Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder (22 page)

None of the samples tested positive for arsenic, which was not surprising since the only victims who showed any symptoms of arsenic poisoning—the doctors at Children’s Hospital—had vomited heavily, and also had apparently been poisoned on only one occasion. Two patients, Warner and Pereny, showed symptoms consistent
with ricin poisoning, but there was no test for ricin, although the OSU toxicologist worked for months to find one. None of the samples tested revealed any residue of Anectine, which was suspected in the Cooper incident and in the deaths that didn’t involve massive bleeding. But Anectine passes quickly out of the body, often leaving no trace.

However, Coroner Adrion did make a startling discovery when he performed an autopsy on the corpse of Ricky DeLong: gauze had been stuffed into his trachea, causing suffocation. Adrion changed DeLong’s official cause of death to “cardiopulmonary arrest due to gauze in trachea causing partial occlusion.” On July 8, he ruled the death a homicide.

But Ohio State brought in a pathologist from Phoenix, Arizona, and had him examine DeLong’s body. This pathologist said that an undertaker might have placed the gauze in DeLong’s throat, and Ohio State used this possibility to lambaste Adrion’s conclusion that the death was a homicide.

The investigators, and now the coroner, too, were dumbfounded. For the evidence did not support Ohio State’s contention: the gauze bore markings indicating a hospital use, and more significantly, the investigating staff interviewed the mortician who had embalmed DeLong’s body, and he said that not only hadn’t he left any gauze in DeLong’s body but that he didn’t even use that kind of gauze. After Ohio State made its claims, Adrion convened a meeting of the investigative staff and asked for a secret vote on whether the verdict of homicide should be changed. The verdict stood.

It seemed that wherever Morgan turned, someone at Ohio State was trying to thwart him. Evidence hadn’t been collected or had been discarded. The Goodman and Whitcomb investigations had been disastrous. Swango himself had never even been subjected to a formal interview, nor was any attempt made to reconcile the three inconsistent versions he’d offered of his involvement in the Cooper respiratory failure. Every doubt was resolved in favor of Swango and against the credibility of everyone else. Morgan was so upset that he discussed with Miller whether there was sufficient evidence to consider seeking an indictment of Ohio State officials for obstruction of justice. But they discarded the possibility as unwarranted,
politically dangerous—and unsatisfying, given that Swango was the real target.

On
that
score, Morgan’s pessimism grew as the months passed and the search for physical evidence proved fruitless. All he had was a strong circumstantial case based on eyewitness testimony. But given that Ohio State had already dismissed most of that testimony as unreliable, a good defense lawyer would easily establish a reasonable doubt of guilt. Although he firmly believed Swango was guilty and a continuing menace to society, Morgan concluded that pursuing criminal charges would end in failure. Herdt and the other investigators reluctantly agreed.

Morgan’s frustrations with Ohio State were evident in an extensive report he prepared during January and February 1986, two years after the incidents involving Swango in the OSU Hospitals. Morgan concluded that, while “numerous University Hospitals employees can place Dr. Michael Swango at or next to the bedsides of patients who suffered unexplainable respiratory arrests,” investigators found “a total absence of evidence tending to prove a specific intent to cause serious physical harm or death attributable to Dr. Swango.” The hospitals made “no effort” to preserve the various syringes and other physical evidence involved in the incidents. Nor were autopsies conducted in three suspicious cases, and

it should be noted that neither the departments of neurosurgery or general surgery conducted a “morbidity and mortality conference” to review
any
of the five suspicious deaths discussed in this report . . . . Obviously, if such a conference occurred it could have led to the discovery of physical evidence and/or additional witnesses or statements by Dr. Swango regarding his treatment procedures.

One of the most critical factors present in any criminal investigation, [Morgan’s report continued] is the amount of
time
that develops between the occurrence of the criminal act and the subsequent investigation. It is obvious that the unusually long delay between incidents and investigation as detailed in this report adversely affected any hope to uncover admissible evidence. It cannot be overemphasized that eight months had passed before the
Ohio State University Police had even heard the
name
of Dr. Michael Swango . . . . Thus, it is not surprising that toxicological testing done one- to one-and-a-half years after the suspected poisoning would not result in positive findings . . . .

In summary, there is no question that there exists circumstantial evidence demonstrating a pattern of possible assaults and/or criminal homicides and this circumstantial scenario also includes a motive. It can be proven that at the time the series of questionable respiratory arrests began, Dr. Swango was in danger of being terminated as a neurosurgery resident and he had been notified of this fact.

Yet, in the absence of evidence of intent, “it was within Michael Swango’s
job description
to be with these patients and to treat them using drugs and syringes.”

Since under Ohio law, conviction on the basis of circumstantial evidence requires that evidence to be “wholly inconsistent” with “any reasonable theory of the defendant’s innocence,” “it is the recommendation of this writer that there be no criminal prosecution of Dr. Michael J. Swango at this time.”

Morgan gave the sixty-page draft to Miller to review, and Miller suggested they show it to Jennings, Ohio State’s president. Morgan personally delivered it, and Jennings thanked him and shook his hand. By the end of the day, lawyers were on the phone to Miller with one demand: delete all the names, including those of all the doctors involved. The report was released on April 1, 1986, with doctors identified only by number.

As far as Morgan could tell, his report landed with a thud. The press showed scant interest in his conclusions. He believed that most reporters didn’t bother to read it. As for Swango himself, Morgan thought, “I’ll never hear of him again.”

Charles Eley had been involved in the investigation on behalf of the Ohio State Medical Board. Though all the board’s activities are confidential, it is known to have investigated whether Dr. Carey or anyone else at the medical school should have notified it of Swango’s suspicious activities, or at least of his arrest in Illinois. Eley prepared a report about thirty pages long on the matter, but he
was ordered to turn over his only copy to the board. No action against anyone at Ohio State was taken.

Michael Swango’s licenses to practice medicine were suspended, by Ohio on February 12, 1986, and by Illinois on March 19.

A
S
Morgan was winding up his investigation and putting the finishing touches on his report, Swango began a campaign to rehabilitate his reputation by agreeing to be interviewed by correspondent John Stossel for the ABC news program
20/20.
The program aired on February 13, 1986, the day after his license was suspended in Ohio. It was the first national exposure Swango received.

Swango was interviewed at Centralia Correctional Center in southern Illinois, where he had begun serving his five-year term on August 27, 1985, and he was calm and collected, occasionally asking the producers for a glass of water. He was neatly dressed in a coat and red tie.

20/20
cohost Hugh Downs introduced the segment thus: “Dr. Michael Swango’s case is an unusual one. The plot could have been lifted from a TV murder mystery. There is a mix of ingredients—poison tops the list. There’s circumstantial evidence, and an ending that leaves room for a sequel.”

Swango was even more adamant than before Judge Cashman that he had been wrongly accused and convicted. “First of all, I’m innocent,” he began. “I could never do any of the things that were—that have been alleged that I have done. I think my whole life speaks for that, everything I’ve done in the past, my work both as a paramedic and a doctor, and I simply could not have done those things.”

“Why do all these people think you did?” Stossel asked.

“I don’t know. I think that some people think I did because they have been misled by evidence that was—that has no integrity . . . .”

Stossel brought up Swango’s defense that there were ants in his apartment, and Kevin O’Donnell, the pest-control expert, said on camera, “This ant is never found indoors, particularly in our area. There were about a thousand of them, milling around aimlessly in the kitchen and the living room, and it appeared in my opinion that they had been dumped there.”

Swango replied, “You know, I don’t know anything about ants.
All I know is I had an ant problem, and I took care of it as best I could.” As he had in the past, he explained the scrapbooks of death and disasters which “unfortunately are part and parcel of, you know, a paramedic’s end of medicine in general.” As for the recipe cards for poisons, “I’m a scientist. I’m a physician. And part of the curriculum is poisoning, toxicology, the symptoms and how to treat these various illnesses.”

Asked specifically about whether he put something in anyone’s IV tube at Ohio State, Swango replied, “I deny any criminal behavior or any violation of the Hippocratic Oath in working in Ohio or working anywhere.”

“The judge said that maybe there are two of you,” Stossel continued, quoting Judge Cashman.

“I think the judge is wrong,” Swango replied. “The judge—the judge is very wrong.”

“He also wanted you to get psychiatric help. Did you ever think of seeing anyone?”

“Absolutely not. He said that, thinking that I was guilty. I’m not guilty. I didn’t do these things.”

Stossel pointed out that because of the time he’d already served in the Adams County jail during his trial and before sentencing, and with time off for good behavior, Swango might be released in another year and a half. “Do you know some people are scared of you, now that you’re getting out?” he asked.

“I’m sorry about that,” Swango replied. “There’s certainly no reason for anybody to be scared, none whatsoever.”

Judge Cashman, for one, wasn’t so sure. That Christmas he received a handwritten card wishing him and his family “a safe Christmas.”

It was signed “Michael Swango.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

M
ICHAEL
S
WANGO
was released by the Illinois Department of Corrections on August 21, 1987, after serving two years of his five-year sentence. He remained under corrections department supervision for an additional year. Rita Dumas’s support had been unwavering throughout his imprisonment. She now gave friends a new explanation for Michael’s conviction: that he had been “framed” by Wayne Johnson because the coroner had feared that Swango, who was far more skilled, would supplant him.

Swango and Dumas moved to Hampton, Virginia, a town on the Chesapeake Peninsula near Newport News and Colonial Williamsburg. Both Rita and Michael wanted to begin a new life, away from Quincy, Columbus, and their past. Rita later told friends she had always wanted to live near the ocean, as well.

But Swango proved unable to escape his past. He applied for a medical license from the state of Virginia, and met with the state’s licensing committee on August 12. Citing his felony conviction and the suspension of his Illinois and Ohio licenses, the committee voted to reject his application.

Instead of practicing medicine, Swango went to work as a counselor for the Career Development Center, which helped students get into medical and other professional schools. While he was working there, three of his colleagues came down with symptoms suspiciously similar to those experienced by the paramedics in Quincy: sudden nausea, vomiting, and severe headaches. One of them was hospitalized. And despite Swango’s relationship with Rita Dumas, a second woman accused him of stalking her after she
spurned what she deemed to be sexual advances. She soon became one of the three to experience similar symptoms.

Colleagues were already wary of Swango. His obsession with violent death and accidents had survived his confinement in prison. He carried clippings of disasters in a large paper bag and was often seen working on his scrapbooks. Then coworkers discovered that Swango had converted a basement room at the center into living quarters, and was frequently spending the night there. He left in May 1989.

Acting on a complaint from another employee at the counseling center, the Newport News police launched an investigation of the mysterious illnesses. They soon traced Swango to Columbus, Ohio, and spoke to prosecutor Morgan’s office. Morgan sent them a copy of his report on Swango’s activities at Ohio State. The Columbus inquiry also led to a tip to
The Columbus Dispatch
, which reported that Swango was now under investigation in Virginia. After a friend sent the
Dispatch
article to Swango and Dumas, Swango called the Newport News police and, in an effort to clear himself, asked to be interviewed. No charges were filed, but the investigation into Swango’s past seems to have prompted him to begin legal proceedings to change his name. On January 18, 1990, by order of the Circuit Court of York County, Virginia, Swango legally changed his name to David Jackson Adams.

Still using his original name, Swango next found work as a lab technician at Aticoal Services, a company that tested samples of coal to be exported to France from the United States. He also worked part-time as a paramedic at a nearby hospital and began taking courses to be certified as an emergency medical technician. No one questioned his references or called anyone in Quincy for further information.

Aticoal’s president, William C. Banks, found Swango to be pleasant and hardworking, an exemplary employee. Swango introduced Banks to Rita Dumas, and Banks thought they made a charming couple. Not long after, Swango asked him for some time off to get married. On July 8, 1989, he and Rita were finally married, nearly six years after meeting at Ohio State.