It was originally nicknamed the Diamond Tooth Gang because of the glass shards that some members put in their teeth. 10 Inescapable Prisons People Somehow Escaped From, Like every other medical professional, Dr. Michael Swango swore an oath to do no harm. These clippings confirmed toxic levels of arsenic in the hair. After that he was gone and went to Zimbabwe, and when he was there he killed men and women and children. [8] His final re-capture came from rookie officer Constable Stephane Gagnon in 2007 after a long stint on Americas Most Wanted. They also found evidence that Swango paralyzed patient Baron Harris with an injection of what was supposedly a sedative. With patients, he sometimes used poisons as well, but usually, he administered an overdose of whichever drug the patient had been prescribed, or wrote unnecessary prescriptions for dangerous drugs.[1]. September 8, 2018 10:43am. KHQA asked three of the men who knew him what they would say to Michael Swango today, if given the opportunity. Thu, 20 Nov 2014 05:24:34 GMT Note: this is the conclusion to a three-part KHQA special report. While Swango eventually pleaded guilty to just four murders, his victim count, Joseph Michael Swango was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1954. February1985: Ohio State law school dean James Meeks investigates the universitys handling of Swango during his internship. Yet investigators suspect that during his crime spree, which spanned 1981 to 1997, Swango may . August1985: Convicted in the nonfatal Illinois poisonings. He even managed to convince a police officer who was looking for the escapee that he was just a jogger. But his partner had seen the program, and was sure the reporters working on it would not have gone on the record with their story if they had not been sure. Like Father, Like Son. report from 2007 describes this maximum-security prison as a 21st century Alcatraz, where many inmates spend 23 hours a day locked in their cell. Joseph Michael Swango was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1954. When Michael Swango was a student at the Southern Illinois . Nobody is going to see it.. He entered the hard drug trade under known king-pins Hector Salazar and later Miguel Gallardo until Gallardo was arrested in 1988. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, he was a featured speaker on the subject in far-away locales like Europe, Dubai, Sweden and across the United States. Ive heard and Ive read and weve discussed that it was somewhere in the vicinity of 60 people. He eventually became blacklisted from all teaching hospitals and medical schools in the United States and fled to continue practicing medicine in Zimbabwe, where patients continued to die mysteriously under his care. local. He forged a Restoration of Civil Rights letter from Virginia Governor Gerald L. Baliles, falsely stating that Baliles had decided to restore Swango's right to vote and serve on a jury, based on "reports from friends and colleagues" that he had committed no further crimes after his "misdemeanor" and was leading an "exemplary lifestyle". [4] Attempts to track down the leaks that Hanssen was responsible for were complicated by the fact that there was a second mole, Aldrich Ames, working within the FBI at the same time. No one has ever escaped from ADX Florence, where he is now serving two life sentences. By accounts he was considered a valued member of the medical staff, and if anything seemed out of the ordinary, nobody came forward to point it out. He had taken phone calls before about tips that led nowhere, but this phone call would prove to be like no other he had ever received. Despite the fact that he was half-Irish, Marcello quickly rose through the ranks to run multiple racketeering schemes, loan-sharking operations, and eventually planned eighteen murders and committed fourteen. By making a deal with prosecutors, he was spared the death penalty, and the government of Zimbabwe agreed not to seek his extradition and pursue charges against him. He also used intricate tunnel systems for moving drugs and escaping authorities, but he wont have much luck if he tries that at Colorados Alcatraz. It was a damning piece of television, which Sackman had just happened to miss when it was broadcast the night before. He graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1999 with a major in English and a minor in computer science. The second of three children, he grew up in Quincy, Illinois. Terrorists, spies, serial killers, and cult leaders live side by side. Joaquin Guzman, aka "El Chapo", is one of the most notorious drug traffickers and murders in the world. According to "Blind Eye," James B. Stewart's deeply researched 1999 book about the case, Swango, who has confessed to four killings, very likely murdered 35 people and perhaps 60 or more.He was convicted of injecting victims with poison while working in hospitals in Ohio and New . He was immediately fired. How could this guy have passed background investigations and have a position to treat our nations heroes? License to Kill: Dr. Joseph Michael Swango's Disturbing 'House of Horrors'Quincy Police Department Chief Investigator Billy Meyer recalls searching Dr. Josep. He was a gifted medical student and doctor and a former Marine. After his release, Swango ended up in New York,where he killed at least three people at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Michael Swango is one of the prolific medical serial killers in history. Rudolph grew up in Florida and North Carolina before moving with his mother to a Missouri compound run by the Christian Identity movement,[14] a racial interpretation of Christianity that believes Europeans are the chosen descendants of the Israelites and Jews are the cursed descendants of Cain. His mother, Muriel, was a housewife, and his father, John, was a military officer. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. is alive and well, currently serving a 42 . While there, he murdered at least three victims by lethal injection Thomas Sammarco, 73, George Siano, 60, and Aldo Serini, 62, according to, After Stony Brook was tipped off to Swangos nefarious history, he was fired and effectively blacklisted from the medical industry in the U.S., reported, Before police could conduct a full investigation into the suspicious deaths at the Northport VA Hospital, Swango fled the country to Zimbabwe. [15] A week before the indictment was handed up, FBI agents interviewed Swango in prison. Unmisig and John Landis were struck by his charisma. Could be. He was charged in absentia with poisonings. These cases are extraordinarily hard to prove. [5] In July 1992, he began working at Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On Sept. 6, 2000, Michael Swango pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, according to the Associated Press. [28] He escaped prison twice in Mexico but was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years on ten different charges. local. In 2006, Bingham and several others were convicted of murder and racketeering, but federal prosecutors failed in securing the death penalty. Why he did what he did," Landis said. License to Kill: Dr. Joseph Michael Swango's Disturbing 'House of Horrors', License to Kill: Pregnant Patient Accuses Dr. Joseph Michael Swango, License to Kill Bonus: Visiting Serial Killer Michael Swango. While there, he murdered at least three victims by lethal injection Thomas Sammarco, 73, George Siano, 60, and Aldo Serini, 62, according toThe New York Times. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski sent sixteen hand-made bombs to figures he felt represented technology, killing three people, and injuring twenty-three. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! [8], Swango established a sterling reputation at Sanford. In fact, one of the good things to come about from the case is how medical credentialing has improved dramatically, because nobody wanted to hire a guy like this ever again.. What motivated you to hurt and kill people?" Sackman said he hopes the Swango case gives law enforcement and prosecutors the confidence to move ahead with investigations. His subsequent guilty plea that October in the McGee murder earned him another life sentence, according to CBS News. The FBI believes he may be responsible for as many as 60 deaths, which would make him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. That investigation extensively outlined in Sackmans book paid off with the conviction of Swango's involvement in four deaths. He was tan, wearing aviator sunglasses. "I know I wouldn't get any answers, but I'd have to ask the questions, and try to find out what he was thinking. At the ages of 47 and 61, respectively, both Vicky Bowman-Hall and Sheila Meyers of Iowa were innocent gas station clerks with families of their own when they abruptly lost their lives. [1], Swango's lackadaisical approach to his studies caught up with him a month before he was due to graduate, when it was discovered that he had faked checkups during his OB/GYN rotation. June1997: Swango is hired by a hospital in Saudi Arabia. In 1984, Swango claimed he discovered the dead body of patient Ricky DeLong, 21, while performing his rounds. [18], According to Theodore Ted Kaczynskis parents, he started life as a normal baby, but as a young child he was forced to spend a long period of time in isolation in the hospital and he emerged a different kid, one who showed little emotion. KHQA? At various stops during his career, some colleagues had reported seeing Swango inject patients with an unknown substance shortly before they died. Swango seemed to always be on duty whenever these incidents occurred. Swango admitted to McGee's poisoning whenhe pleaded guilty in the New York killings so . He pleads guilty and is sentenced to 3 years in prison. In 1984, he poisoned his co-workers there. In 2006, he was sentenced to seven years in British prison for inciting violence. If Michael Swango killed as many people as those who investigated him believe, he was astonishingly prolific. Michael Swango was sentenced to three life terms for his heinous crimes. After that, Swango was gone.. During the trial, the prosecution also argued that Palerma was involved in the kidnapping of three U.S. contractors in 2003, and a former guerilla testified against him about the kidnapping of a former mayor. He also appealed to the authorities at Mpilo Hospital, Bulawayo, to allow him in the interim to continue working voluntarily there; however, this was opposed by Abdollah Mesbah, a surgical resident, who had often found him snooping around mysteriously in the wards and in the intensive care unit (ICU) even when not on call. By 1994, Swango had fled overseas to Zimbabwe, where he again tried to establish himself as a doctor. [19] He was a mathematics prodigy and began studying at Harvard at age 16. At this time, Swango rented a room in Bulawayo from a widowed woman who subsequently became violently sick after a meal she had prepared for herself and a friend. He completes his internship but is not invited to stay on for a neurosurgery residency. Swango is arrested and charged, but goes into hiding. Although everyone there has a horrific record, these are ten of the worst of the worst. [1] Nonetheless, it was another decade before OSU formally conceded it should have called in outside investigators. Since he the age of three, he had become fascinated with stories about violent deaths. The patient survives, but nurses suspect Swango in five deaths on the ward. Still, when the course was over and the hospital asked participants to write down what they enjoyed most about the class, Swango wrote, "Kristin Kinney." Swango attached himself to Kristin. Doctors, toxicologists, forensic nurses. Michael Swango, seen here preparing for his 1985 trial in Quincy, would end up in a place unlike any other. He used his job as prison reporter to gain information about the layout of the prison, and then escaped through the air ducts in 1992 along with two other prisoners and remained free for nine months before being re-captured. Even earlier, several students and faculty members had raised concerns about Swango's competence to practice medicine. Download FREE with Kindle Unlimited. Thats part of the reason why he was only convicted in the involvement of four deaths he confessed to them in exchange for not being extradited to Africa and to avoid the death penatly in the United States instead of the dozens he is suspected of, Sackman said. Authorities in Zimbabwe would later issue a warrant for his arrest on charges that he poisoned seven patients, including five fatalities, according toThe New York Times. It looked like he had just come in from the golf course, Sackman recalled. To the outside observer, this would seem like the likely end to his medical career in any shape or form. A ? [3] Swango graduated from Quincy summa cum laude and was given the American Chemical Society Award. Michael Swango. Dr. Michael Swango is now serving three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole at ADX Florence federal prison in Colorado for the death of four of his patients, though many . One day, Swango brought a box of doughnuts to work. Richard McNair is not the type of man that one would expect to find in the Supermax stacked up against the other people on this list. He eventually graduated behind schedule. While Swango eventually pleaded guilty to just four murders, his victim countmay be as high as 60. Michael Swango (born Joseph Michael Swango) was a physician who spent most of the 1980s and '90s using his . Sackman said many people are stunned by how easy it appeared for Swango to continue his killing despite suspicions. I just dont really know the answer, Sackman said. He eventually resurfaced again at Northport, where he came to the attention of Sackman before bolting to places unknown. In the 1980s, he began to take a deeper interest in his religion and became inspired by the Iranian revolution. As horrific as the allegations at his other career stops were, his time in Sioux Falls was marked by a notable absence of suspicious activity. John Roca/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images The former wasn't even supposed to be working at the Crossroads Convenience Store in Algona on November 15, 2010, yet she'd clocked in anyways after another . "Behind the Murder Curtain: Special Agent Bruce Sackman Hunts Doctors and Nurses Who Kill Our Veterans. Your Friend, Michael:Police Officer's Daughter Writes to Serial Killer, Hoping for Answers, 1954: Born James Michael Swango in Tacoma, Washington, 1972: High school valedictorian in Quincy, Illinois, 1976: Honorable discharge from the Marines. [1] He was valedictorian of his 1972 Quincy Catholic Boys High School class. Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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