MICHAEL SWANGO: THE DEATH DOCTOR

Article BY LORI BELL

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A genius doctor traveled to multiple hospitals across two continents leaving a trail of dead patients in his wake. The mysterious, sudden deaths go unsolved for more than a decade until law enforcement tracked down the elusive physician just before he took his next job and killed again.

In Columbus, Ohio, on January 14th, 1984, 19 -year-old gymnast, Cynthia McGee, was at Ohio State University Medical Center recovering from severe, but not life threatening injuries. She had been hit by a car while riding her bike.

A doctor in the hospital’s residency program visited McGee, in room 901, to draw blood. Not long after she developed a fever of 102°. At midnight, a “code blue” sounded. Doctors rushed to her bedside, only to find Cynthia was dead. An autopsy later revealed that she died from cardiopulmonary arrest.

One week later, 21-year-old Richard DeLong died unexpectedly in the same hospital. DeLong was found dead in his room, #964, at 3:06pm on January 20th. According to hospital staff, he had gone from stable condition to imminent death following a visit from the same intern doctor, who had been present at the time of McGee’s passing.

Both deaths are very mysterious. Just after Delong’s death, his wife received a call from the intern doctor, who told her Richard had died from a heart attack. The family requested an autopsy, but one wasn’t performed because the intern didn't submit the paperwork.

Richard Delong’s body would later be exhumed. A medical examiner discovered that Delong suffocated to death. Obviously someone at the hospital potentially placed a ball of gauze into his throat, and this resulted in constricting his airway, hence he passed away.

At the University Medical Center, on January 24th, 1984, a nurse entered a room on the ninth floor where 43-year-old Rayne Walter was being treated for a brain tumor. As the nurse neared the bed, what she discovered was Walter was gasping for air. He was turning blue from oxygen deprivation.

The patient then lost consciousness and flat lined. Ten minutes prior, Walter had been visited by the same intern doctor who had been present at the McGee and Delong deaths. Medical staff were perplexed as to what was causing the sudden outbreak of unexplained deaths.

On January 21st, Ruth Berrik was in room #968 talking to a nurse. The elderly woman was doing well having been admitted two weeks earlier after hitting her head at home. A doctor entered the room and told the nurse he was going to check Berrik.

The nurse left the room, and within 20 minutes, she went back and found Berrik unconscious. Doctors had no idea what caused this. On that occasion they were able to save her life, but one week later, that’s not the case.

While in the hospital, the same situation occurred, but she died. Panic set in. Multiple people have died in one area of the hospital over the last month. The nurses were beginning to talk, the doctors too. One thing these patients had in common was an intern named Michael Swango.

Swango had been assigned to the ninth floor by the Ohio State Medical Center. He was on the floor every single time one of these patients died. One of the nurses on staff relayed to hospital administrators that the night Cynthia McGee passed away, Swango had entered her room with a syringe claiming that he was going to draw her blood. Forty-five minutes later they found McGee dead.

In Ruth Berrick’s case, her nurse had more damming allegations. Her nurse claimed that she saw Swango injecting chemicals into Ruth. On the morning of January 31st, 1984, patients Rena Cooper and Ironia Utz, who shared room #900 at the hospital for 12 days, had shockingly similar accusations.

Just after 9pm on February 7th, Swango entered their room and inserted a syringe into Cooper’s IV. Seconds later the 69 – year – old stopped breathing. Utz screamed for help. Moments later hospital staff rushed in.

Cooper was alive, but paralytic. She responded to the resuscitation efforts. Within 15 minutes the paralysis diminished, and she was able to breathe on her own. Meanwhile, a nurses aid spotted Swango down the hall exiting room #966.

The aid went inside and found a used syringe in the sink. He retrieved the syringe and rendered it to the nurse who was in charge of the floor. He then related to her exactly what it was that he observed.

Swango was questioned about the Cooper case and the unexplained deaths that took place on the ninth floor. He denied any involvement, and claimed he was the target of a witch hunt. Swango was placed on probation pending the outcome of the investigation.

After weeks of investigation, no further evidence was found of Swango’s guilt , and he was fully exonerated, with senior officials believing he was the victim of a smear campaign. He was reassigned to a different wing at the hospital to continue his residency.

But, by mid February, 1984, a new wave of deaths had everyone on edge. This time three patients mysteriously died with no medical explanation for it. The hospital administration was desperate to find answers.

They had no evidence of foul play, but they did know one thing, they couldn’t afford the public to panic and lose trust. They needed a scape goat and found one in Michael Swango. With the launching of another investigation into the unexplained deaths, and notifying the police, they decided to hold an annual review of Swango.

His immediate supervisor rated him as poor, and he was dismissed from his job. The problem was solved as far as the hospital was concerned. Swango was devastated.

In July of 1984, he went back to his hometown of Quincy, Illinois . There he landed a job as an EMT for Adams County. When Swango started working as a paramedic, his colleagues deemed him as being extremely odd.

One night Swango shocked the rest of the rescue crew by saying that his ultimate fantasy was to be called to the scene of a horrific school bus accident. He also commented that he admired serial killers. Although some were creeped out, others understood that the dark sense of humor he might have might be how he coped with the things he saw during his work life.

But, within months of being on the job, something very strange occurred. There was a break out of mysterious illnesses that occurred in the rescue squad headquarters where Swango was now working.

On September 14, four members of Swango’s rescue squad were hanging out in the crew lounge at the hospital when he walked in with a box of donuts. They ate them, and within an hour or so, became very sick.

They had dizziness, nausea, and were throwing up. All four men went to the ER. It was a very strange condition that none of them can explain. They somehow linked it back to the donuts. One night, on a rouse, the rescue crew took an initiative.

They faked an emergency call and got Swango out of the paramedic’s lounge. The minute he departed they searched his duffle bag. They found ant poison, which happened to contain arsenic. The group of paramedics who had suffered from this, decided to set a trap.

On October 19, one of the paramedics left a pot of unsweetened tea in the crew lounge, and suspected that Swango would tamper with it. When members of the crew returned and tasted it, the tea seemed overly sweet. They transferred the tea into a container and had it tested at a local lab.

The result was that it was laced with arsenic. They turned it over to the Adams County Sheriffs Department. Swango received a call at work asking him to go down to the Adams County Sheriffs Department. Upon his arrival, he was arrested, read his Miranda rights, and charged with seven counts of battery. One for each alleged poisoning.

They secured a search warrant for Swango’s apartment. They found guns, knives, syringes, chemical compounds, and recipes for concocting and mixing chemicals. There was also a book called, “The Poor Man’s James Bond, “ which described how to commit murder.

On April 22, 1985, Michael Swango went to court. At his trial, he adamantly denied poisoning his colleagues and his fellow workers. He claimed, instead, the only reason he had the ant poison was because there was an ant infestation in his apartment.

As it turned out, the red ants which were infesting his apartment were not native to Illinois. They were brought in by Swango himself. He is found guilty of six counts of aggravated assault. And was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

Swango’s application for a license to practice medicine in Illinois was revoked. In August, 1987, he was released from prison on good behavior after serving just two years of his five year sentence. Afterwards, Swango decided to leave Illinois with his girlfriend, Rita Dumas, and went to Virginia.

The couple set up camp in Newport News, and we’re married in July, 1989. Rather than build a new life with Rita, he was absolutely committed and driven to become a doctor again. From 1989 to 1991, he applied to multiple hospitals around the country.

Swango had to somehow explain the time he spent in jail. He lied on his applications. He told anyone who would read them that he was involved in a bar room brawl. He even had numerous forged documents supporting this story, but no one was fooled. Rita left him.

Swango legally changed his name to Daniel J. Adams, and tried to apply for a residency program at Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling, West Virginia. Just after Rita left him, he came across 26 – year – old nurse, Kristen Kinney. Next thing you know they are involved in a world wind romance.

Kristen’s friends were very concerned that the relationship was moving too fast. Many of them were talking in her ear about the concerning past of Swango, and said negative things about him. Kristen laughed it off because everything was falling in place for her.

Especially when Swango proposed to her, and he accepted a place at South Dakota Residency Program. Swango and his fiancé moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in May 1992. Everything was going well until he applied for a membership to the American Medical Association.

They did the requisite background checks to the full extent. They knew what his background and past consisted of. His Quincy incidents, the poisonings, as well as the veil of suspicion while he was at the Ohio State University Medical Center.

They denied his membership to the AMA. They contacted his present hospital in South Dakota, and before long he was out of a job. With his secret exposed, Swango resorts to deadly measures. His fiancé was shocked to find out about these allegations from his past. She was beside herself, and wanted no more of her relationship with Swango.

Kristen kept a diary. In it she mentioned several instances where she came down with inexplicable bouts of blurry vision. She also complained of persistent nausea. Obviously something was going sideways. Kristen left Swango and moved back home to live with her parents in Newport News, VA.

Swango applied at the New York University at Stony Brook Medical Center . He sent some of the same forged letters and told the same lies on his application. He was actually hired by them. Swango shared the good news with Kristen, and pleaded for a second chance.

She relented and started seeing him again. After she let Swango reenter her life, she started suffering from severe migraine headaches. She was depressed and anxious, and her life was not going well. In contrast to Kristen, Swango was very excited. He now had a new plan.

He was going to head off to New York and settle into his new job. Then he was going to send for Kristen . On July 1, 1993 Swango reported to his new job in Northport, NY. It was a Veteran’s Administration Hospital. Before long, patients started dying mysteriously.

The first death of a patient named Dominic Valleno, occurred the morning after Swango started the job. Valleno had been admitted to the hospital with lung congestion. He seemed to be resting very comfortably, and yet he was suddenly subjected to paralysis. He then fell into a coma very rapidly, subsequently dying as a result.

Four more patients died suspiciously when Swango was around. It always seemed to happen at night. At first they formed a paralysis setting in, heart failure, then death. While death surrounded Swango in New York, back in Virginia Kristen had become completely unhinged.

Kristen and Swango had been apart for four months, although they had continued to talk on the phone. During the last conversation that they had, she learned that Swango had emptied out her bank account.

Kristen was actually admitted to a psychiatric hospital after she was found walking incoherent and naked in the streets around her home. Two weeks after Swango got his new job, Kristen drove herself to a park and shot herself in the chest.

Because it was a suicide the coroner did not check her body for poison. The lock of her hair, clipped by her mother as a keepsake, was later tested. The tests indicated that Kristen had high levels of arsenic in her body. Kristen’s mother vowed to avenge her daughter’s death.

She told a friend everything about Swango’s past. That friend contacted the Veterans Administration Hospital in New York. His secret was now revealed to his new employer and before long he was again out of a job.

Kristen’s mother also exposed Swango to the press. She told them about the mysterious suicide of her daughter, his recent termination at the VA Hospital, and some of the other things she saw which to her were very suspicious.

As a result, two of the doctors who hired Swango, on the basis of falsified medical documents, resigned. One of the doctors, to his credit, sat down and penned 10,000 different letters, and mailed them to 10,000 medical institutions throughout the United States. He warned every single one of those institutions not to hire Swango.

How and why did the once promising doctor get so derailed? Swango was born on October 24,1954 in Fort Lewis , Washington. He grew up an Army brat, moving around at least fifteen times during his childhood. In his teen years he finally ended up in Quincy, Illinois.

At that point, his military dad began drinking a lot, which lead to a divorce. Despite the breakdown of the family, Swango excelled as a student. In 1972, he became Valedictorian of his high school, and was named the National Merit High School Student of the Year.

At one point, Swango spoke to his friends about becoming a State Trooper. However, with an IQ of 160, he was persuaded to perhaps pursue other careers. He enrolled in Millikan University, but quit unexpectedly to join the Marines.

He did two years, earned the rank of Sergeant, and an honorable discharge , before he returned home to attend Quincy University, a changed man. Swango started collecting newspaper and magazine clippings of tragedies, murders, and sex crimes.

He put these in a book to keep them. He would look over them again and again. He had some sort of obsession with death. He seemed to get pleasure from it.

Swango graduated with honors from college and was accepted into medical school at Southern Illinois University. During his time at SIU, patients seemed to suddenly expire, which led his fellow med students to name him “Double O Swango”, which meant he had a license to kill.

Doctor Death eluded law enforcement and claimed more lives. By November, 1993, Dr. Michael Swango, who had a history of mysterious deaths and alleged poisonings wherever he went, found himself a target of yet another criminal investigation.

The FBI had suspected he committed fraud and murder at the VA Hospital in Long Island, New York. By the time they had probable cause, and issued an arrest warrant, he disappeared. In November of 1994, Swango left the United States and headed to Zimbabwe, Africa.

There he found a position in the Menace Lutheran Hospital and began treating patients there. They had no idea of his deadly background. At first, hospital staff were extremely impressed with his skills as a doctor, but, by the summer of 1995, the situation took a fatal turn.

People were dying, and they tended to be dying without explanation, and on Swango’s watch. Convinced that Swango was killing patients, the Zimbabwe Police Investigators obtained a search warrant for his cottage.

Once inside, they found various concoctions of poisons, and other means of hurting and killing people. In October, 1995, hospital administrators fired Swango. He retaliated and insisted he was innocent. Then unbelievably filed a wrongful termination law suit.

The decision was overturned. He was even awarded $8,000 as a result of the law suit. Swango volunteered to work for free, and was hired at nearby Impelo Hospital, where there had been a doctor shortage. He was back at work with patients again.

Swango worked at Impelo until March, 1996, when hospital officials dismissed him due to overwhelming concerns about his background. A number of patients had suddenly died, yet none of these had been directly linked to Swango at that point in time.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe authorities continued to investigate the physician. The police superintendent linked 20 different deaths to Swango himself, which occurred at the times he was working . But, before Zimbabwe officials could move in and arrest him, he fled the country.

Interpol was notified. An international manhunt was underway. The Swango trail was ice cold until June, 1997. Swango resurfaced. He applied and obtained a job as a doctor in Saudi Arabia . In Johannesburg, South Africa , on June 27th, 1997, Michael Swango boarded a flight for the United States .

Swango must stop in America to secure a work visa before he can start the job in Saudi Arabia. He never thought that his passport information had been flagged. Once he hit the ground in Chicago, customs people grabbed him and placed him under arrest.

The Federal Government didn’t have enough evidence against him to bring murder charges against Swango, so they charged him with fraud for forging documents to gain employment at the Veterans Hospital in New York. The last place he worked in the United States.

In March, 1998, Swango pled guilty to defrauding the government. On July 12, 1998, he was sentenced to the maximum amount of time for the fraudulent crimes, which was three and a half years in prison.

On July 11, 2000, less than one week before he was scheduled to be released from prison, Swango was charged with the murders of three VA patients. At the same time, Zimbabwe officials charged him with five counts of murder and seven counts of poisoning patients. Now two continents filed charges against him.

In Long Island, New York, on July 17, 2000, Swango was indicted in Federal District Court. At first he pled not guilty to the United States – based murder charges, however, he faced the death penalty in New York and the possible death penalty in Zimbabwe. He elected to plead guilty.

The deal Swango worked out with his lawyers was prison time in the United States. He received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Michael Swango remains incarcerated at ADX Florence Super Max prison in Florence, Colorado.

Swango just may be one of the most notorious serial killers of modern times. No one knows exactly how many people he killed. It’s anywhere between four and 60, between two continents. However, one thing experts know for sure is, given the opportunity, he would do it again.