"I Was the Judge, Executioner, Jury": Donald Harvey on Geraldo, 1989

Name: "I Was the Judge, Executioner, Jury": Donald Harvey on Geraldo, 1989
Uploaded: 2025-11-29
Duration: 12 min 33 s
Description: Two years after his guilty pleas, Donald Harvey calmly told Geraldo Rivera how he chose patients to kill, while the son of one of his victims accused Cincinnati officials of a cover-up.

Two years after his guilty pleas, Donald Harvey calmly told Geraldo Rivera how he chose patients to kill, while the son of one of his victims accused Cincinnati officials of a cover-up.

Subject: Donald Harvey
Recorded: November 14, 1989
Runtime: 12:33

Content warning: A man describes killing dozens of hospital patients; a victim's son speaks about his father's death.

The Interview

On November 14, 1989, Geraldo Rivera interviewed Donald Harvey in an Ohio prison for an episode of his talk show on "Angels of Death", health workers who kill patients. Harvey, speaking calmly, tells Rivera that he killed 15 patients in his first year at a hospital in London, Kentucky, and claims a total of 87 deaths over 17 years. He calls himself "the judge, executioner, jury" and says that after so many sessions with police and lawyers the subject "becomes very flat". Rivera repeatedly challenges him. In the studio, Rivera then talks with Michael Pike, whose father was among those Harvey selected, and with the reporter Pat Minarcin.

Historical Context

Harvey worked as an orderly at Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, from 1970 to 1971, at the Cincinnati Veterans Administration Medical Center from about 1975 to 1985, and as a nurse's aide at Daniel Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati from 1986. In April 1987 he was charged with the cyanide murder of a Drake patient, John Powell. A report by WCPO-TV anchor Pat Minarcin in June 1987 raised questions about many more deaths. Under a plea bargain that spared him a death sentence, Harvey pleaded guilty in Ohio in August 1987 to 24 murders. Further pleas followed in Cincinnati and, in November 1987, in Kentucky, where he admitted eight murders and a manslaughter. In all he admitted 37 murders.

Circumstances of the Interview

The interview took place about two years after his pleas, while he was serving multiple life sentences. The episode presents it as a recorded segment within a studio programme taped in New York. The segment shown ends at a commercial break; Rivera says Harvey recorded a statement addressed to Michael Pike, but that tape is not part of this video.

What the Interview Covers

Harvey describes how he felt before and after killing, how he chose "certain ones" among the critically ill, why nobody noticed in a small country hospital, and the years in which he says he stopped, served in the military and was treated at the VA hospital in Lexington. He will not discuss the Cincinnati VA deaths, saying he was never indicted for them. Asked to justify the killings, he describes a brain-dead patient kept on a respirator; Rivera cuts him off, telling him not to "give me this line of bull". In the studio, Pike says the Cincinnati authorities "dealt the whole case away" to avoid legal liability. Minarcin says he found no proof of a deliberate cover-up, but describes how little was done and how he himself became the subject of a police investigation.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The programme is an early national-television treatment of the case, made within two years of the pleas, and sets Harvey's own words beside those of a victim's son and of the reporter whose work brought the scale of the killings to light.

Archival Importance

Harvey died on March 30, 2017, after being beaten in his cell at Toledo Correctional Institution. This recording preserves his account, and his manner, close to the time of his convictions.

Important Caveats

Harvey's numbers (87 deaths, "20-some" at the VA) are his claims; he pleaded guilty to 37 murders, and Rivera himself says the total may be "the exaggerated product of a sick imagination". His suggestion that he killed only the hopelessly ill is his justification, challenged in the programme. Pike's and Rivera's statements about a cover-up are their views; Minarcin says on air that he found no proof of a deliberate one.

Geraldo Rivera: Listen first to the calm but bone-chilling words of a mass murderer.

Donald Harvey: I had access to all the critical ill. There were just certain ones that I would select. I might, they might say, uh, at the VA they would say 40, 50. I might only select one a month, one every six weeks, one every three or four months.

Geraldo Rivera: This cold-blooded killer is named Donald Harvey. You can call him the Angel of Death. This former nurse's aide has confessed to murdering more people than Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez and John Wayne Gacy combined. He and the other nurses and aides and orderlies who in recent years have been charged with, or who have confessed to, murdering patients under their care have done more than murder. They have wounded our faith that hospitals are a place to heal. Donald Harvey, the other angels of death, and their victims are the focus of this edition of Geraldo.

Geraldo Rivera: When I talked to Donald Harvey on the 14th of this month, he began the interview telling me about his body count at Drake and the other hospitals that he had worked. At one point his macabre death total went to 87: 87 patients he claims now to have murdered. Whether those numbers are real or the exaggerated product of a sick imagination, we may never know. We know he has killed scores of people, however. And here is Donald Harvey.

Donald Harvey: When I was preparing to take someone's life, I was very high-strung, very, um, tense. Then after it was over with, I guess you could say I was more relieved for the person that was involved. You know, the one I'd kill.

Geraldo Rivera: You began at the age of 18.

Donald Harvey: Yes.

Geraldo Rivera: How many people did you kill in your first hospital?

Donald Harvey: Fifteen. In the first year I worked in London, Kentucky.

Geraldo Rivera: Fifteen people in a small country hospital, and nobody noticed?

Donald Harvey: Well, that was the only hospital for miles around, right? And most of the elderly came in to die there. So they had 87 deaths in a year's time.

Geraldo Rivera: And 15 of them were as a result of you?

Donald Harvey: Belong to me. Belong to me.

Geraldo Rivera: You, you shortened those people's lives?

Donald Harvey: By a few days.

Geraldo Rivera: A few days, a few months. You made yourself the divinity. You said you are the power of life and death.

Donald Harvey: Right.

Geraldo Rivera: You chose who lived and who died.

Donald Harvey: I was the judge, executioner, jury, however you want to put it, whatever order.

Geraldo Rivera: And you got a charge out of that. You liked that?

Donald Harvey: I didn't like myself at that period of time, 'cause I stopped. I went into the military, trying to make a new life for myself. Tried to get away from that whole town, that whole area. And between '72 and '74, I didn't kill anyone. I spent four months at the VA hospital in Lexington, and 18 months as an outpatient, trying to figure out what went wrong, tried to straighten out whatever wrong I had committed. I didn't want to give myself up, because I knew the death penalty in Kentucky at that time, which was later outlawed, but I didn't want to go to prison.

Geraldo Rivera: So when did you restart your macabre career?

Donald Harvey: In December of '75.

Geraldo Rivera: Where?

Donald Harvey: At the VA in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Geraldo Rivera: What'd you do there? How many people did you kill there?

Donald Harvey: At this time, I've not been indicted, or, well, they've closed the case. Uh, there's 20-some deaths there, but I really can't talk about those.

Geraldo Rivera: You can't tell me. Give me a ballpark figure. A dozen?

Donald Harvey: Of all?

Geraldo Rivera: Two dozen?

Donald Harvey: In the 17 years, there was 87 deaths.

Geraldo Rivera: Eighty-seven total deaths?

Donald Harvey: Yes.

Geraldo Rivera: When you were first apprehended, your cover was that you were, in a way, an angel of mercy. You were only taking the lives of suffering people. In fact, Mr. Harvey, you were a cold-blooded killer.

Donald Harvey: The press gave me that name. I never gave myself that name.

Geraldo Rivera: But cold-blooded killer is a name that fits, isn't it?

Donald Harvey: More or less, yes.

Geraldo Rivera: You sit there so calmly. Is there no remorse in that heart of yours? Is there no sadness for your victims?

Donald Harvey: If I sat here and cried, they'd think it was an act. If I sat here and smiled and chit-chatted with you, uh, I don't care. Um, as many times I've been over and over with the police, with my attorneys and stuff, after a while, it all becomes very flat. I mean...

Geraldo Rivera: Very flat? Eighty-seven dead people becomes flat? You're not talking here about stock prices or the weather. Don't you understand what you've done?

Donald Harvey: Oh, yes.

Geraldo Rivera: Scores of people whose lives have been shortened because of you?

Donald Harvey: Yes, I understand what...

Geraldo Rivera: And for what reason? For, for what possible justification? Not for gain, not for greed. For what? For some perverse satisfaction?

Donald Harvey: Well, let's put it to you this way. If you go out here and you have a helicopter crash, right, and I was working in a hospital, and they come in, they say you're brain dead, you're hooked up to a respirator, right? All your functions are completely gone. Everything's shut down. But your family insists on keeping you on a respirator, right?

Geraldo Rivera: Donald, please don't give me this line of bull.

Donald Harvey: No, no, no, I'd pull the plug.

Geraldo Rivera: You'd pull the plug, but you'd also kill your upstairs neighbors. You'd suffocate other people who had a very good chance of recovery, some people in their 40s, some people with teenage kids. Don't give me a line of bull. Stop it already. You're in here for life. A lot of people don't think that's long enough.

Donald Harvey: That's right.

Geraldo Rivera: You just killed anyone that you had an opportunity to kill?

Donald Harvey: No, no, no, no. Because I had access to all the critical ill. There were just certain ones that I would select.

Geraldo Rivera: Among the people he selected, Michael Pike's father, Joseph. How do you feel about the fact that the prosecutor in Cincinnati chose to make the deal to give Donald Harvey life rather than face the possibility of a death sentence?

Michael Pike: Well, the whole system in Cincinnati covered up. They knew it was going on before my father's death. They dealt the whole case away so that they wouldn't have any legal liability in it. They, they felt like they had to deal away the whole case. And of course, it makes me feel sick to my stomach at county government, at state government. We begged the state of Ohio to step in and appoint a special prosecutor. They wouldn't do it. It just makes me feel sick to my stomach, the government and what's going on in this country. And no one don't give a darn about the people or their families. They just look after themselves.

Geraldo Rivera: You know, uh, when there's a car accident and someone breaks their leg or breaks their arm, and you read about they sue in court and they get a recovery in court, and you hear the recoveries they get: $200,000 for a broken leg, you know, $500,000 for a broken arm. Do you know what they offered Michael Pike to settle the lawsuit for the wrongful death of his father? Tell them.

Michael Pike: Well, they offered us $15,000. Most of the families, they offered [unclear: "25" / "$25,000"], most of the families, they offered $2,500. Since then, Hamilton County has said, "Prove that anyone died." Even though Donald Harvey's in prison, since then they've taken the stance, "Prove that anyone's even dead."

Geraldo Rivera: But they offered most of the families $2,500. And as I mentioned, one of the worst things about this whole story is the way it broke. It didn't come from the Cincinnati hospital, from this Drake hospital that Michael's talking about, nor from the cops or the FBI. In fact, didn't they write a letter after they caught Donald Harvey on one case and said there's no credible evidence that there's anything more than one case? They wanted to close that case, didn't they?

Michael Pike: They tried every way in the world to close it.

Geraldo Rivera: They tried every way in the world to close the case. And it was only because of the tenacity of a hardworking investigative reporter and anchorman at Channel 9 in that town that this story is public today. That man is Pat Minarcin. He now joins us from his new job as anchorman at our station, WBAL-TV in Baltimore, and he deserves your applause, ladies and gentlemen.

Geraldo Rivera: Pat, welcome. I'm glad you could make it.

Pat Minarcin: Thanks, Geraldo. Thanks for having me.

Geraldo Rivera: It is a fact, is it not, that but for your efforts, and I don't ask you here to, uh, you know, let's not have any false modesty, but for your efforts, and I'll say it as a fact, this guy would have skated. They had him on one case. He was claiming it was a, a homicide because of a mercy killing. He may have gotten five years in prison. Eighty-six potential other homicides would never have been investigated. Isn't that a fact?

Pat Minarcin: I believe it. I, I believe that to be true, yes.

Geraldo Rivera: How does that make you feel, Pat, that it, that the system was so unresponsive, that the system cared so little, apparently, about the victims and so much about covering their backsides?

Pat Minarcin: Well, I, I think that you're implying here that there was a cover-up from day one, Geraldo. I'm not sure that that was, uh, that that is accurate. Uh, to tell you the truth, I still don't know what happened in those earliest days of the investigation. I do know that, uh, that nothing was done, that a lot should have been done that wasn't done. I've never been able to find any proof at all that there was a conspiracy to cover up deliberately. If there was, I'd certainly have reported it.

Pat Minarcin: One of three things happened. Either the authorities in Cincinnati were incredibly stupid, or they were incredibly lazy, or they engaged in an active conspiracy to cover up. It is difficult for me to believe that that many people who knew would have been so stupid, and it's equally difficult for me to believe that that many people would have been lazy. But I should say, I suppose, in the interest of fairness, that that's a possibility.

Geraldo Rivera: It is a symptom of all these cases that the bureaucracy, rather than actively seeking out the wrongdoer, rather than actively working to unearth all the facts in the case, sought instead to downplay, to backpedal.

Pat Minarcin: Oh, absolutely. There's no, no question about that whatsoever. Even, even after I told the authorities, a month and a half before we went on the air in Cincinnati with a special report that raised very serious questions about Harvey's activities, even after I told the authorities this, there was still nothing done to get to the truth of the matter, uh, by the people who were in charge. When we finally reported what we had to report, I became the subject of an investigation, a police investigation. The authorities still weren't looking into the possibility that Harvey had been killing all of these people. The man in charge of the investigation was the county coroner. This was a county-run hospital. Uh, the people ultimately in charge of that county-run hospital were the county commissioners. There was a county district attorney or prosecutor who was also involved in the investigation. It does make you wonder.

Geraldo Rivera: It certainly does. Michael, Donald Harvey addressed a statement directly to you. We're going to take a commercial break. When we come back, I want to hear some of the facts and circumstances of these other cases, and then at some point I want to play that tape for you. Angels of Death, our focus. We'll be right back. ---