Ep. 21: No One Knows What It’s Like

0:06 Welcome to M4 Medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder. I'm Andrea Marziano and RN with 35 years of experience across various fields. From direct patient care in hospitals to home health, geriatrics, and injury medicine, I face life, death, and everything in between. And I'm Crystal Miller and RN with 13 1/2 years of experience. My work spans home health, Hospice, emergency care, geriatrics, and occupational health. From the chaos of trauma based quiet moments with patients, I've seen stories that defy explanation. We've been friends for over 25 years and as nurses we've shared countless stories that have left us and our families speechless. Now we're bringing those stories and many more to you in medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes.

0:50 Murder. Each week, we'll uncover cases that challenge the boundaries of medicine, sharing the human stories behind the science. From puzzling medical mysteries to shocking real life crimes, we'll bring you stories that'll leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. While we're both experienced nurses, we want to make it clear we're not here to give medical advice. This podcast is about storytelling, education and exploration, not diagnosing or treating medical conditions. This is medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder. Let's dive in. Hey Crystal, how are you doing today? I'm doing all right. How are you? I am good, I enjoy this time of year and I'm looking forward to a three-week visit with her granddaughter coming up. Oh, that's wonderful.

1:33 I'm sure you can tell him a little bit froggy. So my place is recovering from an illness last week so. So you've got baby frogs in your throat. I got baby frogs in my throat. That's right. Well, Speaking of babies, as I was walking from one part of the property the other we've got a pond as you know him, but our listeners may not. As I was walking by, there was a Mama duck yelling at me or her babies, I'm not really sure which, but she had three babies with and that she was yelling at me as she was going across the pond with her babies. I'm not sure if she's the same duck we had that had 12 babies. I hope not because three out of 12 is not a great ratio, but it does nothing around here because there are a lot of other predators. I have a case for you today that is pretty intense and it's pretty in depth.

2:14 We're going to just jump right in. What I've titled it is medical mishaps or malfeasance by surgeon Michael Swango. Most of it is malfeasance. The case is fascinating on many levels to me at least. And just for a note, I'm going to be reading some parts of it just because there's just no other way to put it that's better. So there'll be some things I'll be reading, some things I'll just be talking about through my research. And my sources are the doctor whose patients kept dying in The New Yorker by James Stewart. And this was 1997 How a murderous Dr. was allowed to keep killing patients New York Post life life in jail for poison doctor CBS News the US doctor may have killed 60 National Library science of medicine, right I know this case is wild. I mean, there's all kinds of other things I could say about it, but it's just, it's mind boggling. And much of what I got was from The New Yorker article and I read it first.

3:12 So that's one of the reasons why. But all of these other things reflected the same information. So I'm going to start this case with just kind of a background a little bit. The case is multifaceted and hit, but his legal trouble began in 1985, and it began in the courtroom of Judge Dennis Cashman. He was over a trial for Michael Swango, who is a young doctor. He was just newly minted, as it were. He had already been convicted of poisoning 5 coworkers at Quincy's Blessing Hospital in Illinois. Good start, right? Yeah, no kidding. Wow. Sheesh. So the victims who had worked with Swango, I call him Swango and Michael at different times. And I noticed that as I got more frustrated than I called him, Michael Moore and I didn't.

3:55 Call him Doctor. At any point, because I feel like he didn't deserve the title. He was, however, a trained medical provider. Not in what he was doing per SE, but he was. So anyway, that's my little caveat. Who he had worked closely with, had considered him a friend, had worked different shifts with him. They bonded and all of the things. But at this trial in 1985, they provided compelling testimony against him. They actually kind of had to. The judge said he was struck by the incongruity between the defendant and his alleged crimes. The judge said on many occasions, Swango, he looked like the lead up to Beaver kind of personality. That's what called him. And he said he was engaging.

4:38 He was 30. He had blonde hair, Hazel eyes and he just had a friendly demeanor and a broad smile. And I looked him up online and in his most of the pictures, they were, they were mug shots and things like that. So he no longer look like one of Leave It to Beaver characters, but I can see how he could have. He'd been the valedictorian of his high school class, and he did an internship and surgery at Ohio State University. So knowing all of this was incongruous to the judge, which I thought was really interesting because it was me too. Swango, unfortunately chose to be the principal witness in his own defense. But because he'd been articulate and likable, he thought he was going to be OK. Unfortunately for him, his likability had little to do with the ultimate outcome because the evidence had been compelling, conclusive as well.

5:25 Swango had given his victim varying doses of, guess what, poison. Bryson. Close. That would have been easier to find actually in this time frame. But arsenic, OK, what's fascinating to me, and I may use this word too many times this time, but it just this whole case modeled my mind. But he didn't have the intention of killing them. He just wanted to see their reactions. Oh, that's horrifying. He literally poisoned them to see how they would respond. So like Doctor Mangala? Like any other kind of psychopath. Yeah. Anyway, that's another side note too, because I'm not diagnosing him officially. I'm not treated this person. I'm not able to diagnose. I have not.

6:06 It was far too long ago for me to be trained. And anyway, anyway, James Cashman ended up sentencing him for the maximum term allowed, which is five years. OK, it went over. There was a bunch of evidence and we'll talk a little bit about some of what happened in a look back sort of thing later. But just know that he did the maximum term allowed, which is five years. And this was after poisoning multiple people. But remember, this case was tried in 85. He was paroled in 87. Wow. Right, right. And then he attempted to resume his medical career. And what's interesting is the judge. Cashman said he received a number of inquiries from hospitals, medical schools and placement services after Swanko's release.

6:51 So they called him to check in. I guess I, I'm not really sure. So things kind of moved along. But in 1999, an FBI agent visited Judge Cashman as Chambers, and he said that the FBI was trying to develop a psychological profiles. Thank Swango, because Swango was thought to have fled the country in early 1994 because he was being sought by police in Long Island for some things we will talk about in a minute. So the agent told the judge that the Bureau had connected Swango to a number of possible homicides. So he moved from seeing how things worked with people to potentially killing people. And the FBI agent said that he might have killed dozens of people.

7:32 Wow. He ultimately was arrested in the summer of 1998, the Chicago International Airport, but he was initially actually held on a minor fraud charge because they just needed to get in the cuffs. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Anyway, so this is kind of the set up for the rest of the story. Hold on to your socks, sister. This is a thing. Oh boy, oh boy. I know Judge Cashman, he was one of the thing, one of the people that was interviewed in most of these articles because he had such a big part of it. But he said several times that he was either astonished or mortified or blah, blah, blah. But he said he was astonished by the number of his alleged victims, which if proved, could make him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. You know, we think of serial killers, I think as somebody wielding some giant knife or doing some something, tearing someone limb to limb and things like that. And one of the cases we've covered had someone also in a similar notoriety because he was a serial killer, that did it in a more quiet kind of way.

8:37 Our podcast does talk about medical sorts of things, and in my case, malfeasance is what I've called it. But it's just so fascinating to this could happen in this kind of way. The judge said that he was equally disturbed by the number of hospital administrators and doctors who entrusted the care of patients to a man who they knew to be a convicted felon. This is mirroring so closely right now at this moment of Doctor Dutch, whose nickname is Doctor Death, exactly all of these passes that were literally fatal like. And you'll see that's even true more and more as we go along because there were a lot of times that people just assumed he couldn't possibly be doing what he thinks, what they thought he was doing or individually the people thought, well, it's not that bad.

9:24 It's not my place to say or something like that. But the judge said it's outrageous that he had been allowed to go on. He also said this is a quote, it's a national scandal. And I have to agree, and you probably will later. Sounds like my voice might be getting worse. It's okay, we'll just pretend like it's not. How's that? In all of these cases, we like to look at how a person got to this point, right? How? What's your history? What could have possibly happened? Usually there's some dramatic, traumatic, horrible thing. In the case of Michael Swango, really it seemed like he was like most of us, especially those of us who travelled around a lot. His father had been in the military. He was actually born at Fort Lewis here in Washington, not far from where I live, and he was born in 1954.

10:10 His mother was a housewife and his father, John, was a military officer. After his time here in Washington and various other places, the family finally settled in Quincy, IL in 1967. Mike's father John was in Vietnam during Michael's adolescence, family believed that he was engaged in clandestine operations in the army and later after the fall of Saigon, he he was possibly involved in, it was called the Agency for International Development, which I'd never heard of, but apparently that was something that was happening at in the 70s. But after he came back from his military service, John became estranged from his family. He also became he began to drink heavily and he died in 1982. OK, so while we've heard his last connection, no, not specifically mentioned, OK, However, and it doesn't say anything about the fact that he was in in any way abusive or anything like that.

11:07 And that's what I was just going to say is most of these cases, we found that they, the perpetrator had multiple horrendous experiences. There's really nothing besides heavy drinking. They don't say he was abusive or anything. Like I say, there was no physical problem or anything. And actually his dad was really not even in the home anymore when he basically drank himself to death. But it appears that Michael may have glorified his father's Vietnam exploits. But still, it didn't. It didn't really seem to connect at any point that I could see. And no one in any of the investigative material I read said anything about it being connected. His mom said that his, her son got along with the other students. He was well adjusted. He was a class officer, served on the student council, the school paper, the yearbook staff. Just a regular Joe, right?

11:52 I mean, there was nothing, nowhere. Like my dad, honestly. Sounds like, yeah, about half of the country. And what's even more interesting is he ranked in the 97th percentile on his college aptitude test. So he was a smart little cookie, too, which if we think about some of the cases we've covered that's common, is that they're sometimes a little bit too smart for what they can handle. And a lot of times I've noticed, and this is scientific research by Andrea, that many of these these people are probably somehow affected and unable to interact well because of their intelligence. Some people, and this is not here in any of the information, but I wonder, did he have some sort of Asperger's or some sort of spectrum situation? And not to say that all people on the spectrum will do anything horrendous, but there does need to be a pretty, pretty strongly, doesn't there, that that these things go together and many, many people on the spectrum are very, very intelligent, but this can affect their ability to get along with people. It appears that he did seem to get along pretty well with people.

12:57 So maybe he could fake it, maybe he didn't really, I'm not sure. But he ended up receiving a scholarship to music. He played the clarinet and apparently was one of those promising students in the whole school and he got a scholarship to music and Milliken University, which is in Decatur, IL. I had never heard of it and I'm not sure if it's still a college or, but apparently it's musical and maybe that's why because I did play the clarinet, but nobody just thought I was a prodigy when I when I traded to go to to track in high school, my sister, my sister. Nope. My teacher said Yep, good luck, you'll do much better there. She didn't really say that, but she probably thought it anyway. So after Michael did university for two years, he joined the Marines.

13:42 He apparently was in the Marines for two years. They were uneventful years. Nobody. He wasn't ever accused of anything. Nothing weird happened and he had an honorable discharge of the rank of Argent. It's still to me is going where where are the big warning flags? Where where are the what happened? Anyway, after he got back from the military, he enrolled in the Community College that I thought was interesting because he enrolled in a Community College versus a more advanced college. And I would think that he. Would have had. Yeah, I would have thought he would had some sort of stipend from the government, from his service, but they. Don't think about them. What do they call it? The GI Bill, yeah, they don't see anything about that. But these, these pieces of information and resources were pretty in detail about the other stuff. I find this history really just going what, how where are the flags?

14:35 Where are the flags? Because usually there's everybody's, everybody's missed 500 red flags. Anyway, he did go to the Community College and then he later did transfer to Quincy University and he graduated in 1979 with a near perfect 3.89 grade point average. So he had given up the clarinet and he changed his major to chemistry and biology and wanted to become a medical doctor. OK, cool. So at that point he enrolled in the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Carbondale and he was 24 at that time. This is when he says they had that he started having some real problems. He his classmates had said they called him Gunner and I thought it was related to his military experience. But what they said is that he was someone who would do anything to get ahead.

15:22 Oh, interesting. And at this point they all said that he seemed to be with a drawn and a loner. So maybe this is a little peek of some of the red flags. Still no explanation of why, but now he's withdrawn in a loaner. And when he was younger, he was more engaged and kind of sounded like a social butterfly a little bit, Right, right, right. Some of his fellow students suspected him of cheating in medical school. That's a really great plan. They also said that his work had seemed sloppy and cavalier. They thought it maybe it was because he's away a lot working part time as a paramedic. So he's in medical school working as a paramedic and and that is not that uncommon, but I think it's more common for nurses to work as paramedics and EMTs than doctors, but I don't know that for sure.

16:08 I don't either, but I know that there were a lot of paramedics in my nursing school class. Right. Exactly. A few years later, one of his students noticed the swango had struck him as being immoral. This is his quote. Immoral to the point of being a psychopath. A little bigger red flag, right? Yeah, a little bit what? What's going on? And apparently Swango had been given the nickname Double O Swango. I'm thinking, what does that even mean? This is another quote from the same student. It didn't say who he was the student, but this was a quote in the same interview he was in and it said it was because of the number of times that his reports indicated that patient was doing well and then the patient was soon after die or have severe problems.

16:49 My gosh. So he was doing something in medical school, probably. So it seems after he failed a course, there was a a student and faculty review board that was put together to review a status. Because he was, he was not doing all of the things that he needed to do. One of the residents complained, I mean, the resident student, not resident of the facility or anything. Just to be clear, I complained that Swango had prepared a report on a patient without ever examining her. So he did a full report. He they were supposed to be doing the actual clinical stuff. Swango denied it, and unfortunately for Swango, A faculty member obtained the patient's chart and there was no entry, as there should have been, to suggest that Swango had ever seen the patient. Citing this in a series of other incidents, the doctor, Swango V. Dismissed, although he was only a month away from graduation. So they must have been very concerned to be putting all of this together at this point, some of them trying to stop him from practicing.

17:50 So there were eight members on this committee. I mean, excuse me, there were nine members on this committee. 8 of them moved for his dismissal, 1 abstained. Only one, John Murphy, who is a pathologist, was and was one of Swango's teachers voted to give him another chance. Oh, wow, Doctor Murphy said. He quoted. I saved him from dismissal. The committee decided Swango should spend an additional nine months in the program and would have to repeat the OBGYN course. And then the following spring he graduated, earning all satisfactory evaluations. There's notation in a few sources that the school didn't award letter grades, which I find unbothering, but they just sort of did a pass fail situation, which I guess is OK, but I don't know that any of the facilities do that anymore.

18:35 But one thing that Doctor Murphy later said is that he had misjudged Dr. Swango. And he said quoting, to be honest, I felt very bad. I was one of his defenders. I was wrong about him. I was duped. So later on, Doctor Murphy was very much not happy that he had saved him from being expelled from the program. But here's the news. There was no indication of any of this, this committee, these chart, these alleged charges, things like that on Swango's medical school records. So there was no indicator that this had happened. And he applied for and was admitted to a residency in neurosurgery at The Ohio State University in Columbus and he began that program in 1983. This was a five year appointment, but it was conditioned on satisfactory completion of his first year internship and general surgery.

19:24 And that was a very good thing, because in the early spring of 1984, he received a letter from Ohio State saying that his appointment was being terminated at the end of his first year. The letter gave no reason for his termination. I really wish I knew what it was. I didn't see it anywhere, what it could be, but I suspect it was along the same lines as what had been happening in his his medical program. He decided after he'd been asked to leave that he returned to Quincy, the town he had been living in with his family, and he knew he could find temporary work as a paramedic. He was working for Adams County Ambulance Service then he was going to apply for his license and to practice medicine in Illinois. Most of the paramedics in Adams County had worked with him before while he was in college and medical school, so a lot of them knew him and one of the EM TS and OR paramedics.

20:11 I'm sorry. Paramedics said wait till you meet Swango and they told. That to a Co worker named Mark Krizepthakuski. I will now call him Mr. K from now on. OK. Because I'm not going to be able to say that correctly. I don't even think I did this time, but I definitely won't. Refutedly, Mr. K hadn't worked with Swingo yet, and he thought it was odd that a medical doctor was working as a paramedic. I mean, if if nothing else, there's a huge pay difference. And Mr. K also knew that he had been a university intern, I mean, the University Hospital intern, and he just thought that was weird. But when Swango arrived, Mr. K was struck again by he referred to Swango's Beaver Cleaver looks a manner like the judge had. So he had Swango apparently had the ability to charge patient harm patients in the emergency room, the doctors, everybody. And he was always eager to work extra hours and showing up. This is something that I found as a red flag. He was often showing up to help with the scene of accidents, even when he's off duty.

21:12 Oh yeah, that's weird. Like he had, sorry, a police scanner or something. Yes, and this is not uncommon and a serial predator, as it were, right. So I I thought, OK, there's another red flag. We didn't have any in a long time, but now apparently we have two or three. But, you know, as, as we know, in most cases, ambulance workers work 24 hour shifts and often they'll work out of a fire station. But in this case, they work from a building that was attached to Quincy's Blessing Hospital. It's called. It's just Quincy's Blessing Hospital. And they often were eating and sleeping on the premises because, you know, they were working 24 hours. One of the fellow workers noted that in the early morning starting on September 14th, and this, what was this is 83, I believe Kwango showed up with a box of doughnuts and put them on the table and he just said, I got you guys a big box of doughnuts and then he took one and Mr. K took one and so did the three other paramedics. Guess what happened?

22:11 They got sick. About half an hour later, one of them became feeling nauseated and flushed and dizzy and he had to run to the bathroom to vomit. And then 15 minutes later, the other three were filled with similar symptoms. Yes, he wasn't. Yeah, that's what I figured. I'm so surprised. One of the paramedics, his name was Brent Unmissing, he said what did you do? Mike poisoned us and he was joking about it. He was joking about it. But is that called foreshadowing? And so this is crazy to me. So swang us. It was reported that swang us at forwarder's chair and shook his head and he said, no, I didn't, you know, I wouldn't do anything like that. But he picked up the box and took the remaining Donuts and he left the room. All of the men who had had these Donuts had gotten so violently, they all they had to leave work.

22:58 Wow. Right. And so it sounds like Swangle wasn't even on shift at that time. He just brought the Donuts and the boys and his staff, I guess. And the next day was a Friday and Swangle was assigned to work at a high school football game. And the ambulance was always on duty. And I'm sure we've all seen that where there's someone waiting at these games just for when, not just in case or for when somebody gets hurt some. So he was on there and the ambulance was just waiting. His partner was this UN missing again. They noted that the game had proceeded uneventfully. But just before halftime, Swango offered his partner a soda and he returned from the alleged snack shop or something. He had two sodas, but they were in a paper cup. But he gave it to missing.

23:42 And missing probably didn't think about it because a lot of times those those soda and snack places are run by moms and they just fill up a cup and they hand it off. No big deal. And so he didn't even really think about it, but he drank part of it by the end of the third quarter and missing was vomiting my ambulance. Swango so seemed concerned and missing said and he questioned his partner in minute date detail about what he was feeling. So all right. And I guess some people and it was just the two of them. So I don't know. He was pretty the other guy was pretty sick. So he just went home. He continued to be violently I'll vomiting and severe headaches and he stayed in bed for three days.

24:22 I don't know at this point what kind of flags are going off for his partner there, but early in the afternoon on September 27th, Swango, those Co workers on duty who's going for sodas? Yay, give me one of your sodas. And one of them, Greg Myers, said he'd like a diet 7UP. So a few minutes later they reported that Myers saw Swango come down the 3:45 sodas then turn into the men's bathroom when Myers took a 7UP. I know, weird. He noticed that it already been opened. So he said did you go in the bathroom? Whiz in mine. Oh God. I know, but he still drank about 1/4 of the drink over ice. I'm like, if I had any any thoughts like that, there's no way.

25:03 I don't even I don't bring drinks or food into the bathroom at all. I certainly I'm not going to bring other people's food and drink into the bathroom. I don't think I do either, actually. Not necessarily as a, not necessarily as a conscious decision. But yeah, I don't think I can't. I can't. That's just weird. Mine is one another. I have a bathroom where I have AI have a bathroom where the toilet's own room. Like maybe I might like bring a soda instead of on the sink counter and then going to the toilet room, right? Maybe. But even then, I probably sat on my dresser before and said it somewhere in the bathroom. Yeah, I don't prefer food or beverage in a bathroom. That's weird. There's a lot of reasons for that and we can do an episode on why I wouldn't want to do that because I always feel about it anyway.

25:44 But Myers took the 7UP and he noticed it already been open, like I said, and he drank about 1/4 of it. And he said he was soon overcome by nausea and wracked by what he called afterwards quotes the worst vomiting I've ever experienced. Right. So he went home to recover. And in the meantime, I'm thinking, what the heck are they thinking about that? He already, Myers already said, Would you, isn't it? And then he got really sick. I mean, to me, I'd be going, hey, something's happening here. But he went to him to recover, and a few days later, he got a call from Swango. He wanted to know every detail of his symptoms. Exactly. Creepy, Meyer said. Later on, when this all got kind of uncovered, he said Swango's interest seemed so acute that he hung up on Swango because Meyers at that point, began to have suspicion about him.

26:33 I'm like, you should have had suspicions like 3 weeks ago, dude. But, and I think also one of the things that made this probably go longer is a lot of times in these shifts they rotate. So they're not working with same people all the time. But also, I mean, in medical field work gets around pretty fast to me. I mean, I've never noticed a lot of secrets being held, but especially with something like this anyway. But for some reason, it was then a few weeks later, two other paramorex noticed that my teeth iced teeth. The head brood had become inexplicably sweet. An arsenic suite, right? Thinking of Flowers in the Attic and the cadney. I mean the. Cookies. Yes. Yes. And they spoke to each other, the two guys who had brewed this stuff and and said, did you add sugar? No, I didn't have sugar.

27:18 Did you try what? And then they were alarmed. Finally, someone was alarmed by the recent spate of illnesses, so they both dumped their glasses and begin searching for some empty sugar packets, thinking maybe somebody else had sugared it because I guess they had gone out for a run or left the room or whatever. They had never found any sugar packets, however. Swango poured the entire pitcher of tea into a sink. So later that afternoon, after Swango had left on the ambulance run, they noticed that his duffel bag was open. These guys saw a bag stamped George Keller and Sons that had fallen out of it. Keller in their area is a large lawn and garden store in Quincy and when they looked into the Keller bag they saw two containers of Tarot Ant Killer. The primary active ingredient in Toro Ant Killer is arsenic. Yes, sodium arsenate and arsenic derivative. And it's in a concentrated sugar solution, which also explained some of the sugar.

28:22 What a surprise. One of the containers was empty. So Dwango had this in his bag. One of the containers was empty. And then the paramedics began to talk to each other at this point, and they began to recall some odd behaviors, Swangos and some odd remarks he had made earlier in the summer. They've been watching TV in the quarters, and they heard their new the news, accompanied by graphic footage that a gunman had stormed into McDonald's restaurant in California, killing 21 people. And Swango, tell you what I think of this. Swango had leapt from his chair and turned up the volume, explaining. That's just great. I love it. I wish I could have been there to see it all. And what the? Hell.

29:02 Exactly. And later, he added, Every time I think of a good idea, somebody beats me to it. Oh. My God. What the hell? Almost to you, I don't. Know well. And also, OK, picture this, I'm sitting in a room with paramedics and such like this and one of them jumps up and says this and I don't, you know, clock it and go this. And everyone's been getting sick anytime he's been around. Seems to me I'd put that together, but at this point they're still I would. Seriously. Be like dude that is so messed up what the hell is wrong with you? Exactly. But apparently nobody did. For whatever reason. The Mr. Ki referred to earlier was often Swango's partner, and he recalled that Swango maintained a series of large scrapbooks in which he pasted articles from the newspaper and magazines detailing incidents of violent deaths, including numerous accounts of poisoning.

29:55 And I'm like, what? Why is no one saying anything? This is a common thread, isn't it? Through these stories that we've heard, especially in medicine, nobody says anything. And I don't know if they just don't want to rock the boat or what. Mr. K said that Swangwood said poisoning and such were a good was a good way to kill people. When Mr. K was interviewed later about all of this during investigations and things like that, he said, you know, ambulance attendant Lanter is pretty rough and tumble. He said to me this is a little more than rough and tumble, but he says it's rough and tumble. You know, we're both in the medical field, we've heard stuff, but I've never heard this stuff. And if I did, I certainly would have eyebrows raised and say something. But Mr. K also said he never really knew if he should take Swan Go seriously.

30:37 Because I think that's something that can happen is when somebody says something that wackadoodle, maybe they're going to know that. No, that can't be. And other cases we've looked at, hasn't that been it? No, that can't be. I must have misunderstood. No, you can't. No, that doesn't make any sense. And that's the problem is those of us who are thinking rationally and logically are looking at these things. No, no, I can't be it. That doesn't make any sense anyway. Mr. Kate continued in his interview, saying that the more he would verbalize about sort of things, the more time they spent together, he said. Mr. Kate said one time while they were drinking coffee at the hospital, the paramedics were watching a public a broadcast show about a notorious killer named Harry Lucas Lee, Excuse me, Harry Lee Lucas. And he was a serial killer.

31:21 And Swango said, in his typical fashion, wouldn't that be great to travel around the country killing people, just moving on, killing some more, a great lifestyle. In the hell. I mean, seems a little awkward, a little off putting because, you know, that seems like something most of us don't want to do again. It was one of the things they're just like, yeah, he's a little wackadoodle, but he was good at his job. That was that was the clincher. I think he was good at being a paramedic. Mr. K and others recalled that Swanga like to say the best thing about being a doctor. Now this is going to be inappropriate comment. Swango said the best thing about being a doctor to be come out of the emergency room with a heart on to tell some parents their kid had just died from a head trauma.

32:06 Also talked about a sexual fantasy of burying a hatchet in the back of a female Co workers head in order to induce seizures. Now I don't know about you but this seems a little off to me. This. I don't know why they just took this as a grain of salt or something. Again, I think maybe it's just because they thought he was so wackadoodle that he was just blowing smoke and making a lot of crazy statements that no one could take seriously. A week after the paramedics found the Ant poison, Myers brewed a pot of iced tea, adding no sweetener. He and another paramedic left on the ambulance call, and when they returned, Swango was not willing or there. Another paramedic said he had seen Swango racing away from the racing away in his car from the hospital. That brought really big red flags because they went ahead and delivered a sample of the tea to William Gasser, who had been a chemistry professor of Swingo's at Quincy University. He was laboratory consultant at the hospital, and a test revealed the presence of the sample of a heavy metal. That heavy metal finding was consistent with the presence of arsenic.

33:13 So this tea that they had, nobody drank fortunately, because they started to get caught up with his history and all. So instead of drinking it, they decided to take it to his test. And their suspicions were true. Like I said, the arsenic was found in the drink. I know. And I can't even imagine how I would feel or think about this. I mean, hindsight is 2020, right? So people think about it and they go, Oh my gosh, he said this and Oh my goodness, he said that. And oh heavens, wow, putting these things all together now we're seeing the flags, especially at that point. I can't imagine the paramedics weren't talking to each other by now for having since they've been enough. But it it just boggles the mind.

33:57 On October 26th, Swango got a call at work asking him to stop by the Adams County Sheriff's Office to supply some information. Now Swango probably didn't think this was too weird because he had applied to become a deputy coroner and the sheriff implied he was about to get the job. Interesting it is. Instead, when he arrived, he was arrested and read his rights. Finally. They didn't even have to go get him. They just said, yeah, come on you crazy dude, come, come and apply for your job. And then he gave permission for police to search his apartment, which is like, that is weird. Especially when the police entered the apartment, they found a book with skull and crossbones on the cover lying on the table in the midst of needles and bottles.

34:43 The book this is this is funny. I mean ironically funny, not ha ha funny. But the book was said to be popular with paramilitary enthusiasts on a manual on do it So the police report stated as they entered and searched this apartment, an entire mini lab setup was observed and they they found numerous chemicals, suspected poisons and poisonous compounds. So the police of course seized the book and various pest poisons along with numerous containers to our Ant killer. The Ant killer was filled to different levels. So obviously it's been being used. And they also found the chemicals. Insurgents I mentioned a gallon of sulfuric acid supply of Castor beans, which is the raw material for what you said before.

35:36 Bryson Yes, so all those just as an apartment and he said OK, sure, go take a look. What the heck did he think that? I don't understand how he didn't think they were going to put these things together but in the mean. Time He probably thought he was smarter than them. That would be my guess. He probably thought that he was just simply smarter than. Them most commonly that's the case, isn't it? Swango noted that he'd collected articles on the notorious 1978 assassination in London of a Bulgarian political dissident who it looked like died after being pricked with a ricin tipped umbrella. Now, it doesn't take much ricin to kill someone, as you sounds like you may know, but ricin is. If we don't have that listed on topic, we definitely should. Yeah, but the other thing is they're not done in the apartment yet.

36:25 They confiscated a small arsenal of weapons, including this guy I just don't even know, including a Mossberg 12 gauge pump shotgun with combat stock and a llama. I don't know this brand but a 357 magnum revolver. When they went to check out the local library that he had recently been in because I guess they had seen the book that he checked out. It was about a Doctor Who murdered his wife and a novel about the poisoning of a city's food supply. So they went to the the library to find out if he had any other books that he checked out because this again, was in the in the 80s. So it's not like they could just surf the way right? Like we tend to have given all of this. Oh my goodness, he had another trial. What?

37:11 Why I? Wondered. I know. So the trial began on April 22nd in 1985 in the Adams County Courthouse. Swingo waived his right to a jury trial. Wait, is he a? Doctor at this point or is he still a paramedic? He's a doctor. He's a doctor, but he got kicked out of the last bit of his program but then finished it. But then when he moved to Illinois, had to apply for licensure in Illinois, which he did not have. So that's where he sits. So he was in Adams Court County Courthouse and guess who the judge was? Judge Cashman Swangle waived his right to a jury trial, as I mentioned. And one of the reasons people do that in the service situation is because jury will be emotionally swayed. They will often have a better chance of not being just convicted by a motion. They'll be more likely to be convicted by actual evidence if they have a judge.

37:59 Because the the prosecution case was straightforward, but it was pretty circumstance circumstantial because no one who actually seen Swango administering points into anyone. There is no apparent motive and actually, Swango said the paramedics were his friends. And I'm like, well, what would be doing to enemies? Yeah, no kidding. That was exactly my thought. I was like, gosh, if they're your friends, I'd not let them know how you treat people that aren't your friends. No kidding. During the trial, the paramedics described the events that have preceded their sudden illnesses and their symptoms, and there were some forensic scientists from the Illinois State Crime Lab that testified. Initial lab reports showed the president presence of arsenic in both the T sample collected in the hospital and and the hair samples taken from a paramedic who to eating a doughnut and had drunk the tainted soda. So even though they couldn't put the syringe or the powder in Swango's hands, they did find that these folks had it in their bodies because he, Swango also had the Ant killer. You know, it didn't take a rocket scientist to fill it figure this out.

39:04 They did interview a clerk at the Keller store where he had gotten the rat or the Ant poison and the other chemicals. They identified Swango and he was wearing a pair uniform and he had bought 6 bottles of Tarot Ant Killer. Later on, Swangle say, yeah, but I had a lot of ants in my house. Oh sure, a lot of ants in my house. That's a lot of ants. You realize they can test your floor to see if there was that poison on it, right? There's some more about that in a minute. But as the trial proceeded, Judge Cashman was struck by Swango's neat appearance again. I mean, Swango did not look like the person that he he was. He was a suit and a tie. He was calm and he said he was. Swango was even polite to the judge and others in the courtroom.

39:51 He had his mother and a girlfriend who attended the trial every day. And he Swango emphatically deny poisoning anyone. And he took copious notes and conferred often with his lawyer, which makes me laugh because the lawyer really needs to know what your opinion is. Though his lawyer was a public defender and Cook had been. A high school teacher, The cornerstone of Swango's argument appeared to be that he had bought the bottles of Toro Ant Killer Combat the ants infestation like we talked about. But it was at what he had encountered as previous apartments in Columbus, OH, and Springfield, IL, and at his current residence in Quincy. At one point after his arrest, when he'd returned from visiting his brother in Florida, he said there were so many ants in his apartment that he'd call Cook, his lawyer, to come witness the ants. Oh wow.

40:41 And Cook said no, I can't be a witness. He. Said. He said call the exterminator. I'm sure he followed that up with dude. So Swango called the exterminator. But at the trial, the exterminator said these ants he had encountered encountered in Swango's apartments were a type of man common in Florida and the rest of the South, but rarely in Quincy's harsh winter climates. Oh my God. Not only were they rarely in Quincy harsh at climates, but they were never endorsed, so that affected the case anyway. At the conclusion of the trial, Judge Cashman pronounced Swango guilty on six of the seven counts acquitting him of poisoning Mr. K.

41:25 Two symptoms after eating the doughnut, he said, appeared inconclusive. They weren't strong enough to attach to the doughnut itself, but Mr. K had also been poisoned by other liquid and stuff like that, so he was probably still had a poisoning to Mr. K. He was guilty on 6 of the 7 counts, and the judge said Swango's testimony seemed contrived and fabricated. Well, probably because he was lying as part of the The judge said the most compelling evidence was the disclosure of the out of place ants. Because if that were the case, then it doesn't make any sense. And also like there was. Everything else he said, right? Exactly. And there was a a bottle of the match, I mean, excuse me, of the rat golly, I keep on and put rats in here of the Ant poison. The bottle of the Ant poison matched exactly the level of arsenic found in the iced tea, so it was half empty. And what was in there matched exactly the other half that was found in the iced tea.

42:20 Strangely, Swango tended to be present president when the poisoning occurred and he had poisoning double bag so seems connected. And the judge, the judge said a couple of times the things that he thought was really weird was that Swango had always shown a more of a curiosity and interest in the symptoms of his victims, which as we talked about earlier, each one of the victims had said he was really interested in my symptoms. Like so interested that the one guy hung up on him. The judge said he felt like Swango wanted to take all of the victims just to the edge of death. They were like a lab experience. And August 23rd in 1985, Swango again was his own principal character witness. And he delivered a lengthy, often eloquent that he would give to be given the sentence of probation so he could use his medical skills to help.

43:13 Us. How lovely. After just started gathering, I'm just putting that in there. I don't know what he did, but Swango also said, this is this is the part I love. This is a quote, Swango said. What can I do, Judge Cashman, and how can I work with you and the court to convince and show you that I still have great wealth of good and caring to return to the society and that I should be allowed with your trust and the people's trust to reserve that resume, that service to society and right? Judge Cashman was clearly baffled, he said, by the nature of the crime and the seemingly earnest, well-intentioned young doctor before him. He said to Swango.

43:54 He said, the judge said, I quite frankly have come to like you as an individual, Doctor Swango, it makes it even more difficult to understand why you would do these things. He was sentenced again to five years in the state penitentiary, which was more serious than the jail he had been in, and it was the maximum, the term for the battery, which is what he was convicted for. It was wild. Swango. This, this boggles my mind too. During the trial and sentencing, Swango actually applied in person for and obtained a position in northern Ohio as an emergency room position while he was waiting for this action. Rights. And this action was in violation of the terms of his bail bond which required him to stay in Illinois except for court approved trips.

44:37 So he went to apply in Ohio, got a accepted and hired, but revoked his bail bond because he was out of the state, which was wild. Anyway, the other thing, this is going to boggle your mind as well. Michael was hired. This was the emergency room director in Ohio and said Michael was hired by Robert Holler, the Second, a regional vice president of National Emergency Services, which recruited emergency room doctors for several hospitals. During the sentencing hearing, Holler testified as character witnesses. Swango get this, He said Swango had, at four different hospitals had received above standard evaluations.

45:18 He said that he had dismissed him only when the news of the trial hit the papers because, he said, if it were not for bad publicity, he would tire Swango again. No kidding. And then the prosecutors was stunned, it said. And he said, even though he's been convicted, you would rehire him? Haller said. Yes, if it were up to me, I would. I feel like if there's a whole background check situation that goes with hiring doctors. No kidding. Swango's lawyer questioned Tyler, too, and he said, again, I would personally have no problems at all, he said. It's the public that comes to the hospital, but find it, you know it would create a problem.

46:02 The what? My God, I wouldn't ingest anything. I wouldn't allow an IVI mean, what would be the point of even being in the hospital? Exactly. Oh is whack a doodle Anyway, because of the things that came up in the court trial in Quincy Swango's earlier behavior Ohio is reexamined. Authorities asked the Ohio State University of Police for help in looking into Stangos Swangos background. They said that investigation took a life of on the life of its own. So some of this just makes me laugh although it should make me try probably it does that too a little. The following February. So he was he was convicted to this in September I believe. And the following February, excuse me.

46:44 And the following October they found some more stuff that was going on. University police learned that Swango had a storage locker in Columbus, and they requested Franklin County, Ohio, Assistant prosecuting attorney named Edward Morgan, just for information to help prepare and execute a search warrant for the locker. Because they already found that all that stuff in his apartment, right? So now they're going, what else could he be doing? Well, what you might be surprised to find out is the contents included an M16 firearm, clips and 200 rounds of blank machine gun ammunition. That is OK something. Right. Another thing that is wild is the police at the university tried to maintain a discreet and low profile investigation.

47:30 I'm like what's? That for, yeah. What are you? Who are you trying to protect? But Morgan and his investigators became increasingly concerned by mounting evidence to Swango also that he might be linked to a series of deaths at Ohio State Hospital. So they're like, no go, man. We're doing this investigation. Morgan's investigation was later summarized by him to report that the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney established that Doctor Swango had been worn by Ohio State University officials in early January of 19 84 that his performance was unsatisfactory. Unless it improved, his appointment would not be renewed for a second year. This is what Morgan, the investigator thought is that the set back to Swango and his career might have triggered a violent reaction from Swango.

48:14 So we were talking about what were the red flags and how did this happen. They think that maybe that was it by him being told forget about it, you can't do this. In the following days and weeks, the hospital recorded a number of mysterious deaths and near fatalities. This was in 1984. I wanted to explain a little bit about one of them. One that I'm going to mention right now occurred on the the night of January 14th. And witnesses noticed and recalled that Doctor Swango went to draw blood from a young woman named Cynthia McGee And she had recently been transferred to the hospital from out of state and she's been hit by a car while riding her bike at the University of Illinois. So I imagine this hospital must have been a trauma level 1. So she got transferred I that's my guess anyway. She'd been hit by a car by riding a bike. She'd been unconscious.

48:57 But by the time of her transfer, she appeared to be aware of environment, looking around and said a few words. About midnight. Half an hour later, Doctor Swangle left the room he had been in to draw blood. And then about 1/2 an hour later he left. And that's how that was interesting too. The. Doctor was just going to say. I was just going to say I would be very curious to know if that was normal practice in 1985 or whatever urine is, because yeah, no doctors are drawing blood in the hospital these days. Exactly. And so that seemed odd. And a nurse discovered the McGee had a pale, dusty blue English look and alerted a doctor and called a code blue. Of course, that required emergency response. Doctor Swango didn't respond, but other doctors did.

49:38 McGee was pronounced dead and a subsequent autopsy cited cardio pulmonary arrest due to insipid pneumonia. The nurse on duty later expressed surprise at the autopsy report because she had seen no signs of pneumonia. So that was weird. And then this was that have been that was at the Ohio hospital and then 60 that's right, secret a secret pneumonia. It has no symptoms. Anyway, so 60 later, a group of doctors were doing their rounds and it was about 6:00 and they came to check on several patients sharing a room. One of them was 21 year old auto accident victim who was called Richard Delong in case you want to know that later. And he was in a coma but had recently been taken out of intensive care after his condition stabilized. Apparently he was breathing oxygen through a tracheostea me tube and he must have come off his vent and such seemed to be resting comfortably and had been checked by the respiratory therapist and everybody was going all right, well, we'll just wait for him to recover basically. And he was in a multi bedroom, which wasn't was something different to nowadays in in a basically a step down from ICU. Anyway, apparently Swanga walked over to the bed and said to the respiratory therapist, I think your patient's dead. They went to resuscitate him and nothing worked. Another Doctor Who was present later was present said later. It was a surprise to us that he was in stable condition and one evening when we went on rounds he wasn't breathing anymore. Yeah, that's wild.

51:05 Yeah, it was wild. And so Doctor Swango, and I'm not even really sure how Swango got involved in this case, but he notified Delong's family his death and had talked to the guy's wife on the phone. When the family arrived, Doctor Swango, in the presence of another doctor, told them that Delong had died from a heart attack. No autopsy was performed, right? Delong's wife said she actually requested one in writing, but the coroner office said they had no request on record, not until almost a year and a half later, as a result of this inquiry with Morgan, because Swango was starting to become notorious for the poisonings and also weird things happening. They exhumed Delong's body and the coroner found a wad of surgical gauze in Delong's trachea. Oh my God.

51:53 Oh, he. Basically suffocated the guy. I mean, he was. So this guy's in a coma and apparently Swango stuffed a piece of gauze in his trachea and made him die. The cause of death was changed to homicide. Two other deaths. It doesn't end here. Two other deaths were regarded as suspicious. But it was the case of a patient named Rena Cooper. And she was 69 years old, admissions hospital, suffering from low back pain that caused some concern. And so she went to the hospital, had been inpatient. And on the 7th, just before seven, it was reported Missus Cooper, who was sharing a room with another patient, as is typical apparently at that hospital, to serve dinner and give him some painkillers.

52:36 OK, seems reasonable. She's got back pain. A group of doctors, including Swango, arrived on the rounds between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. And there was a student nurse, Carolyn, who came into the room shortly after 9 and saw Doctor Swango standing alone by Missus Cooper's bed with his back turned. And she said it looked like he was putting something in his IV, her IV. She told that to investigators later. It was almost a year later this came out when this investigation happened. And she said, I knew she, he was putting something in. You can just tell, she said. But she left but stood nearby. And two minutes later, she heard the bed rails rattling in the room and Missus Cooper's roommate screaming when Barry entered.

53:17 Barry was the nurse. The roommate told her there's something wrong. Missus Cooper was turning blue and White wasn't breathing, so the nurse immediately called for help. Other nurses doctors came rushing in the room and called it called blue. The student nurse who is the one who went in initially to help told them she had just seen Doctor Swango injecting something into Mrs. Coopers IV. But she said later they didn't believe me, maybe especially was a student nurse and they thought, well, you don't know what he was doing. And so that's why she reiterated a year later that's what she had seen. And this they believed because they were doing the investigation. So things are getting sketchier and sketchier by the minute, right? It's like, but I can still see how there would be some trouble linking these things just. Right. I mean.

53:58 Until all the cards started stacking up. I remember this hospital didn't know what had happened before. These are still sort of coincidentally guns. There is an attending doctor, Arnold Bragel, and he was the head of the surgery residents at Ohio State. And he later described Missus Cooper Cooper's condition. He said at the time we saw her, she was not breathing, she was unconscious. She had no movements to stimulate even deep pain. She didn't even, he said, as I recall, have any reflexes. A condition he said that was consistent with a paralyzing drug, which should not have been in her system, right? Another side event, if it will. The nurse's aide saw Swango emerge from a room 4 days, 4 doors away and around the corner from a commotion in Mrs.

54:40 Cooper's room. So while all of this was happening, Mrs. Cooper was dying. Swango was in another room. The nurse said he had a goofy look on his face, like a kid with his fingers in the cookie jar, and he said he had this big grin on his face. She thought it was weird. She went into the room that Doctor Swango had come out of and found a large syringe, its plunger fully depressed, lying in the sink. This person was an aide. And she summoned a nurse and pointed out the syringe. So the nurse picked it up with a paper towel, good, wrapped it, wrapped it up, put it underneath the sink there. And she looked at me and said, OK, I'm putting this right here. You're my witness. And then she, the nurse, took the wrapped syringe and put it in attache case, briefcase, as it were at this time, and gave it to the head nurse on the floor.

55:23 And the head nurse discussed it with the attending neurosurgeon, and that's where it went. So hold that thought. And then it's happening again. While Missus Cooper was dying in Missus Cooper's room, the medical team did revive her by administering oxygen. But she couldn't speak. And she had a breathing tube down her throat, of course. But through gestures, she indicated something. And a nurse gave her a pencil and a paper. And the nurse said she wrote, someone came in and put something in my IV. And remember, the student nurse had said he was putting something in the IV. Misses Cooper herself later recalled that she was unsure whether the person was a man or a one. She just knew that they were blonde and looked to her like a white Angel of death. Oh no, what a horrifying experience. No kidding.

56:12 I don't know that I could ever trust a medical facility. Yeah, seriously. Anyway, she misses Cooper said immediately after that, she felt a blackness in her left hand, which I don't know what that means exactly, but she said it felt like a blackness in her left hand where the IV was inserted. And the feeling went up her left arm and then to the right side of her body. And she became frightened, she said. And she discovered she couldn't speak. She began to shake the bed rail to make noise and attract attention. And then she lost consciousness. How scary. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. Edward Morgan, who's doing this investigation a year and a half later, learned that during the week of Missus Cooper's mysterious respiratory arrest at Ohio State University, the hospitals held three meetings to review Doctor Swango's performance in the Cooper case.

56:55 The Inquirer group included several administrators and doctors in the hospital's lawyer, an assistant attorney general assigned to the university, but only one nurse. And she was a supervisory nurse. She was the one who had demanded the review. So everybody else is going and she demanded the review. One of the physicians, Dr. Whitcomb, was assigned the task of reviewing the information and told the group he believed that Missus Cooper, far from being an injected with an aesthetic or anesthetic or poison, had suffered a grand Mal seizure and been paralyzed immediately after. Right. OK, that's so. Such a normal response to a groundwell seizure. Right, no kidding. But later, an internal report by the hospital revealed that the group had spoken with a trained anesthesiologist and would later learn that Missus Cooper's symptoms were not consistent with a seizure, but the injection of either a cure or or other paralytic Interior IV. Both of them are often in the hospital, well, always in the hospitals for intubation and things like that. Obviously, they can be used if dangerous, if used singly and also in conjunction, they can be deadly, especially if they're not monitored.

58:05 Swango was asked by three doctors if he had injected anything to Mrs. Troop, Mrs. Cooper's four. He said no, but he did offer a different explanation to each of them. No, I didn't do it. But to one, he said that he was never in Mrs. Cooper's room. To another, he said he entered a room at either her or her, her roommate's request to retrieve some slippers. Because, you know, I always ask my doctor to come in and get my slippers for me. And then the the 3rd doctor, he said that he'd enter the room to draw blood. He never asked. No one ever asked him about the inconsistencies. So they may have all three asked them, but nobody did anything about it, which is awesome. No one asked anyone about the empty syringe the nurses have preserved. About six months later, the head nurse threw the syringe away. No one ever collected it from me. She said she had told people about it, but nobody ever wanted it or anything.

58:55 And she said she had even asked someone, do you think it's OK? They said she told she talked to the University of Police investigators and she asked somebody, do you think it's OK to throw it away? And they said, well, sure, it's gone now. It's over with. So I threw it away. So the biggest piece of evidence was now gone. And Morgan, who's investigating all this, said he was beside himself to learn about the loss of such crucial evidence. He said it was incredibly frustrating. If they had been contacted at the time, they would have had the evidence and that would have really sealed the deal, but they didn't have it. He said he was just astounded on so many levels that these things happened and that when the group was investigating Swango, they didn't call any of the witnesses for their statements or anything. They had one nurse and she was the nurse director, which like I said, she requested the review, which is good because she was the only one who did, but they still, she hadn't been there that day.

59:47 They just didn't know, right? Morgan said that he concluded the hospitals didn't want to know. They just wanted him out of the hospital because by then I everybody knew they knew something was going on, but they weren't willing to deal with it. Their main concern were the legal issues, Doctor Whitcomb, who was in charge of the group, said. What we did, we presented the information we had to the lawyer who is providing advice and this is his quote. Based on the information that was available was his opinion. There were no grounds for us to take any action against Doctor Swango and there was no other investigation needed to be carried forward. Shaking my head because I'm almost speechless. Like cannot. How can it possibly be conclusion. It's no kidding.

1:00:29 Well I've said 4% on the podcast that healthcare for profit is crime against humanity, so lawyers should help involve healthcare decision making. No, Morgan asked this lawyer later about the advice. The lawyer insisted it was the doctors who, after hearing the report by Doctor Whitcomb, indicated there would be no further in house investigation or further inquiry. That'll buy it at any event. On February 14th, the group concluded that Doctor Swango should be permitted to return to patient care immediately, but with greater supervision. This is not the end of the story. This episode is going to go into two parts. Yeah, OK, good. I mean horrible, not good. But wow, I can't believe there's enough information for a whole. Second episode, I know it's.

1:01:16 Wild. It's wild. So you, everybody hold on to your hats. This is going to continue. Awesome thank. Very interested for the next installment. Thank you. All right. If you've made it this far, clearly you like a little mayhem with your medicine. Or you just enjoy hearing us ramble about weird medical mysteries. Either way, we'd love you for it. So hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening. And toss us a rating or review while you're at it. Helps other curious weirdos find the show. And we know there are a lot of you out there. Oh so many. Come join the chaos. Thanks for listening to Medicine, Mystery, mayhem, and sometimes Murder. Do you have an idea for an episode of this podcast?

1:01:58 Just want to say hi. You can get in touch with us at Power M4 Pod. That's OUR m.thenumberfourpod@gmail.com. We read every e-mail, and sometimes we even respond just like real professionals. Because we are. Old friends with new twists and lots of body bags.