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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Episode 155 MIchael Swango: Unmasking the Sinister Serial Killer in Healthcare Part XI
Could a dangerous serial killer be lurking in the halls of a hospital? Join us as we unravel the chilling case of Dr. Michael Swango, a convicted felon who managed to gain access to several hospitals, and the intense FBI investigation that ensued.
We'll also dissect Dr. Swango's narcissistic, psychopathic traits, from his fascination with disasters and weapons to his penchant for lying and manipulation. Explore the role of his absent and detached father, his mother's overvaluation of him, and his subsequent loss of self-worth. Delve into his possible motivations for his heinous acts, which may have been retaliation for criticism.
Finally, we'll investigate the disturbing psychology of serial killers and the lack of empathy they often exhibit. Discuss potential causes, such as a lack of parental bonding or biological predispositions, and how psychopathic killers can craft a seemingly normal social persona. We'll also consider the increase in serial killers in recent decades and the possibility of emulation. Don't miss this gripping episode as we uncover the secrets behind one of healthcare's most sinister serial killers.
Sources:
Newspapers:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-age/159936395/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/159936564/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/159936596/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald/159936624/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer/159936664/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer/159936664/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/argus-leader/159936906/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-age/159936962/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal/159936985/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-windsor-star/159937017/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news/159937055/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram/159937085/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/sunday-telegraph/159937145/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-grand-rapids-press/159937244/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/standard-speaker/159937305/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-la-crosse-tribune/159937365/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/argus-leader/159937413/
Books:
Smith, J. (2017). Dr. Death: Life of Serial Killer Michael Swango
Stewart, J. B. (2012). blind Eye: the terrifying Story of A Doctor Who Gets Away with Murder.
Welcome to the Motorbook. This is your host, kiera, and this is part 11 of the case of Dr Michael Swango, sirio Poisoner. Let's begin. While O'Hare was covalencing, she and Swango would watch TV and continue their conversations. He was passionately interested in anything having to do with OJ Simpson, who had been acquitted the previous October of murdering his wife, and spoke often of how much he admired him. He seemed thrilled at the verdict, which puzzled O'Hare, and she asked him look, do you actually think he's innocent? And he snapped and he said of course not. He seemed almost as fascinated by the story of English serial killer John Reginald Christie, who was convicted of murdering eight people, including his wife and a baby, over 10 years, ending in 1953. But before Christie was caught, another man, timothy Evans, whose wife and child were among Christie's victims, had been tried, convicted and hanged for their murders. Evans was posthumously pardoned in 1966. Swango told O'Hare the whole story and seemed especially to savor the fact that Christie had been able to deflect blame onto an innocent man. This same notion that the wrong man might be accused of severe murder, figured in the suspense thriller that he told Joanna he was writing, and Swango often spoke of the incompetence of the police and other members of the medical profession. And Swango even told O'Hare to watch the miniseries on Ted Bundy, professing his admiration for the handsome law student and exulting that no one has suspected him for so long. O'hare had never heard of Bundy but at Swango's insistence She watched the program.
Speaker 1:Under the circumstances, o'hare found Swango's enthusiasm strange And she warned him after watching the show She said in view of what you are suspected of, i wouldn't go around talking about serial killers. So, giving his faithful attendance at the Presbyterian Church and his friendship with the law remers, she was also surprised by the irreverence of some of his comments. He often mocked participants in the Bible study class, especially a woman named Rosie Malcolm. He had once shown a romantic interest in Rosie and would comment sarcastically guess what we pray about today? And when he talked like that, o'hare would ask him so why do you go? And his answer was well, i'd like to mix with night's people. On another occasion Swango seemed so content with religion that O'Hare asked him so why do you believe in? And he said I believe in God. She said do you believe in Christ? And he didn't reply. But O'Hare drew nothing of significance from these conversations, which were isolating, puzzling notes and usually a cordial relationship, and she trusted her young lodger so much that she turned her car over to him. He would take her to work in the morning, pick her up for lunch, return to take her home at the end of the day. That gave him unlimited mobility and freed him from having to depend on Joanna, while her friends for rights Only the servants Lissie and Mary remained suspicious.
Speaker 1:One afternoon Lissie Carrero, one of the maids, was watching O'Hare's car and Swango was watching her And he asked her are you sure it's clean? And she was annoyed by the insinuation. But she answered yes, i am sure. And he said well, maybe I should wipe it with a white cloth. In jail The security officer swiped everything with a white cloth to see if it's clean And Carrero asked shut back. And she said how will you know what they do in jail? And Swango looked flustered and then explained that jail was just like the army and that they have done the same thing when he was in the army. But after she heard him say that, she became a little suspicious. One day Swango offered Carrero and Mary some empty plastic vials and asked if they wanted them. They said they did, but then thought the vials had a strange smell so they threw them away.
Speaker 1:Another time Carrero suspected that Swango had tampered with the peanut butter she kept in the kitchen in her cottage. It was a new jar but it had been opened and an indentation suggested something had been pushed into it, so she was afraid to eat it. If Swango was at home when she needed to clean, he would stand in the room and make Carrero rack him around him. When he left he always carried a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, which made her wonder whether he had something he didn't want her to see. But her madam would hear nothing of the suspicious.
Speaker 1:So one day Carrero came to O'Hare and insisted that she came into Swango's room. They all had considered it odd that Swango insisted on so much bacon and four slices of toast for breakfast every morning. So Carrero pointed to a closet shelf and said I'm worried. And there, neatly wrapped in a range, were dozens of bacon sandwiches. So of course Mrs O'Hare was upset With Swango returned that evening she told him a fib that the cat had come across the sandwiches in his closet And she lectured him. She said this is a wholesome in our climate because it would attract ants, if not worse. Please put the sandwiches in this plastic box and put it in the refrigerator.
Speaker 1:But a few weeks later again the maid Carrero came to her again with a triumphant look on her face And she said come, look. And she let O'Hare into Swango's room. This time she opened the bureau drawer and, wrapped with minute precision, concealed in the center of the drawer were more bacon sandwiches. Mrs O'Hare was alarmed. She thought that Swango suffered from some sort of food hoarding syndrome. And Carrero said well, i'm a little worried. No doctor would hide food in such a way. So she insisted that she and Mary Shemwe, the other maid, begin sleeping in the other bedroom next to O'Hare's with their door open. If he asked why, they would tell Swango they had come into the house from their cottage because they were suffering from colds, struggle seemed upset at their presence, scuffing at the explanation and asking them every day when they planned to return to the cottage. But they felt the vigilance was vindicated. Mrs O'Hare slept with her bedroom door ajar so the cat could go in and out during the night.
Speaker 1:On several evenings Carrero heard Swango open his door and come into the hallway. He would stand motionless peering into Mrs O'Hare's room. In each time Carrero made a sound to indicate she was awake and he quickly returned to his room. Mrs O'Hare began to notice odd things around the house. A few souvenirs and books were missing. Small amounts of money vanished. The liquor bottles were nearly empty.
Speaker 1:She began to worry about what he was doing with the car. Sometimes he was out until 4 am and would come creeping into the house in a way that frightened the servants. Then one day when Swango was supposed to pick her up for lunch at home, he failed to show up, stranding her at the office. When he arrived that evening she was angry and she demanded to know where were you? He asked in a mocking-town. Do you think I was trying to make a getaway to Botswana? That was it. He said that Mrs O'Hare was suddenly alarmed because such a possibility had never even crossed her mind.
Speaker 1:Had he tried to flee? If so, was there something to those stories from Nini? These suspicions hardened when the Chronicle ran a brief news items two days later That says Doctor try to escape And the article said In American Doctor of Cues of Cossing the Death of 5 Patients at Nini Hospital in Berengua reportedly tried to leave the country for Botswana but was apparently stopped. Police sources claimed. They say the Doctor was believed to be still in Bulawayo, but his except were about were not known. So in the wake of that incident, mrs O'Hare terminated Swango's car privileges, a decision he greeted with what she considered a cold, hostile stare.
Speaker 1:Then a fax arrived for Swango from a medical school in Pretoria, south Africa, which O'Hare retrieved from the machine And he says because you are 42, we cannot accept you for the course. The letter began. It was addressed to Michael Swango, not Swan, the name by which Mrs O'Hare knew him. So now Mrs O'Hare was startled. He had told her he was 27, her daughter's age. That evening she asked him about his name and age Without any hesitation he explained that Swango was pronounced Swan in America to avoid ethnic prejudice. Swango is an anglicized name of Swedish origin, according to family members. As for his age, the school must have misread his resume The 68th and my birthday looks like 53, he said That. All sounded plausible when he said it, but the more she thought about it the less sense it made When she mentioned the discrepancies to Keredo they made. Again. Let O'Hare into Swango's room where she opened the cupboard and show her Swango's Zimbabwe work permit. The birthday on it was not 1968, it was 1954, he was actually 41.
Speaker 1:Mrs O'Hare wondered if Swango's strange symptoms might indicate post-traumatic stress disorder. Was he perhaps a Vietnam War veteran? She decided to phone his former girlfriend, whom she still knew only as Lee Ann. She had wondered at the time why she had broken off the relationship and thought the reason might shed some light on the recent strange events. She retrieved Lee Ann's phone number, which she saved from the time Swango had asked her to call and tell Lee Ann She was making a mistake and breaking off with Swango.
Speaker 1:Mrs O'Hare told Lee Ann that she was Swango's landlady and reminded her that they had met when Swango brought her to the house, adding I know you have broken up, so, and she didn't want to sound alarmist. So Mrs O'Hare said only that she had begun to feel uneasy about Swango And she asked her were you uneasy as well? And Lee Ann said I can't say. And Mrs O'Hare said is he possibly older than he claims? And Lee Ann said well, i saw a document, a driver's permit, that said he was 28. But Lee Ann hardly seemed talkative or forthcoming. So Mrs O'Hare got directly to what was really worrying her. She said do you think I'm in any danger, it might quite safe with him in the house. And Lee Ann said well, i don't want to answer, and that was hardly reassuring. So Mrs O'Hare said why not? And Lee Ann hesitated as if she might say more, but then she said you know what he's accused of, right? And then click, she hang up.
Speaker 1:Mrs O'Hare suddenly felt weak and lightheaded. There must be something to the nanny charges. After all, she had to find a way to get Swango out of the house without alarming or angering him. She immediately called her cousin in South Africa And she said I'm scared, i want to get rid of him. So she and her cousin work on a scheme in which the cousin will send a fax to the fact that her son will be teaching at the university in Bulawayo and would need a place to live, both a bedroom and an office. So the fax arrived, o'hare took it and nervously presented it to Swango when he returned that evening, and she said that under the circumstances she would have to give him two weeks notice. And he said well, fine, i'm running out of money anyway. I don't know how much longer I can afford the rent. And he even mentioned that he might leave for work in Sambia, which lies north of Zimbabwe. O'hare was immensely relieved that he had taken the news so calmly and didn't ask any questions about her flimsy cover story.
Speaker 1:The next day, thursday, august 8, 1996, when Mrs O'Hare returned from work, her maid Coredo met her at the gate And she said Mike has done something. He's too happy. He's been singing and playing your CD player. And of course there's annoying Mrs O'Hare because Swango had been expressly asked not to use the CD player. When she entered the house, tapes and CDs were strewn upon the lounge And so she knocked on Swango's door. She said Mike, i believe you have been playing my CD. You know that's my private property. And he replied since when? And he slammed the door.
Speaker 1:O'hare immediately phoned her lawyer and told him everything The niny allegations, the bizarre behavior, the missing money, the unauthorized use of her tapes and CDs. And the lawyer said get him out. Today I'll come out to help. So she went to Swango's room and knocked again, and this time she said Mike, i want you to leave tonight. He seemed resigned to her decision. He looked as though he had already cleared out his room. He said I suppose you will refund the rent money. And she wrote him a check for the balance. And then she told him she was changing the locks and hiring a security guard. And he said do whatever you want. When he later emerged from the room carrying his bags, a neighbor had arrived. O'hare hoped that wouldn't be a scene, but to her surprise he now seemed as charming as ever. He smiled. He shook O'Hare's hand, bidding her farewell, and he said I hope you're not going to talk about me and then I won't talk about you. And Mrs O'Hare said what do you mean by that? What could you possibly say? And he said that you have gone raving mad. And with that he left, slamming the door behind him.
Speaker 1:The next morning Mrs O'Hare discovered what had evidently put Swango in such a good mood. The previous day She tried to start her car, but the motor keep quickly sputtered and died. She tried several times but the car wouldn't start. On Sunday she had the car towed to a service station. It didn't take long to diagnose the problem. He says your tank is full of sugar. So furious, o'hare went directly to the police accusing Swango of sabotaging a car.
Speaker 1:On August 9th, the day after Swango left O'Hare's place, joanna Daly drove him to Wero for a hearing in his lawsuit against the Lutheran Church Since the day before he has seen on edge. He was especially worried that reporters I hound him at the hearing and he told Joanna that under no circumstances did he want to talk to the press. Nor did he want Joanna to witness the proceedings, so he told her to wait in the car. David Coltard and his firm continued to represent Swango, not only in the suit against the church but in the administrative proceedings that had begun in Harare to suspend his license to practice medicine. But Coltard's enthusiasm for Swango had begun to cool. Judy Todd, his fellow civil rights lawyer, had mentioned at church that O'Hare was unhappy with Swango. Though she had not been able to provide any details, they had caused Mr Coltard some concern, since he respected Mrs O'Hare. Partly because of growing doubts about Swango, he sent an associate to handle the hearing, which was held at the Midlands Labor Relations Office before an administrative office Officer.
Speaker 1:The lawyers expected the church to reveal the evidence it had regarding Swango's involvement in the mysterious deaths at Nini, which might also shed some light on where the criminal investigation was headed. But any concerned Swango might have felt about this possibility quickly evaporated, in keeping with the strategy of attracting as little attention as possible to the Nini deaths. The church surprised Swango's lawyers by relying entirely on a technical procedural defense. He'd argued that it couldn't be sued for wrongfully dismissing Swango since he was actually employed by the Ministry of Health which paid his salary. Thus the church lawyers sidestepped their actual cause of Swango's dismissal. While no ruling was made, swango was elated. There have been no reporters at the proceeding, no mention of his alleged crimes. The hearing officer had given the church's argument short shrift, even noting and passing that six other labor complaints against the church were pending from Nini.
Speaker 1:Joanna Naffo justified in her belief that Swango had been adjustly dismissed. But Swango's euphorias proved short-lived because several days later Joanna answered the phone, then called to Swango and said the police wanted to speak to him. He turned pale and told her to say he was out. The police called several more times and each time she said Swango wasn't there. Finally he called the police and asked what they wanted. They were vague, saying they wanted to interview him in person. So he agreed to appear at the police station on August 28.
Speaker 1:In the next three days Swango seemed increasingly on edge. His squint and eye twitch became more pronounced and the chronicle had reported on July 28 that investigations at Nini were at an advanced stage and officers would be questioning the last group of people soon Soon after the calls from the police, swango told Joanna that he thought he might take a vacation. He felt he needed to get away after the stress of the court hearing and said that he had liked to visit the National Park at Yunga, a wild region on Zimbabwe's northeast border with Mozambique where, he said, he had friends. Numerous hiking trails crossed the border in the wilderness area and many local people walked across the border without observing any immigration or custom formalities.
Speaker 1:Joanna had mixed feelings about Swango's impending departure. She thought it was a bit abrupt. After leaving Mrs O'Hare's, swango had agreed to house it for a family he knew from church and several weeks remained before their return. He asked Joanna if she had checked the house every day while he was gone and though she agreed it was an unwelcome addition to her daily chores, he also had not asked her to accompany him on his vacation and, although she probably couldn't have left the children in any event, the omission had hurt her feelings And she was growing a little tired of having him around the household day, of having to cook for him, talk with him, follow his directions of being constantly fearful that she might be violating his privacy, and he had never taken her to dinner, paid for a movie or given her a present.
Speaker 1:Swango also wrote to his lawyer, coltard, to tell him of his plans. He said that he had been contacted by the police and an officer wanted to speak to him and that he agreed to delay his coming until August 28th. He said I had a strong suspicion as to what this was about. The letter continued and he said I will be gone for a few days but I'll be back on the 28th. Then he sent two cards to the law remers, one wishing Ian good luck and some upcoming medical exams and another wishing Cheryl a happy birthday.
Speaker 1:On August 27th He took two trunks, dropped them off at the Murdo's house, asking Cheryl's parents if they have mine, keeping them for him until he returned and found another place to live. So on August 14th Joanna drove Swango to the Blue Arrow Bus Terminal in downtown Bulawayu. Blue Arrow operates long distance buses to Mayor's City in Zimbabwe, south Africa and neighboring countries. He had packed carefully, leaving one box of belongings with her carrying only his stuffer bag and backpack. He told her he would be gone for two weeks. He kissed her, asked her to collect any mail for him, said he would be in touch with her and vanish into the bus station. But August 28th came and went.
Speaker 1:Swango did not keep his appointment at the police station. Joanna began to worry when he didn't return. She told the police that he was with friends in Yanga, but he had never told her their names and she had no way to reach him. It dawned on her that he was gone and that she would never see him again. When Swango didn't show up for his police interview and Caltard had not heard from him, his misgivings increased. He formed the US Embassy in Harare to ask about Swango and was stunned by what he was told. He said Michael Swango was wanted for murder in the United States. Ironically, caltard won the Lutheran Church case for Swango. In early October the labor relations hearing officer ruled that Swango had indeed be wrongfully discharged by the Lutheran Church and that warranted him $35,000 and their monetary bills and damages. And the award wasn't collected Nowhere Caltard's bills paid.
Speaker 1:So after several weeks Joanna tore up the mail she was keeping for Swango, went through the box of things that he had left behind and she found only two things of interest. One was a bottle of blonde hair dye. She was surprised that he had evidently been dyeing his hair. The other was a supply of ant kill, which is a brand of ant poison, and she thought that was odd. Why would Swango had a supply of ant killer? She put the ant kill with her household supplies and threw everything else away.
Speaker 1:Even after the sugar was removed from the gas tank, mrs O'Hare's car continued to have problems. No one seemed able to locate the trouble And finally the mechanic discovered crystallized sugar in the carburetor. O'hare's health problems persisted. In addition to the occasional nausea and headaches, she felt weak and had a nagging cough which the doctor thought was chronic bronchitis. She mentioned her symptoms one day to Mike Cotton, one of the doctors who had worked with Swango at Pillow, and Cotton told her that he thought she should have her hair sample tested. And she asked him why. And he explained that giving her symptoms with crumb bronchitis is a side effect of arsenic poisoning And the nature of the accusations against Swango. He thought it would be a good idea. So O'Hare was shocked She said surely he didn't do anything to me. She insisted but she agreed to the test. The hair sample was sent to a laboratory in South Africa which found a concentration of arsenic that was more than 12 times the norm.
Speaker 1:O'hare had to go on long-term disability from her job. The low-rimors and the myrtles heard of O'Hare's plight and also learned that books and other objects had disappeared from her house. Ted Myrtle called her and mentioned the trunk Swango had left with them, saying he would bring them over to the house. Perhaps her missing items might be found there. So Mrs O'Hare opened the trunks and went through Swango's belongings And she was shocked by what she was discovered. There were about 10 hospital gowns from PILO, all of them rank filthy. They were a kidney-shaped hospital dish and a used syringe.
Speaker 1:There were numerous newspaper clippings from about the OJ Simpson murder case, the Crystal C Row Killings in Britain. There was a cardboard hospital form with a list of names written on it. O'hare noticed the name Edith, which she recognized from newspaper accounts as one of Swango's alleged victims. There were some men's apostle books. There were books about murder and the supernatural. In one book Swango had underlined a sentence the British are arrogant. Swango had written yes in the margin, which O'Hare took as a personal affront. And there were books including the anthologies High Risk and High Risk II Writings on Sex, death and Subversion. Glancing at some of the pages, mrs O'Hare felt faint. Several passages were highlighted in yellow marker. There were violent, scatological sexual descriptions that O'Hare found revolting. But most upsetting to Mrs O'Hare was makeup that had belonged to her daughter, paulette, as well as a pair of Paulette underwear.
Speaker 1:Talked between the pages of one of the books was a piece of paper, and on it Swango had carefully written a poem by W H Alden, and O'Hare was initially puzzled, but then she recognized the poem as a funeral oration and four weddings and a funeral. The one that says stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, silence the pianos and, with muffled drum, bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come. Let air replay in circle, moaning overhead, scribbling on the sky the message he is dead. Put crepe bowls around the white necks of the public doves. Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my north, my south, my east and west, my working week and my Sunday rest, my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. I thought that love will last forever. I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now. Put out everyone, pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, for nothing now can ever come to any good. So now it's June 27, 1997.
Speaker 1:An immigration official at Old Hare International Airport in Chicago took the American passport of a man arriving from Johannesburg, rio, london. He was en route to Portland, oregon, and then on the same day to Don Ron saw the Arabia. The immigration official entered the name on the passport, michael J Swango, and the passport number into the computer. When the results appeared, he asked Swango to step into a private room. Swango was arrested on federal charges of fraud. The outstanding warrant for his arrest has shown up on the INS computer. The next day he was transferred by a federal marshal to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, new York, the federal prison primarily serving the eastern district of New York, which covers Long Island.
Speaker 1:Since living in Zimbabwe nearly 10 months before, swango had already obtained two new positions as a physician. The first was at a university teaching hospital in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, the African nation which lies to the north of Zimbabwe and east of Angola. He had obtained a temporary medical license from the Zambian government and had been treating patients for over two months when Zimbabwe authorities issued an alert on him to other southern African nations, including South Africa, nabilia, botswana and Zambia. Zambia authorities promptly fired Swango from the hospital on November 19, 1996, and suspended his medical license. Swango protested by the action by letter saying he had left Zimbabwe because the medical system there was in turmoil and he was being harassed by government authorities and had never been given an opportunity to contest the charges. But, as in South Dakota, he didn't stay to pursue the appeal. By the time hospital officials replied Swango had again vanished.
Speaker 1:Swango next surfaced in Johannesburg, south Africa. Through a medical placement firm, he quickly secured a position at a hospital in Saudi Arabia, far from the scrutiny of US or Southern African investigators. There was only one snag He had to obtain a Saudi visa to a consulate located in the United States. Saudi Arabia only issued visas to foreigners in the country of their citizenship. Swango argues strenuously that he was absurd to make him fly all the way back to America rather than travel directly from Africa to Riyadh. But Saudi officials would not make an exception. Since the Saudi royal family, which ran the hospital that had hired Swango, had often used a medical placement firm in Oregon to obtain physicians for its hospitals, it was arranged for Swango to pick up his visa there, then travel that same day to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1:Though his reluctance to return to America suggests that Swango was aware that a warrant had been issued for his arrest and that he might be picked up while going through customs and immigration, he nevertheless traveled under his real name, using his own passport. Perhaps he felt he had no choice, since the medical diploma he had used to secure his job wasn't the name Michael Swango. Or perhaps he simply could not forge or obtain new passport in the short time before his scheduled departure. Of course, he could have turned down the job offer and sought non-medical employment, but access to hospital patients appears to have become a compulsion, something he would take extraordinary risks to maintain.
Speaker 1:Swango's arrest attracted little public attention, and indictment charging him with willfully making a materially false fictitious or fatherland statement and representation to gain admins to the New York Veterans Hospital A matter within the jurisdiction of a department or agency of the United States was filed on July 3rd, but it wasn't on seal and made public until July 25th. The FBI investigation now went into high gear and an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, cecilia Gardner, was assigned to handle the case. A Brief New York Daily News article on July 26th reported that Swango had been napped in Chicago. When Elsie Harris, berman Harris' widow, heard the news she could hardly believe it and burst into tears. She thought everyone had forgotten about Swango, even though in her heart she was convinced that Swango was responsible for her husband's death And, as a matter of fact, elsie Harris and relatives of two other patients who died. They sued Swango, they sued the Veterans Administration, they sued the University Medical Center at Stony Brook for wrongful death And Andrew Seiman, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said the cases were dismissed because they could not prove that Swango had cost the deaths. So now it's September and she traveled to Federal District Court in Uniondale, long Island, for Swango's arraignment. She noticed that he had lost weight. He seemed calm, polite, respectful. She was hoping he might offer some explanation or say something to her, but he avoided her eye and didn't acknowledge her presence In Quincy.
Speaker 1:Dennis Cashman, the judge, who had found Swango guilty of poisoning his co-workers 11 years earlier, heard about Swango's arrest from a newsday reporter who called, and then from Nancy Watson, the official at the American Medical Association in Chicago who had rejected Swango's application while he was in South Dakota. The judge was amazed, dismayed, that Swango had surfaced yet, so now decided to call a reporter that he knew, james B Stoard, and he said that because Mr Stoard knew the judge. So in Quincy, illinois, judge Dennis Cashman this is the judge who had found Swango guilty of poisoning his co-workers 11 years earlier heard about Swango's arrest. He heard it from two people from a newsday reporter who called him and told him that piece of information, and also from Nancy Watson who was the official at the American Medical Association in Chicago who had rejected Swango's application while he was in South Dakota. So the judge was dismayed about this information, so he decided to call a reporter by the name of James Stoard, who was somebody that he knew for years. They grew up in the same neighborhood, the families basically knew each other And he told him that he had learned from Michael Swango, who had been arrested at Ohio Airport, and he said that Swango had grown up in Quincy and he has been the valedictorian of his high school class. So the reporter Stoard thought a little bit and he said well, the name was familiar, but they were not exactly from the same high school class. There was some years difference And the reporter went to public school, while Swango didn't. He went to a Catholic high school So but he did remember the last name, swango, and he did remember the poisoning charges that had back in 1985 when it happened. So he asked Judge Cashman why Swango had been arrested And they just say oh, i know, is that he had been arrested on a minor charge.
Speaker 1:But for him the real issue was far more serious, because two years earlier an FBI agent found the Bureau's Springfield Illinois office. John I think his name was John McCatty Jr visited the judge in his chambers and said that the Bureau was trying to develop a psychological profile of Swango as it continued to search for him. And McCatty and the Bureau had recently intervened to have Swango fired from a job dealing with the water system of a larger Southern metropolitan area, which was in this case Atlanta, because of fears that he might try to poison the water supplies in a system in Atlanta. So the judge found this startling enough. But then the agent told him the FBI had now connected Swango to numerous possible homicides And the Bureau was reasonably confident that Swango had killed 60 people. So the judge said oh, do you say six? Do you say six people? And then the agent told him. No, no, no, not six. Sixty. The number of Swango's alleged victims would, if proved, rank him among the most prolific and successful serial killers in America history.
Speaker 1:But Cashman was equally disturbed by the conduct of members of the medical profession. So he went on and told the reporter, mr Stewart, that he briefly recounted Swango's employment history. He pointed out that doctors and administrators have entrusted patients to a man they knew to be a convicted felon, and the medical profession seemed blind to the possibility that one of its own could be a serial killer. And he said this is outrageous, and I believe this is a national scandal. So the reporter was stunned by the possibility that someone from his own hometown could be a prolific serial killer and that he had been able to move from hospital to hospital. And his question was how could such a thing have happened? What could possibly explain the mind of a doctor who took an oath to help people but instead killed them, seemingly at a random? Or was it possible that, as Swango always maintained, he was a victim of a bizarre series of coincidences and a miscarriage of justice?
Speaker 1:So the reporter decided to do some research on his own, and he researched this case for almost two years. He wanted to look for answers. So of course, he went to Quincy, to Ohio, to Virginia, to South Dakota, to Long Island and finally to Africa. And that is when he stood in a remote field in Zimbabwe, face to face with one of Swango's victims, that he became convinced of his guilt. He met Kinia Sisiwa, who told him the same story as Rina Cooper. Rina Cooper was the woman who was also a victim of Swango in another hospital in the States, and this woman, she had never met or heard of Mr Sisiwa, but at the same time their stories were very, very similar.
Speaker 1:So he started looking for more information of Michael Swango, and one of the things that he noticed is that all these patients trusted Michael Swango as a doctor. You know he had. They have looked up to Dr Mike to save them. And the other thing that the reporter found out in his research is that Michael Swango has consistently refused to be examined by a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist. He has maintained that there is no reason why he should be examined since he has nothing. He has done nothing wrong. So you know, perhaps he is intelligent and knowledgeable enough to have a pretty good idea of what a psychiatrist would find.
Speaker 1:And so the reporter wanted to understand Swango a little bit more, so he decided to contact Dr Jeffrey Smoldon, who is a clinical and forensic psychologist and his specialty is psychopathology, specifically serial killers. He had consulted in more than a hundred death penalty cases and he has interviewed several serial killers, including John Wayne Gacy. Dr Smoldon lives in Columbus Ohio, and so he decided to go all the way to Columbus Ohio and talk to the doctor. When he did that, one of the things that the doctor told the reporter was look, you know, i'm not going to give you a diagnosis, because no diagnosis can entirely explain an extreme case such as Swango's And any single explanation will ultimately come up way short because antisocial, narcissistic. There's still a large amount of unexplained variants and large unanswered questions, but in many ways Swango seems a textbook case of psychopath who exhibits extreme narcissistic tendency, and he went on explaining that, although the term psychopath is not currently in formal diagnostic use, the label is still widely used by both professionals and lay people.
Speaker 1:A psychopath is generally understood to be someone who lacks a capacity for empathy and may exhibit aggressive, perverted, criminal or immoral behavior, and the psychopath tends to be highly self-absorbed. The condition is usually classified as an extreme and dangerous variation of narcissistic personality disorder and narcissism being the excessive love of self. But it is not a form of insanity. Psychopaths are full aware of their actions and have the actions consequences and they can distinguish right from wrong. So the other thing that Dr Smoadant told Mr Stewart was look, you know, we can talk about the case. But I want to emphasize that I cannot diagnose someone that I have never met. So after reading the materials that the reporter gave him, he said that he was struck by the incredible narcissism that Swango displayed and that this is often the most prominent personality feature of some of the serial killers that he has met. And he said that Swango seems to have that sense of entitlement, a preoccupation with control and manipulation, and that Swango was a narcissist in some relatively obvious ways, such as his obsession with physical fitness. He wanted to have control over his body's appearance And also he exerted some control over his girlfriends. But the ultimate expression of a narcissistic preoccupation is control over life and death In.
Speaker 1:Serial killers typically betray or portray I should say fascination with the military, law enforcement, they want to be in careers in which people are armed. They often fantasize about violence and disasters in which they emerge as heroes. One example would be serial killer David Berkovitz, the son of Sam. He wanted to be a fireman And he told an interview, during an interview, that he wanted to die while saving lives and fighting a blaze. He wanted to help people, rescue people and be a hero, even if it means dying in the fire. So it is significant that Swango indicated in his high school yearbook that he wanted to be a state trooper and that he later enlisted in the Marines. His fascination with what might be called armed careers was also manifested in the arsenal that was found in Quincy when the police searched his apartment, his obsession with disasters and his work as a paramedic. When he was a paramedic, he came to the scene of accidents even when he was off duty, in fantasies in which he would arrive on the scene of disasters and have control over the fate of the victims. So all these situations, all these were situations in which he had control over the lives of others.
Speaker 1:The narcissistic psychopath is not motivated by empathetic concern for the victims or by desire to help them, but it is more a grandiose sense of self. And of course, there are numerous theories suggesting biological and genetic predispositions to psychopathology, and this may have played a role in Swango's development. But narcissism, in the classic Freudian view, is an attempt to compensate for early, profound feelings of being unloved and undervalued. So if we look at Swango, he experienced an absent, detached father, a mother who, however devoted, had difficulty expressing love and affection. The father who is either physically or emotionally absent figures in the history of most male psychopaths is a common feature in the profiles that are used to detect saver killers. So Swango spoke often of his absent father. He glorified his father's Korean Vietnam, while expressing his own language of being old but abandoned. He had a fascination with disasters, with killing, with weapons echoed and with echoes that echo similar interests that he perceived in his father, and one of the things he learned was that his father also kept scrapbooks of disasters like he did.
Speaker 1:So, according to the doctor's analysis, it is almost too simplistic to say that Swango is trying to close the gap between himself and his and his dad. Also, in Swango's case, the problem may have been compounded by his mother's focus on him, to the exclusion of her other children. As special, as gifted, as someone deserving of a private school education and someone who seems as narcissistic as Swango, you're going to find a pattern of overvaluing by one or both parents, because everything that they do is seeing superior is seems special. His mother's inability to absorb that Michael wouldn't graduate with his class. They need to keep up the front. That he was special and brilliant is significant, and he may have lost the ability to evaluate his own self-worth by any realistic standard.
Speaker 1:They are severe narcissists that often demonstrate their grandiose sense of self by deceiving others. They experience both acceleration at their own super-reality and contempt for their victims when they successfully put something over on another. Their activities may range from relatively innocuous lies to, in extreme cases, serious crimes committed largely for the thrill of eluding detection. And, paradoxically, the thrill and the sense of super-reality may be enhanced by taking risk that actually increased the likelihood of getting caught. So Swango seems to be an extreme example of this grandiose personality in action, because he lied constantly, sometimes for seemingly rational reasons such as concealing his past in order to get a job, but often it seems simply to get away with something. He lied about his military record because he said that he received a bronze star and a purple heart. At one point he said his mother was dead. And he was a good liar too. He was able to deceive even trained psychiatrist at Stony Brook, which no doubt stoke his own sense of importance His claims that he didn't give Mrs Rena Cooper an injection, that he wasn't even in her room, that he didn't give Mr Cicillo an injection, even as Cicillo appointed to him as a doctor who had injected him with a paralyzing drug, and for him that was intensely thrilling. And Dr Smyldon also mentioned that he was struck by the gratucious falsification, the idea of putting one over just for its own sake, just because you can get away with something, and there is a sense of power in this. He also talked about Swango's comments about violence, sex and death. His open admiration for serial killers like Ted Bundy is calling attention to articles about serial killers, to movies such as The Silence of the Lambs, according to Dr Smyldon, he continually drew attention to himself in ways that are hard to understand, except in terms of the thrill of going right to the edge.
Speaker 1:Another revealing clue to Swango's psychopathic mind was his reaction to criticism. He he bridled when teased and belittled in medical school. Dr Smyldon suggested that the incident in which Swango botched his cadaver and was criticized and mocked would have been experienced by him as an extreme humiliation. He may have begun killing and retaliation. Swango's failure to graduate with his SAU medical school class was so humiliating that he couldn't bring himself to tell his mother or show up at the dinner where he would have to face his relatives. He subjected himself to the self-punishment of push-ups when criticized by residents at Ohio State and his apparent crime spree there began right after his performance as an intern was criticized by a faculty member. He seems to have poisoned his fellow paramedics after he was mocked for not being assigned to the primary ambulance, and he appears to have begun poisoning at least two of his girlfriends, kristin Kinney and Joanna Daly, and probably his landlady, mrs Linado Hare. And this happened immediately after they questioned his innocence and he erupted in rage when Sharon Cooper commented that he had put up a few pounds.
Speaker 1:While some of his the criticisms he encountered may seem trivial, a cardinal feature of the severe narcissistic personality is that they cannot break criticism or challenge of any kind. According to Dr Smoldon, he was criticized at med school and he couldn't take it. He was thin-skinned, he was extraordinarily self-absorbed. The narcissistic theme is very strong. The extreme narcissistic psychopath almost invariably attributes criticism or challenge to persecution, as did Swango and his many claims to be the victim of miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1:Besides enjoying the thrill of controlling life and death and getting away with it, serial killers feel no empathy for the victims, so complete is their absorption in themselves. When Swango poisoned his victims short of the point of death, he very well may have felt they deserved punishment he needed on. But a serial killer who chooses his victims at random has no motive in any rational sense. The thrill of killing and getting away with it simply has no deterrent in the form of empathy for the victim. Precisely why this would be the case, why some people utterly fail to develop a capacity for emotional bonding or identification with another human being, is a subject of much debate among psychologists. Some have suggested that a child who fails to undergo an edible transfer to either parent risk losing the capacity for empathy, and other researchers have suggested biological causes.
Speaker 1:Psychopathic serial killers invariably lack any capacity for empathy In. This deficit may have been most evident in Swango's numerous callous remarks about death, in his delight in being the doctor to inform relatives of the death of a loved one, in his failure to express any remorse after being after people died what in his care, and especially in his curious lack of emotional reaction when he found out that Kristen Kinney, his girlfriend, had died. Yet many people found Swango charming, attractive, personable. Numerous women dated him and at least three loved him. But this seem seem seeming paradox is almost common in the psychopath. Dr Smolden also explained that he would imagine Swango as profoundly deficient in his ability to connect emotionally with other people, but probably very adept at exhibiting counterfeit displays of emotion when he had perceived a purpose in doing so, for example to maintain a relationship that provided sexual gratification.
Speaker 1:The psychopathic personality is often described as the mask of sanity. 2 because it's superficial. These people seem to have the normal emotional equipment, but it doesn't run deep. They pantomime it, they don't feel it. It appears Swango was obviously very good at crafting a social persona that would serve his interests. Another telltale clue in Swango's behavior this is strange relationship to food Eating the entire chocolate cream pie his mother baked for him, hoarding the cream cheese pastries at the hospital in South Dakota and especially obsessively wrapping and storing the bacon sandwiches that he prepared Mrs O'Hare's house. Such obsessions are usually characterized as aspects of an attachment disorder, in attempt to overcome the deep insecurity fostered by the failure to bond with a parent.
Speaker 1:It is, of course, easier to describe a psychopath than it is to explain one. No doubt many people grow up with an absent father and an emotionally distant mother, aspire to be a policeman or a marine, have a controlling personality and even hoard food. Mercifully, few are psychopaths. As Dr Smolden cautioned, nothing entirely explains someone as an aberrant as Swango. His good looks, his charm, his intelligence, our varying ability to predict or explain his psychopathology are part of what makes him so frightening. Nearly all those who came into contact with Michael Swango and were viewed by him defend themselves by pointing out that he was such a skilled psychopathic liar that they could not have been expected to detect his deception and that his behavior is so aberrant that the possibility of similar occurrences is remote. It would be comforting to believe that this is the case, but all indications are to the contrary.
Speaker 1:The disturbing fact is that serial killing, or mercifully infrequent, is a contemporary phenomenon. We can see isolated examples in the 19th century, like a Jack the Ripper. They were sub-severe murderers that proliferated in the 1950s and especially in the United States, but it will have. The known instances of serial killing in America since 1795 have occurred since 1970 when the raid soared exponentially. It increased tenfold into the 1970s alone. There seems to be little doubt among experts that serial killing is a socially influenced phenomenon and that one instance with its attendant publicity encourages emulation, especially on the part of grandiose, narcissistic personalities determined to generate a place of publicity for themselves.
Speaker 1:Swango he emerged as a physician, even though there were other two other non-physicians cases, one in England, dr Thomas Neil Kreme, and then Dr H H Holmes, who was mentioned in a lot of the literature as probably the first serial killer in America, and he committed. They both committed their murders in the late 19th century. But serial killers within the healthcare field well, they remain relatively few have increased in an alarming rate Even since Swango's arrest. There have been two examples of national publicity or real majors a nursing intensive care unit of a hospital in Indiana. Efren Saldivar, respiratory therapist, in Los Angeles. Serial killers were discovered in hospitals, in an harbor in Michigan in 1975, in San Antonio in 1981. Some killers have defended their murders in a hospital setting as mercy killings, but relatively few of these claims stand up to scrutiny. Others seem to be random acts of serial murder. From the point of view of a determined serial killer, a hospital is almost the ideal setting, since murder can so easily be camouflaged as natural death.
Speaker 1:A shilling counterpart to Swango emerged in 1987 when a medical examiner in Cincinnati saw cyanide in the stomach cavity of a man believed to have died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. The cyanide poison was traced to a quiet 35-year-old nurse, nurse's aide at Drake Memorial Hospital, his name Dona Harvey. When Harvey was confronted, he admitted to poisoning the accident victim and to killing a killing spree that spanned 16 years and four hospitals, including the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cincinnati where he worked for 10 years. He admitted that he killed at least 52 times and eventually pleaded guilty to 25 Ohio murders and nine in Kentucky. He did this in return to be spared the death penalty. He was sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences and will be 95 by the time he's eligible for parole. But in as in many such cases, it is hard to know precisely how many victims Harley actually killed.
Speaker 1:Harvey confessed that he didn't always poison people to kill. Fearful that his lover was cheating on him, Harvey slips small doses of arsenic into the man's food so that he would become sick and have to stay home. When a tenant quarrel with his lover over utility bills, he put arsenic and the topping on a piece of pie he gave him. Harvey's arrest and confession shocked people, people who knew him. He was religious, he was polite, he was a reliable employee. A family friend told the press that he was such a good boy, a good Christian man. But Harvey had a troubled childhood and had attempted suicide on several occasions to try to stop himself from killing.
Speaker 1:Harvey described the thrill that he experienced when he escaped detection. He said that, quote I felt a feeling of power. I was able to pull one over on the doctors. I had plenty of common sense. It made me feel smart that a pathologist couldn't catch me. Plus, to show that doctors are prone to mistakes. End quote. So given the rise in serial killings generally, in hospitals specifically, it seems inedivable that more swangles were surfaced and that it seems all the more critical that criminal physicians be monitored and prevented from having access to patients.
Speaker 1:When Judge Cashman spoke to the American Medical Association officials after learning of swango's arrest, he demanded to know how swango could have been hired at two university teaching hospitals after being convicted of poisoning. He was assured that, whatever the explanation, it couldn't happen again because a new national monitoring system had gone into effect in 1990. The system is called the National Practitioner Data Bank. But how then, the judge wonder, could swango have been accepted at the State University of New York in Stony Brook in 1993? That means that that national practitioner data bank already existed, and yet he was accepted into this medical school. So what he found out was that neither Stony Brook nor at South Dakota had officials check with the data bank. Such a step was optional under the Wyden legislation In any event.
Speaker 1:Nor it is obvious that the data bank would have reported anything on swango, since there is no indication that anyone reported swango to the data bank in the first place. So the reporter, mr Stewart, called the data bank to find out if he had any information on swango, and they told him that any such information, even whether his name appeared in the data bank, was confidential. So Dr Salem, who accepted swango's application in South Dakota, insisted to the reporter that he was familiar with the data bank and its operations. He said that medical residents were exempt from its requirements, but others, including administrators at Stony Brook, seemed to be only vaguely aware of its existence and some had never heard of it. So even without swango's example, it is perfectly plain that the data bank is not protected in the public. So that is interesting Now. In short, the performance of this data bank at that point, its failure to warn of swango, wasn't undermissed.
Speaker 1:As Judge Ketchman put it, it was a national scandal, and at times the judge felt that it may be his life's mission to check on swango's career, not just because the FBI has warned him that swango might come after him after he's again released from prison. But Ketchman's obsession almost of keeping swango in check is in large part directed at the medical profession, because in his view, hospital administrators and doctors were so concerned about potential liability that they refused to acknowledge evidence of wrongful deaths And it became swango's unlikely allies. Particularly in Ohio State. They did nothing, so swango should have been prosecuted in Ohio. No one would cooperate, because there is an unwritten rule in the medical profession Inept doctors do not get reported, just get them out of town. Even in the most cursory plans at the medical profession's treatment of swango appears to support Judge Cashman's assertion.
Speaker 1:Michael Swango performed poorly at Southern Illinois University and was the subject of investigations both there and at Ohio State. Each institution made it possible for him to procure a license to practice medicine in its states and did nothing that prevented him from being hired in South Dakota and New York, let alone in a foreign country. Ohio State doctors actually recommended that Swango be licensed During myopia seems little short of astonishing. Repeatedly, doctors at respected hospitals and medical schools were willing to believe that a fellow physician, even when they knew him to be a criminal, and in some cases they went so far as to recommend that he would be hired elsewhere. How could a felon convicted of poisoning or even of a less sensational form of battery be granted an interview, let alone obtain a position?
Speaker 1:Most doctors are affrightened and are upstanding people, but some consider themselves to be members of an elite and treat one another accordingly, and this loyalty among physicians makes police officers famous blue wall of silence a little by comparison. This loyalty and the corresponding distrust of outsiders have only been intensified by decades of personal liability and medical malpractice litigation. That has left doctors as a group feeling beleaguered and unappreciated, suspicious and fearful of outside regulation. Many physicians, often with some justification, have come to view lawyers and indeed the entire legal system with distrust, if not outright hostility. In such a climate, some physicians seem willing to take the word of almost any doctor rather than accept the rulings of the courts.
Speaker 1:Now there is the assistant US attorney, and her name was Cecilia Gardner, and as she pounded the swango case she faced a quandary. It was she who had thought of obtaining a warrant on fraud charges. She and the FBI now believe that they had a murderer in custody, but the only crime that could prove against him was making a false statement. Under federal sentencing guidelines, perjury doesn't carry a mandatory prison term. Gardner was convinced that as soon as swango was out of custody he would again find a position as a physician, probably in a foreign country. She either had to give the FBI time to develop a stronger case, a murder case, by deline the trial, or she had to strain the government's case by expanding the charges.
Speaker 1:Attorney Gardner moved from both fronts. Since swango had had access to drugs demarcotics, which are controlled substances within the federal criminal code, she amended the indictment to include charges of fraudulent access to and distribution of controlled substances. Conviction on these counts carry a maximum prison term of three years. She also persuaded swango's lawyer, randy Chavez, a court appointed public defender, to agree to delay proceedings while Gardner traveled to Africa to seek evidence of similar bad acts. Such evidence will be admissible to prove that swango's actions on non-island were part of a consistent pattern.
Speaker 1:So Gardner traveled to Zimbabwe in the 4th 1997 and there she gathered evidence of the fraudulent representation swango had made to the Lutheran Church and to the health ministries of Zimbabwe and Zambia, and this included a forged letter dated May 19, 1994 from an executive vice president of the Federation of State Medical Boards saying that swango was in good standing with the Federation. The document was notarized by swango's friend, bert Guy, as were all swango's application documents. Swango also said that he had been working as a chemical soil analyst with Guy Enterprises, which Guy later said meant swango had turned the soil for a warm farm, he maintained in his basement. The resume swango used to obtain employment in Saudi Arabia maintained that from 1990 to 1995 he was an emergency room physician in the United States in large urban inner city hospitals and that he was a physician with the US government from 1984 to 1990, which includes the time when he was actually in prison. His employment application said he had never been convicted of a criminal offense and his solemn declaration to the Zimbabwe Health Professions Council stated that he had never been debarred from practice on the grounds of professional misconduct. On March 16, 1998, rather than face a trial that would include an extended inquiry into his activities in Africa. Swango agreed to plead guilty and accept a prison sentence of 42 months, but even after his plea he tried to deceive the federal probation officer preparing his pre-sentencing report. Though he was required to disclose all previous employment, he did not mention that he had worked at Arti Co in Virginia, where workers had come down with symptoms of poisoning, and at photo circuits outside Atlanta where he had access to the city's water supply.
Speaker 1:On June 12, swango appeared in the federal courthouse in Union Dillon Island for sentencing and he still looked younger than his 43 years, although he could hardly have passed for a 28 year old. There were few spectators, no friends or family members were in the court and the courthouse. He took notes throughout the proceeding, as he had had at his trial in Quincy 13 years before, and he would confer frequently with his lawyer, mr Chavez. Mr Chavez said that, despite swango's guilty plea, her client wanted or, mrs Chavez, i should say her client wanted to lodge an empathic denial of any poisoning deaths, and then she added that he denied having any poison making abilities. Judge Michael Mischler pronounced the agree-upon-prince prison sentence 42 months stipulating that while in prison, swango shall not engage in any duties that directly or indirectly require the preparation or delivery of foods or dispensation of medication or pharmaceuticals. The judge asked swango if he had anything to say and swango decided not to. He remained silent. There was no glimmer of satisfaction on swango's face as he left the courtroom escorted by two federal marshals, but on some level he must have felt a sense of triumphs, for despite the guilty plea, despite the dire hints of trouble in Africa, he again evaded murder charges.
Speaker 1:Cecilia Garner resigned from the justice department shortly after swango's plea. Despite her efforts at delay, the FBI had failed to complete its investigation and was no more close to a provable murder case. The obstacles to bureau face were formidable. The deaths at SIU and Ohio State linked to swango were now so old and so much evidence had decayed or been lost or destroyed that the likelihood of finding admissible physical evidence was remote. Morgan, the prosecutor in Ohio, had tried and failed to do so more than 10 years earlier. Officials in South Dakota and on Long Island had a very rushed two-poor claim that they have found no evidence of suspicious death of patients on doswangos care, which hardly enhanced the possibility of finding evidence there. That left Africa symbol from Simbaway officials. They considered that the country lacked the technology and the expertise to test for the sophisticated substances likely to have been used by swango and his victims.
Speaker 1:In any event, even had Simbaway sought swango's extradition under a recently completed treaty between the two countries, the United States doesn't extradite citizen to foreign countries that, like Simbaway, have the death penalty, even though the United States may impose the death penalty itself, the FBI concluded that it had to find physical evidence of at least one American murder to make a case against swango If they could then introduce evidence of swango's activities in Africa to show a pattern of serial murder, much as Gardner had used evidence from Africa to establish a pattern of fraud. To that end, agents reexamined the records of every patient swango treated at the Northport VA hospital his more recent US employer, looking for symptoms consistent with the kinds of poisons already linked to swango, among them arsenic, nicotine, ricin, potassium chloride and suscicoline. The process was tedious and lengthy but, despite the hasty reassurances issued by Stony Brook officials, the suspicions were strongly aroused by some of the evidence. Eventually, three bodies were exhumed on Rungn Island. In addition, autopsy remains were preserved from two potential victims, like Baron Harris, who had lapsed into a coma and then died after an injection by swango. One of those exhumed was Dominic Bofolino, the retired Grunman employee. Tissue and hair samples were collected, sent to the FBI laboratory in DC for analysis. Agents also obtained a sample of Kristen Keeney's hair from the log saved by her mother.
Speaker 1:Tests to determine the presence of poisons are labor intensive and time consuming, and even the suspected Lung Island victims had been dead for over five years. Many potentially lethal substances decay and disappear in that length of time. But only a few months after swango sentencing Andrew Bofolino, dominic's brother heard from one of the federal investigators who said he didn't want to call Teresa, dominic's widow, because his news might upset her. So he asked him was Dominic a smoker by any chance? and Andrew said no, no, he quit smoking more than 15 years ago. Why, and the investigators told him. Well, the reason I ask you if he was a smoker is because the test results show an extreme and that's the word he used extreme level of nicotine in his brother's body, a level consistent with nicotine poisoning. Thank you for listening to the murder book. Have a great week.
