Joseph Michael Swango is a serial killer who, as a trusted
doctor, had easy access to his victims. Authorities believe he murdered up to
60 people and poisoned countless others, including co-workers, friends and his
wife.
His Childhood Years
Michael Swango was born on October 21, 1954, in Tacoma,
Washington, to Muriel and John Virgil Swango. He was the middle son of three
boys and the child that Muriel believed was the most gifted. John Swango was an Army officer which meant
the family was constantly relocating. It was not until 1968, when the family
moved to Quincy, Illinois, that they finally settled down. The atmosphere in
the Swango home depended on whether or not John was present. When he was not
there, Muriel tried to maintain a peaceful home, and she kept a strong hold on
the boys. When John was on leave and at home from his military duties, the home
resembled a military facility, with John as the strict disciplinarian. All of
the Swango children feared their father as did Muriel. His struggle with alcoholism was the main
contributor to the tension and upheaval that went on in the home.
High School
Concerned that Michael would be under-challenged in the
public school system in Quincy, Muriel decided to ignore her Presbyterian roots
and enrolled him in the Christian Brothers High School, a private Catholic
school known for its high academic standards. Michael's brothers attended the
public schools. At Christian Brothers, Michael excelled academically and became
involved in various extracurricular activities. Like his mother, he developed a
love of music and learned to read music, sing, play the piano, and mastered the
clarinet well enough to become a member of the Quincy Notre Dame band and tour
with the Quincy College Wind Ensemble.
Millikin University Michael graduated as class valedictorian
from Christian Brothers in 1972. His high school achievements were impressive,
but his exposure to what was available for him in selecting the best colleges
to attend to was limited. He decided on Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois,
where he received a full music scholarship. There Swango maintained top grades
during his first two years, however he became an outcast from social activities
after his girlfriend ended their relationship. His attitude became reclusive.
His outlook changed. He exchanged his collegiate blazers for military fatigues.
During the summer after his second year at Millikin, he stopped playing music,
quit college and joined the Marines. Swango became a trained sharpshooter for
the Marines, but decided against a military career. He wanted to return to
college and become a doctor. In 1976, he received an honorable discharge.
Quincy College
Swango decided to attend Quincy College to earn a degree in
chemistry and biology. For unknown reasons, once accepted into the college, he
decided to embellish his permanent records by submitting a form with lies
stating that he had earned a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart while in the
Marines. In his senior year at Quincy College, he elected to do his chemistry
thesis on the bizarre poisoning death of Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov. Swango
developed an obsessive interest in poisons that could be used as silent
killers. He graduated summa cum laude from Quincy College in 1979. With an
award for academic excellence from the American Chemical Society tucked under
his arm, Swango set out to get accepted into medical school, a task that was
not so simple during the early 1980s. At that time, there was fierce
competition among a massive number of applicants trying to get into a limited
amount of schools throughout the country. Swango managed to beat the odds and
he got into Southern Illinois University (SIU).
Southern Illinois University
Swango's time at SIU received mixed reviews from his
professors and fellow classmates. During his first two years, he earned a
reputation for being serious about his studies but was also suspected of taking
unethical shortcuts when preparing for tests and group projects. Swango had
little personal interaction with his classmates after he began working as an
ambulance driver. For a first-year medical student struggling with tough
academic demands, such a job caused great stress. In his third year at SIU, the
one-on-one contact with patients increased. During this time, there were at
least five patients that died after they had just received a visit from Swango.
The coincidence was so great, that his classmates began to call him Double-O
Swango, a reference to the James Bond and the "license to kill"
slogan. They also began to view him as incompetent, lazy and just strange.
He Was Obsessed With Violent Death
From the age of three, Swango showed an unusual interest in
violent deaths. As he got older, he became fixated on stories about the
Holocaust, particularly those that contained pictures of the death camps. His
interest was so strong that he began to keep a scrapbook of pictures and
articles about fatal car wrecks and macabre crimes. His mother would also
contribute to his scrapbooks when she came across such articles. By the time
Swango attended SIU, he had put together several scrapbooks. When he took the
job as an ambulance driver, not only did his scrapbooks grow, but he was seeing
firsthand what he had only read about for so many years. His fixation was so
strong that he would rarely turn down the chance to work, even if it meant
sacrificing his studies. His classmates felt that Swango showed more dedication
to making a career as an ambulance driver than he did for getting his medical
degree. His work had become sloppy and he often left unfinished projects
because his beeper would go off, signaling him that the ambulance company
needed him for an emergency.
The Final Eight Weeks
In Swango's final year at SIU, he sent off applications for
internships and residency programs in neurosurgery to several teaching
colleges. With the help of his teacher and mentor, Dr. Wacaser, who was also a
neurosurgeon, Swango was able to provide the colleges with a letter of
recommendation. Wacaser even took the time to write a handwritten personal note
of confidence on each letter. Swango was accepted in neurosurgery at the
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Once he nailed down his
residency, Swango showed little interest in his remaining eight weeks at SIU.
He failed to show up for required rotations and to watch specific surgeries
performed. This astounded Dr. Kathleen O'Connor who was in charge of overseeing
Swango's performance. She called his place of employment to schedule a meeting
to discuss the matter. She did not find him, but she did learn that the
ambulance company no longer permitted Swango to have direct contact with
patients, although the reason why was not disclosed. When she finally did see
Swango, she gave him the assignment to perform a complete history and
examination on a woman who was going to have a cesarean delivery. She also
observed him entering the woman's room and leaving after just 10 minutes.
Swango then turned in a very thorough report on the woman, an impossible task
given the amount of time he was in her room. O'Connor found Swango's actions
reprehensible and the decision to fail him was made. It meant that he would not
be graduating and his internship in Iowa would be canceled. As the news spread
about Swango not graduating, two camps were formed--those those for and those against SIU's decision.
Some of Swango's classmates who had long decided that he was not fit to be a
doctor used the opportunity to sign off on a letter describing Swango's
incompetence and poor character. They recommended that he be expelled. Had
Swango not hired a lawyer, it is likely that he would have been expelled from
SIU, but shrinking from the fear of being sued and wanting to avoid the costly
expense of litigation, the college decided to postpone his graduation by a year
and give him another chance, but with a strict set of rules that he had to
follow.
Swango immediately cleaned up his act and refocused his
attention on completing the requirements to graduate. He reapplied to several
residency programs, having lost the one in Iowa. Despite having an extremely
poor evaluation from the dean of ISU, he was accepted into a surgical
internship, followed by a very prestigious residency program in neurosurgery at
Ohio State University. This left many who knew Swango's history completely
dumbfounded, but he apparently aced his personal interview and was the only
student out of sixty accepted into the program. Around the time of his
graduation, Swango was fired from the ambulance company after he told a man
having a heart attack to walk to his car and have his wife drive him to the
hospital.
The Deadly Compulsion
Swango began his internship at Ohio State in 1983. He was
assigned to the Rhodes Hall wing of the medical center. Shortly after he began,
there was a series of unexplained deaths among several healthy patients being
cared for in the wing. One of the patients who survived a severe seizure told
the nurses that Swango had injected medicine into her just minutes before she
became critically ill. Nurses also reported to the head nurse their concerns
about seeing Swango in patients' rooms during odd times. There were numerous
occasions when patients were found near death or dead just minutes after Swango
left the rooms. The administration was alerted and an investigation was
launched, however, it seemed as if it was designed to discredit the eyewitness
reports from the nurses and patients so that the matter could be closed and any
residual damage curbed. Swango was exonerated of any wrongdoing. He returned to
work, but was moved to the Doan Hall wing. Within days, several patients on the
Doan Hall wing began to die mysteriously. There was also an incident when
several residents became violently ill after Swango offered to go get fried
chicken for everyone. Swango also ate the chicken but did not get sick.
License to Practice Medicine
In March 1984, the Ohio State residency review committee
decided that Swango did not have the necessary qualities needed to become a
neurosurgeon. He was told he could complete his one-year internship at Ohio
State, but he was not invited back to complete his second year of residency. Swango
stayed on at Ohio State until July 1984 and then moved home to Quincy. Before
moving back he applied to get his license to practice medicine from the Ohio
State Medical Board, which was approved in September 1984.
Welcome Home
Swango did not tell his family about the trouble he
encountered while at Ohio State or that his acceptance into his second-year
residency had been rejected. Instead, he said he did not like the other doctors
in Ohio. In July 1984, he began working for Adams County Ambulance Corp as an
emergency medical technician. Apparently, a background check was not done on
Swango because he had worked there in the past while attending Quincy College.
The fact that he had been fired from another ambulance company never surfaced. What
did begin to surface was Swango's weird opinions and behavior. Out came his
scrapbooks filled with references to violence and gore, which he doted on
regularly. He began making inappropriate and strange comments related to death
and people dying. He would become visibly excited over CNN news stories about
mass killings and horrific auto accidents. Even to hardened paramedics that had
seen it all, Swango's lust for blood and guts was downright creepy. In
September the first noticeable incident that Swango was dangerous occurred when
he brought doughnuts for his co-workers. Everyone who ate one ended up becoming
violently ill and several had to go to the hospital. There were other incidents where co-workers
became ill after eating or drinking something Swango had prepared. Suspecting
that he was purposely making them ill, some of the workers decided to get
tested. When they tested positive for poison, a police investigation was
launched. The police obtained a search warrant for his home and inside they
found hundred of drugs and poisons, several containers of ant poison, books on
poison, and syringes. Swango was arrested and charged with battery.
In The Slammer
On August 23, 1985, Swango was convicted of aggravated
battery and he was sentenced to five years behind bars. He also lost his medical
licenses from Ohio and Illinois. While he was in prison, Swango began trying to
mend his ruined reputation by doing an interview with John Stossel who was
doing a segment about his case on the ABC program,? 20/20. Dressed in a suit
and tie, Swango insisted that he was innocent and said that the evidence that
was used to convict him lacked integrity.
A Cover Up Is Exposed
As part of the investigation, a look into Swango's past was
conducted and the incidents of patients dying under suspicious circumstances at
Ohio State resurfaced. The hospital was reluctant to allow the police access to
their records. However, once the global news agencies got wind of the story,
the university president, Edward Jennings, assigned the dean of Ohio State
University Law School, James Meeks, to conduct a full investigation to
determine if the situation surrounding Swango had been handled properly. This
also meant investigating the conduct of some of the most prestigious people in
the university. Offering an unbiased assessment of the events that had
occurred, Meeks concluded that legally, the hospital should have reported the
suspicious incidents to the police because it was their job to decide if any
criminal activity had occurred. He also referred to the initial investigations
performed by the hospital as superficial. Meeks also pointed out that he found
it astounding that the hospital administrators had not kept a permanent record
detailing what had occurred. Once full disclosure was obtained by police, the
prosecutors from Franklin County, Ohio, toyed with the idea of charging Swango
with murder and attempted murder, but due to a lack of evidence, they decided
against it.
Freedom andBack on the Streets
Swango served two years of his five-year sentence and was
released on August 21, 1987. His girlfriend, Rita Dumas, had fully supported
Swango throughout his trial and during his time in prison. When he got out the
two of them moved to Hampton, Virginia. Swango applied for his medical license
in Virginia, but because of his criminal record, his application was denied. He
then found employment with the state as a career counselor, but it was not long
before weird things began to happen. Just like what happened in Quincy, three
of his co-workers suddenly experienced severe nausea and headaches. He was
caught gluing gory articles into his scrapbook when he should have been
working. It was also discovered that he had turned a room in the office
building basement into a kind of bedroom where he often stayed for the night.
He was asked to leave in May 1989. Swango then went to work as a lab technician
for Aticoal Services in Newport New, Virginia. In July 1989, he and Rita got
married, but almost immediately after exchanging vows, their relationship began
to unravel. Swango began ignoring Rita and they stopped sharing a bedroom. Financially
he refused to contribute to the bills and took money out of Rita's account
without asking. Rita decided to end the marriage when she suspected that Swango
was seeing another woman. The two separated in January 1991.
Meanwhile, at Aticoal Services several employees, including
the president of the company, began suffering from sudden bouts of severe
stomach cramping, nausea, dizziness, and muscle weakness. Some of them were
hospitalized and one of the executives of the company was nearly comatose. Unphased
by the wave of illnesses going around the office, Swango had more important
issues to work out. He wanted to get his medical license back and start working
as a doctor again. He decided to quit the job at Aticoal and started applying
at residency programs.
It's All in the Name
At the same time, Swango decided that, if he was going to
get back into the medicine, he would need a new name. On January 18, 1990,
Swango had his name legally changed to David Jackson Adams. In May 1991, Swango
applied for the residency program at Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling,
West Virginia. Dr. Jeffrey Schultz, who was the chief of medicine at the
hospital, had several communications with Swango, mainly centering on the
events surrounding the suspension of his medical license. Swango lied about
what had happened, downplaying the battery by poisoning conviction, and said
instead that he was convicted for an altercation he was involved with at a
restaurant. Dr. Schultz' opinion was that such a punishment was far too severe
so he continued to try to verify Swango's account of what happened. In return,
Swango forged several documents, including a prison fact sheet which stated
that he had been convicted of hitting someone with his fists. He also forged a
letter from the Governor of Virginia stating that his application for
Restoration of Civil Rights had been approved. Dr. Schultz continued to try to
verify the information that Swango had provided to him and forwarded a copy of
the documents to the Quincy authorities. The correct documents were forwarded
back to Dr. Schultz who then made the decision to reject Swango's application. The
rejection did little to slow down Swango who was determined to get back into
medicine. Next, he sent an application to the residency program at the
University of South Dakota. Impressed by his credentials, the director of the
internal medicine residency program, Dr. Anthony Salem, opened up
communications with Swango. This time Swango said the battery charge involved
poison, but that coworkers who were jealous that he was a doctor had framed
him. After several exchanges, Dr. Salem invited Swango to come for a series of
personal interviews. Swango managed to charm his way through most of the interviews
and on March 18, 1992, he was accepted into the internal medicine residency
program.
Kristen Kinney
While he was employed at Aticoal, Michael had spent time
taking medical courses at the Newport News Riverside Hospital. It was there
that he met Kristen Kinney, to whom he was immediately attracted to and
aggressively pursued. Kristen, who was a nurse at the hospital, was quite
beautiful and had an easy smile. Although she was already engaged when she met
Swango, she found him attractive and very likable. She ended up calling off her
engagement and the two began dating regularly. Some of her friends felt it was
important that Kristen know about some of the dark rumors they had heard about
Swango, but she did not take any of it seriously. The man she knew was nothing
like the man they were describing. When it came time for Swango to move to
South Dakota to begin his residency program, Kristen immediately agreed that
they would move there together.
Sioux Falls
At the end of May, Kristen and Swango moved to Sioux Falls,
South Dakota. They quickly established themselves in their new home and Kristen
got a job in the intensive care unit at the Royal C. Johnson Veterans Memorial
Hospital. This was the same hospital where Swango began his residency, although
no one was aware that the two knew each other. Swango's work was exemplary and
he was well liked by his peers and the nurses. He no longer discussed the
thrill of seeing a violent accident nor did he exhibit the other oddities in
his character that had caused problems at other jobs.
The Closet Skeletons
Things were going great for the couple until October when
Swango decided to join the American Medical Association. The AMA did a thorough
background check and because of his convictions, they decided to turn it over
to the council on ethical and judicial affairs. Someone from AMA then contacted
their friend, the dean of the University of South Dakota medical school, and
informed him of all of the skeletons in Swango's closet, including the
suspicions surrounding the death of several patients. Then on the same evening,
The Justice Files television program aired the 20/20 interview that Swango had
given while he was in prison. Swango's dream of working as a doctor again was
over. He was asked to resign. As for Kristen, she was in shock. She was
completely ignorant of Swango's true past until she watched a tape of the 20/20
interview in Dr. Schultz' office on the day Swango was being questioned. In the
following months, Kristen began to suffer from violent headaches. She no longer
smiled and began to withdraw from her friends at work. At one point, she was
placed into a psychiatric hospital after the police found her wandering in the
street, nude and confused. Finally, in April 1993, unable to take it anymore,
she left Swango and returned to Virginia. Soon after leaving, her migraines
went away. However, just a few weeks later, Swango showed up on her doorstep in
Virginia and the two were back together. With his confidence restored, Swango
began sending out new applications to medical schools.
Stony Brook School of Medicine
Incredibly, Swango lied his way into the psychiatric
residency program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of
Medicine. He relocated, leaving Kristen in Virginia, and began his first
rotation in the internal medicine department at the VA Medical Center in
Northport, New York. Again, patients began to mysteriously die wherever Swango
worked.
Suicide
Kristen and Swango had been apart for four months, although
they continued to talk on the phone. During the last conversation that they
had, Kristen learned that Swango had emptied out her checking account. The next
day, July 15, 1993, Kristen committed suicide by shooting herself in the chest.
A Mother's Revenge
Kristen's mother, Sharon Cooper, hated Swango and blamed him
for her daughter's suicide. She found it inconceivable that he was working at a
hospital again. She knew the only way he got in was by lying and she decided to
do something about it. She contacted a friend of Kristen's who was a nurse in
South Dakota and included his full address in the letter stating that she was
glad that he could not hurt Kristen anymore, but she was afraid of where he was
working now. Kristen's friend clearly understood the message and immediately
passed along the information to the right person who contacted the dean of the
medical school at Stony Brook, Jordan Cohen. Almost immediately Swango was
fired. To try to prevent another medical facility from being duped by Swango,
Cohen sent letters to all the medical schools and over 1,000 teaching hospitals
in the country, warning them about Swango's past and his sneaky tactics to gain
admission.
Now The Feds Come
After being fired from the VA hospital, Swango seemingly
went underground. The FBI was on the hunt for him for falsifying his
credentials in order to get a job in a VA facility. It was not until July 1994
that he resurfaced. This time he was working as Jack Kirk for a company in
Atlanta called Photocircuits. It was a wastewater treatment facility and
frighteningly, Swango had direct access to Atlanta's water supply. Fearing
Swango's obsession over mass killings, the FBI contacted Photocircuits and
Swango was immediately fired for lying on his job application.
At that point, Swango seemed to vanish, leaving behind a
warrant for his arrest issued by the FBI.
Off To Africa
Swango was smart enough to realize that his best move was to
get out of the country. He sent his application and altered references to an
agency called Options, which helps American doctors find work in foreign
countries. In November 1994, the Lutheran church hired Swango after obtaining
his application and falsified recommendations through Options. He was to go to
a remote area of Zimbabwe. The hospital director, Dr. Christopher Zshiri, was
thrilled to have an American doctor join the hospital, but once Swango began
working it became apparent that he was untrained to perform some very basic
procedures. It was decided that he would go to one of the sister hospitals and
train for five months, and then return to Mnene Hospital to work. For the first
five months in Zimbabwe, Swango received glowing reviews and almost everyone on
the medical staff admired his dedication and hard work. But when he returned to
Mnene after his training, his attitude was different. He no longer seemed
interested in the hospital or his patients. People whispered about how lazy and
rude he had become. Once again, patients began mysteriously dying. Some of the
patients that survived had a clear recall about Swango coming to their rooms
and giving them injections right before they went into convulsions. A handful
of nurses also admitted to seeing Swango near patients just minutes before they
died. Dr. Zshiri contacted the police and a search of Swango's cottage turned
up hundreds of various drugs and poisons. On October 13, 1995, he was handed a
termination letter and he had a week to vacate hospital property. For the next
year and a half, Swango continued his stay in Zimbabwe while his lawyer worked
to have his position at the ?Mnene hospital restored and his license to
practice medicine in Zimbabwe reinstated. He eventually fled Zimbabwe to Zambia
when evidence of his guilt began to surface.
Arrested !
On June 27, 1997, Swango entered the U.S. at the
Chicago-O'Hare airport while in route to the Royal Hospital in Dhahran in Saudi
Arabia. He was promptly arrested by immigration officials and held in prison in
New York to await his trial. A year later Swango pleaded guilty to defrauding
the government and he was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. In
July 2000, just days before he was to be released, federal authorities charged
Swango with one count of assault, three counts of murder, three counts of
making false statements, one count of defrauding by use of wires, and mail
fraud. In the meantime, Zimbabwe was fighting to have Swango extradited to
Africa to face five counts of murder. Swango pleaded not guilty, but fearing
that he could be facing the death penalty on being handed over to the Zimbabwe
authorities, he decided to change his plea to guilty of murder and fraud.
Michael Swango received three consecutive life sentences. He
is currently serving his time at the supermax U.S. Penitentiary, Florence ADX.
-bird
