Dr. Michael Swango is one of the prolific medical serial killers in history. " He joins the long list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax. Unmisig said. In 1989, he was working at a medical-career vocational school in Newport News, Virginia, when three co-workers became ill,although no charges were ever filed, according to CBS News. It takes the work of law enforcement officials acting on those suspicions. [11], Since the latest Swango incident took place at a Veterans Affairs facility, federal authorities got involved. He completes his internship but is not invited to stay on for a neurosurgery residency. Sackman asked him about the television piece broadcast earlier, and about the alleged poisoning that had taken place, among other specifics. But Sackman said information was harder to come by in those days, and Swango used every trick in the book to keep access to the medical field. Swango served in the Marine Corps, graduating from recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. Swango? On July 11, 2000, less than a week before he was due to be released from prison on the fraud charge, federal prosecutors on Long Island, New York, filed a criminal complaint charging Swango with three counts of murder, one count of assault and one count each of false statements, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Virgil Swango was Michael's father. A graduate of the Southern Illinois University Medical . The gang started as a white counterpart to African-American prison gangs when prisons began to desegregate, but has since grown to 20,000 members[25] They operate on a blood in, blood out motto which implies that members must kill or assault another prisoner or correctional officer to join, and the only way to leave the gang is death. If I didnt know any better and my daughter had brought him home and said he was a doctor at the VA, I would have thought it was like winning the lottery.. Right before he was to be released from prison in early July 2000, Swango was charged with three counts of murder for the deaths at the Northport VA hospital, according toThe New York Times. And, for a short time, he was also a South Dakotan. The second of three children, he grew up in Quincy, Illinois. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A former doctor who prosecutors say enjoyed killing people pleaded guilty Wednesday to fatally poisoning a woman at Ohio State University's hospital in 1984 while she was under his care. 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. Swango could very well have remained in Sioux Falls for some time, but he committed a critical blunder. Prosecutors said Michael Swango killed for pleasure, and they read entries from a handwritten journal in which he mused about "the sweet, husky, close smell of indoor homicide." Another entry suggested that murder was "the only way I have of reminding myself that I'm still alive." Swango, 45, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in a plea . Swango proved to be a very smooth interview, deftly deflecting questions. He was only 17 years old then but was stilled charged as an adult considering the level of his crime. [1], While all this was happening, Tom Valery, chief investigator for the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), consulted with Charlene Thomesen, a forensic psychiatrist. You can find parts one and two by clicking the links below this article. Don't let the nickname "Shorty" fool you. He has a hard time fully believing that Swango had reformed himself in South Dakota. This story is from the April 2022 issue ofColumbus Monthly. The End: Michael Swango meets his fate. Now 68, Swango is incarcerated atUSP Florence ADMAX, a maximum-security federal penitentiary in Colorado known as The Alcatraz of the Rockies., To learn more about Dr. Swango, watch Oxygen's series "License to Kill.". Police Officer's Daughter Writes to Serial Killer, Hoping for Answers, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. In August 1985, he was found guilty of aggravated battery and sentenced to five years in prison, reportedThe New York Times. Top 10 Worst Prisoners At The Colorado Supermax Prison But what seemed like a bright opportunity would turn into a deeply scarring college experience. [12] Because of the failure to perform adequate autopsies, no firm conclusions could be drawn. The public outcry resulted in Cohen and Miller being forced to resign before the end of the year. He's still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet, " they said. July1984: Finds work as a paramedic in Quincy. His subsequent guilty plea that October in the McGee murder earned him another life sentence, according to CBS News. At one point in the 2010s, law enforcement determined that despite being less than 0.10% of the prison population, they were responsible for 18% of prison murders. [14] At the same time, Zimbabwean authorities charged him with poisoning seven patients, five of whom died. [2] During high school, he played clarinet in the band. Did something happen that nobody noticed? Former SIU medical student turns serial killer Double-0 Swango sentenced to life in prison Less than two years after he graduated from the SIU School of Medicine in 1982, Michael Swango committed his first murder. I dont see how he could control himself, and the more work he did, the better he got at it.. After two years in college, he enlisted in the Marines, but later returned to school at Quincy College to pursue a career as a doctor, reported theChicago Tribune. 1983: Graduates from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, where classmates nickname him Double-0 Swango and faculty raise concerns about his performance. Michael Swango is an American serial killer and a former physician who is serving three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole at the ADX Florence supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. After being released from prison in 1989 on the poisoning charges, he worked for a time in Virginia before finding his way to Sioux Falls, where he again took up position as a doctor, this time with what is now Sanford Health. By making a deal with prosecutors, he was spared the death penalty, and the government of Zimbabwe agreed not to . 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. Around this time, Swango met Kristin Lynn Kinney, a nurse at Riverside Hospital. [1] He may have also been responsible for the death of his fiance, Kristin Kinney, who took her own life in a state of mental confusion that was potentially caused by arsenic poisoning. A quick search of inmate records will show ADX Florence is home to domestic and foreign terrorists, spies, gang leaders - and a doctor from Quincy. Calabreses brother Nicholas was the prosecutions star witness and Calabreses own lawyer said that he was so vicious that He would shoot you in the head over cold ravioli. Returning to the U.S. to obtain a visa, he is arrested in a Chicago airport on federal fraud charges. [8], Swango established a sterling reputation at Sanford. Swango claimed she suffered heart failure; he had killed her by giving her a potassium injection that stopped her heart. So Sackman and his partner headed up to Northport to see what was going on. Over the years, some nurses and other coworkers would develop an inkling that something was amiss, but they couldnt prove it. [13] In his book Blind Eye, Quincy native James B. Stewart estimated that counting the suspicious deaths at SIU, circumstantial evidence links Swango to 35 suspicious deaths. In a sharply worded report, Meeks concludes the hospitals inquiry was far too superficial.. With nothing immediate to move on, Sackman left. Standard procedures for checking applicants were not followed, former school dean Dr. Jordan Cohen toldPeoplemagazine. [1] He was valedictorian of his 1972 Quincy Catholic Boys High School class. Some have even formed unlikely friendships. 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 . If Michael Swango killed as many people as those who investigated him believe, he was astonishingly prolific. Thu, 20 Nov 2014 05:24:34 GMT Note: this is the conclusion to a three-part KHQA special report. After that, Swango was gone.. Dr. Michael Swango's 'House Of Horrors' Filled With Handwritten Recipes It looked like he had just come in from the golf course, Sackman recalled. Abdul Rahman Yasin is still at large, and the FBI is offering up to $5 million for any information that leads directly to his arrest. Palerma quickly rose through the ranks of the organization to lead the area known as Front 41 and eventually was one of the leaders of the entire Caribbean bloc. [1] Following his graduation, Swango went to medical school at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU). Michael Swango - Biography - Facts, Childhood, Life of Serial Killer The Neurosurgeon Serial Killer Who Took Upto 60 Lives - Medium Thirty years after slipping poison into the food and drink of his Quincy co-workers, those who knew him reflected on a life gone wrong. Some of his fellow students had suspected he had been faking checkups as early as his second year, but this was the first time he had been caught red-handed. In 2006, Bingham and several others were convicted of murder and racketeering, but federal prosecutors failed in securing the death penalty. Talley telephoned Jordan Cohen, the dean at Stony Brook. Advertisement During the 10 years that followed, a trail of suspicious deaths beset Swango's career through several states and two.