drastically. At one point, she ends up being placed into a hospital after police find her wandering around on the street confused. So something's going on with her. Yeah, something's up for sure.

I mean, part of this is all the stuff. that's coming out publicly about swango. You know, I'm sure the stress levels are up. I mean, who knows what he's doing to her anyway. I mean, knowing what he's done to other people, who knows what he's doing with her? I don't know, is he slowly poisoning her? Who knows?

She could be. I don't know, but she's got massive headaches. At the very least, she's probably unbelievably humiliated. Oh, for sure. Because this is now public. right it hasn't it hasn't been as public in the past but she was warned right yeah i don't know to what extent her friends how much they actually knew right but she remember she just said that's not that's not the swango i knew right but to your point gibbs she's having these headaches she had

never experienced anything like this and i think in the beginning she thought they were due to all of this stress that she was feeling around what was coming out about about her boyfriend, but at some point, knowing what she finds out, she starts to wonder deep down if, like you said, Swango was putting something in her food. Keep in mind, she was a nurse. Yeah, but that still, it doesn't matter, right? I mean, he could poison her with something that she would just never know. I've been putting shit in your drinks for years.

I know, man. I barely make it through. You used to have a full set of hair when I met you. But ultimately, she leaves Swango, goes back to her parents' house. Miraculously, the headache stopped. So that's got to tell you something. But ultimately gives Kristen is not able to reconcile all of these things that are going on. And she ends up taking her own life, committing suicide.

And she leaves behind a note addressed to her mom, talking about how much that she loves her mom, but that she just couldn't go on. The day to day was just too hard. But there's also a part on this note addressed to Swango. And it talks about how much she loves him, that he's the most precious thing in her life. So I don't know, it's just, it's hard to wrap your head around.

But it's sad that, you know, she committed suicide. And I have to wonder, Gibbs, if she had never met Michael Swung. would this have happened? I always think about things like that. Yeah. I don't really know.

I don't think so, but I don't know 100%. So Gibbs, apparently, after Kristen had left Swango, they'd been living apart for three or four months, but they'd been talking on the phone. And during their final conversation, she found out that Swango had taken all of her money

out of her accounts. And she was basically, penniless at that point. So again, I don't know how much that contributed to the suicide. I think it would have a somewhat. I think so. But then again, I go back to why in the suicide note, say, I love you. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe she didn't write the note. I think they probably would have been able to figure that out by handwriting. Okay. So at this point Gibbs, Swongo is off to New York.

And somehow he's able to lie his way into another residency program. And this one is a psychiatric residency program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. But in the interview for this one, his conviction comes up again back in Illinois. And he used that same restaurant fight alibi. and he also produced some of the forged documentation that we talked about earlier. But this time, no one bothers to go further and check all this stuff out. If they had done this, they would have realized that, you know, here's a doctor with no license, but they don't. So they hire him as if he had a license.

But Gibbs, it is so quick into Swango starting this new job. I mean, we're talking about the first night and his very first patient dies that same night just after Swango has taken over this person's care. He was wasting no time, man. So this man was named Dominic Buffalino. And after he died, his wife, Teresa, not understanding how her husband could have died after going to the hospital with what was, you know, some type of mild, what they thought was mild. pneumonia. So she goes straight to the hospital administration. She can't reconcile the fact that somehow her husband has died. And basically what happened was he died due to paralysis of the heart and other organs. Her going to the administration and all this, it takes a while. Right. And Swango's still at

the hospital. And what happens is other relatives start coming forward because more people have died. And all of these people are dying of heart failure after the same type of paralysis of the heart and other organs. And what is telling about all of these cases is that it's Michael Swango who is placing the do not resuscitate order on every single one of these people. So basically, he is saying that there's nothing else that can be done with these individuals. they're going to die. And then you have an elderly patient by the name of Baron Harris, comes in to the hospital,

is being treated by Michael Swango. One night she comes in to check on her husband, and what she sees is Swongo injecting something into her husband's neck. She asked the doctor what he's doing or what he's putting in, and he says vitamins. All right, a little strange. And she must have thought it was strange because she starts talking to the nurses and asking them about this shot that the doctor had given her husband. The nurses come back and say, doctors don't give shots.

That's what we nurses do. And it's just a few days later Gibbs that Baron Harris starts to go downhill very quickly. His condition worsens. he ends up on a respirator and ultimately in a coma. And again, Swango puts a DNR on Baron Harris. And his wife wants to know why the hell he's doing that. Right, sure. And he basically comes back and says,

because there's nothing else we can do for him. So you have to imagine this. I mean, these are not people that have come in with life-threatening situations. Yeah, what the heck's going on? We came in for a blank and now he's gone. Right. Or are there in a situation where you're saying that there's nothing else we can do? Don't bother to resuscitate.

But he's trying to cover his tracks. I mean, clearly we get that. No, you're right, Gibbs. He is trying to cover his tracks. But people are on to him big time. Right? You've got families that are not just going to say, oh, okay, well, I get it. we came in because nothing was seriously wrong.

And the next thing you know, my husband's heart was paralyzed and he ended up dying. I mean, nobody in their right mind is going to stand for that. No. I mean, even the hospital knows that's going to be a problem. Lawsuits. They're going to know real soon. So at the same time that this is going on, what you have is the parents of Kristen Kenny who had committed suicide.

We talked about that. They feel like Swango was responsible for that in some way. Not saying that he murdered her, but more so that maybe he had pushed her to it. So she's grieving. She's upset at Swango because he thinks that in some way he had something to do with her daughter dying. She ends up going to New York and talking to the folks there at the hospital because she had done a whole bunch of digging and found out. his past. So ultimately the staff at the at his the hospital days at now, they get alerted to all of this and he ends up getting fired. And at one point before the firing, they're having a

conversation with him asking him about his prior conviction. And he ends up admitting the truth that it wasn't because of a fight. It was because he had poisoned the other paramedics that he worked with. So he's fired and all of a sudden the media descends and we go back to the wife of Baron Harris. She's leading a charge at this point, Gibb, saying, hey, anybody that had a loved one who was under the care of Dr. Michael Swango, you better come forward because something really bad happened. You know, this is what she thinks. And of course, she's right. Now, the Justice Department comes in because they're going to start investigating, right? This is all over the news.

You've got all kinds of people saying, hey, this doctor may have murdered people. But the problem is, Swango's gone. He's fled in New York and agents can't find him. They don't know where he is. They're following up on all kinds of different leads, but several months go by and they still can't find him. So we're talking about mid-1994, and this is when they finally get some information on him. He resurfaces in Atlanta, and he had assumed the name Jack Kirk, and he's working at a company in Atlanta, and he's living in Atlanta with a guy that he had known from his past.

So this is kind of how he's been able to stay off the radar for a little bit, right? He's changed his name, or he's working under an assumed name. and he's staying with the friend. Agents are keeping an eye on him. They've got surveillance, but they find out something Gibbs is very unsettling. And this is that this new job that he's working at in Atlanta has something to do with the wastewater treatment facility.

So basically, he has some type of access to Atlanta's water supply. Now, how freaky is that when you're talking about a guy, that is known to poison people. Because think about it, Gibbs. And I don't know the mechanics of it, but could you somehow poison a whole bunch of people using a city's water supply?

I mean, that's terrifying. Well, yeah, you could. I mean, I don't know. I've never worked in that type of an environment, but is it possible? Yeah. You would think it would be somehow that a person could figure it out

if they had the right access. Right. And if they knew the right formula. Well, we know he knows how to poison people. Yeah, I mean, but on a large volume scale like that. Correct. But, I mean, with a chemistry biology background, he should be able to pretty much figure it out. But, yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about it. These water, a lot of these water treatment facilities and these water towers,

they're not guarded. I mean, that's no secret. I mean, we're not like telling anybody they don't know. I mean, there is no guards hanging out at, your local city water tower. No, it's not like a lockdown armed guard, you know. So, but anyway, he worked there. So he had access.

It wasn't like he had to break in. Right. Which is even, that's where, you know, the sensors go off in your mind, in my mind. Because he could have. He really could have. If he could have got some 55-gallon drums of some really bad shit, he could potentially have, well, one, made a lot of people really sick. But like you said, could have went even further.

Well, and go back to what? we talked about before. He had obsessions with mass murder. Remember, we talked about all the Holocaust pictures. We talked about a lot of that stuff. So once the FBI gets when that he's working here, they freak out, knowing what this guy is potentially into. Yeah, his MO, I guess. So they go there right away. They contact the company and he's fired. This guy got fired a lot. Yeah, but he got hired a lot. Well, we talk about that a lot. How do these people, you know, there's so many people talking about, you know, I can't find a job. I have a hard time finding a job.

This guy should have never had some of these jobs and he was still able to get him. But it's at this point, Gibbs, that I think Swango knows his time is about up. And as the FBI is issuing a warrant for his arrest, he bolts. He knows he's about ready to get apprehended. and he's got to get the heck out of Dodge. And not just Dodge, but America. And this is exactly what he does. So what he ends up doing is he applies using fake references to an agency that is basically American doctors going to foreign countries to help out.

Doctors without borders. Yeah. Something like that. I don't know if that's what this one was called, but something similar. So in November of 94, he's hired to be part of this. doctor program and he's actually sent to Zimbabwe in Africa and they're happy as all get out to have him. I bet at first.

At first. His way his record runs. But they find out Gibbs very quickly that Swango's not able to perform even some of the most basic procedures that a doctor should be able to do. Right. And this goes back to us talking about his time in medical school. He skipped half the stuff for a lot. of the stuff that would have taught him what he needed to know. So I think what they thought was that

there was a gap in knowledge, right? That Swango was a specialist in neurosurgery. That's what he had portrayed himself to be. So what they told him was go to this other hospital for five or six months, train a little bit on some of the more rudimentary functions and then come back. And he does this and when he returns at first they're happy they think he's doing a really good job but it quickly turns out you know they start to figure out that he's sloppy yeah his true colors come back out again yeah this is something that follows him everywhere he goes and again a woman comes into the hospital after being in an accident and she's doing relatively well and she was actually scheduled to go home in just a few days but she died

after Swango takes over her care. And she's not the only one. There's a whole bunch of people in this hospital in Zimbabwe that come in, much like we talked about, with non-life-threatening issues that end up dying under the care of Michael Swango. So much like his time in New York gives, you start having all these survivors making statements

about what he had done. you have the family members of the victims talking about things that they had done that didn't make sense to them. He ultimately gets fired in October of 1995, but Swango stays in Zimbabwe for another year and a half. He doesn't come back to the United States until June of 1997. And he only does that because he gets when that they're looking at him in Zimbabwe. and probably going to come after him for murder. So he flies back at Chicago into O'Hare. But what Swango didn't know, Gibbs, is that,

was that justice officials, they have been ready for him. They'd been checking flights. It's not like he had fallen off of their radar. So when he touched down in O'Hare, they knew it. They were there. And they arrested him, cuffed him right there in the terminal, ready him his rights, and he was arrested.

Now, what he was initially arrested for was practicing medicine without a license. They sent him back to New York to stand trial. A physician takes a Hippocratic oath, and he's vowed to preserve and protect and provide the necessary means to sustain life. And here's this guy looking at that oath and just basically burning it.

He violated not only the trust of the patients, but trust of his coworkers, certainly. I don't think there's ill. Well, I think, I certainly believe that he's a sick individual and that he did not, or does not have the ability to comprehend what he did. There's a couple people talking about old Michael Swango. I find it interesting that they say he was not able to comprehend, but we know like his IQ is off the charts. Yeah, I didn't agree. I don't agree with that statement. I think he knew exactly what he was doing.

I do too. I don't think this is a person that didn't comprehend their action. I think it was an intelligent individual. He knew what he was doing. He had a fascination with death. And he carried it out. Yeah, certainly did. So Swango pleads guilty to this charge of basically defrauding the government, right?

Practicing medicine without a license because it was a VA hospital. So now, you know, you're defrauding. broading the government, I guess is what he was charged with and pled guilty to. And he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Very interestingly, part of the order was that he was not allowed to prepare food. So he couldn't work in the kitchen or have any involvement in preparing or distributing drugs. Obviously, they were trying to figure out any way to limit his ability to poison somebody from this point. point on. But yet he only gets 3.5 years. Well, for that. But what the government did was they used

this time that he was in jail to look into all the other crimes that had surrounded him, right, from his past. I mean, they went as far as exhuming bodies of patients that he had treated. And they were able to determine from toxicology that they had poison in their system. They were also able to determine that he had paralyzed patients. We talked about a lot of people dying of what they called paralysis of the heart or other organs. And they used a lot of this time because it wasn't until July of 2000. This is very close to the time where he was about ready to be released from prison. Prosecutors in New York charged him with three counts of murder and a whole bunch of other stuff.

salt, making false statements, mail fraud, but the big thing was three counts of murder. Officials in Zimbabwe also charged him with seven counts of murder by poison. But in New York, he pled not guilty. Because you have to think a lot of this evidence was circumstantial. It was essentially a circumstantial evidence case. No one ever actually saw him put poison in donuts or saw him put poison in iced tea or saw him put poison in soda. So they're building a case, but it's all circumstantial.

Yeah, which is a problem. It can be. Can be, yeah. The same sales clerk testified that from her personal experience, the two bottles of Tero and killer that Swango allegedly purchased from her was an unusually large amount for a single purchase. So they did have a witness come forward and talk about, or that could place Swango buying very large amounts of ant poison.

and I think that's what he used. That was kind of his... That's some of good stuff too. Is it? I don't know. That was the job. For the ants. For the ants.

Which is what it should be used for. Right. So I think after he sees what evidence they do have, Swango ends up pleading guilty to the murder and fraud charges. Because if he had kept his not guilty plea and he was most likely going to be convicted, he could have faced a death penalty.

and or he could have faced extradition to Zimbabwe. I don't think that would have happened, but I don't think New York would have let him go. The other thing that came out, and prosecutors actually read from his notebook during the sentencing part, and he had a whole bunch of stuff in his notebook where he had written about the joy that he felt during his murders. So again, you're talking about evidence.

they had some more evidence. So ultimately, Swango gets convicted in sentence to three consecutive life terms, and he's currently incarcerated near Florence, Colorado. So Gibbs,

Swango gets convicted of three murders. But Gibbs, I think the FBI believes that Swango may be responsible for as many as 60 deaths. And you have to think about that. That would make him, one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.

You'd be in the top chunk. Yeah, that's it. That would be a huge number if that's really what it boiled down to. Dr. Death. There's no doubt about it. So it gives one more clip to play. And I just found it kind of interesting after the trial, after he's incarcerated kind of deal. Now, sometime after Swango was sentenced, Judge Cashman told me he received a Christmas

card for Michael Swango. Cashman knew it was authentic because of Swango's unique signature. So was it some type of threat? Maybe. Perhaps it was Swango's way of letting those who outsmarted him know, I haven't forgotten you. A little creepy. What was on the Christmas card? What would it say? I don't know. Even if it just said Merry Christmas, Michael Swango. That's creepy right there. That's creepy for a judge to get a Christmas card. First off, how is he sending a Christmas? the judge a Christmas card. I figured that part out. How is he getting the address?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, you know, just a strange cat and really hard to figure out other than this obsession with murder and death and that he developed from an early age, hard to figure out his reasoning behind doing the things that he did. But that's the case of Michael Swango. and another episode of true crime all the time.

So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.