Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder (25 page)

“Why don’t you get away for a while?” Al Cooper suggested. So Kristin checked into a Holiday Inn on the ocean in Virginia Beach to think things over. The next day, Al called her there. “Have you made up your mind?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. She paused, then added, “Michael showed up.” Swango had tracked her down there and persuaded her to break the engagement. She told her stepfather she cared deeply for him and that he was a wonderful person. She assured him that Michael had a good job as a chemist.

The Coopers were initially wary. Kristin, for all her vivacity and natural beauty, had not had good luck with men. She’d married a classmate from nursing school during her senior year, and he turned out to be a handsome rogue, cheating on her with other women. They were divorced two years later. Then she began dating someone who became so possessive that, after she broke off the relationship, she had to obtain a court order preventing him from seeing her. She was so afraid of him that she bought a nine-millimeter pistol and took target practice at a shooting range. She became a good shot, and kept the gun in her truck, even after she moved back to Virginia from her stint in Naples.

Not long after Kristin broke off her engagement, the Coopers let themselves into her apartment, as they often did, and were waiting for her to return when the phone rang. Sharon answered, and told the caller she was Kristin’s mother. “I love your daughter!”
Swango exclaimed. “I’ll be good to her.” Sharon couldn’t get him off the phone, even though Al was growing annoyed. Swango went on and on about how wonderful Kristin was and how much he loved her. Sharon tried to ask him a few questions, but didn’t make much headway. She couldn’t deflect him from singing Kristin’s praises. When Sharon finally got off the phone, she told her husband, “This is either the most wonderful thing in the world for Kristin or he’s some kind of nut.” But Swango seemed so sincere, she couldn’t really believe he might be the latter.

A few weeks later, Kristin called her parents with a revelation about Swango. “Guess what?” she said. “The one thing I didn’t want to have happen. Michael is actually a doctor.”

Al was startled. Hadn’t Michael told her he was a chemist? “So he lied to you?” Al asked.

“He didn’t want to scare me away,” Kristin explained.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I guess it’s too late, isn’t it?” she asked.

D
R
. Anthony Salem, director of the internal medicine residency program at the University of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, was sifting through completed applications in September 1991 when one letter captured his attention.

“My situation is somewhat unusual,” the letter read. “My medical career was interrupted by a personal tragedy in 1985 . . . . Under circumstances unrelated to medicine or medical practice, I was convicted of battery in the State of Illinois. I appealed the conviction vigorously, but without initial success in the courts. Upon completion of my probation, I began to rebuild my personal life and my medical career. In August 1989 I received a Restoration of Rights/Removal of Political Disabilities from the [then] Governor of Virginia, Gerald Baliles. This is essentially a pardon for the conviction in Illinois, and restores any and all rights.”

The letter was signed “Michael Swango,” not Adams.

Intrigued, Dr. Salem looked through Swango’s completed application. His credentials looked excellent; Salem was especially impressed by his internship at Ohio State, accompanied by the 1984 certificate signed by Tzagournis and Carey. Unlike Ohio State or Iowa, the University of South Dakota medical school did not enjoy
a prestigious national reputation, though it was highly regarded in the northern Plains states. Given the remote location and harsh weather, it wasn’t easy to attract and retain competent doctors in the Dakotas, and USD tried to accept and train residents who showed some promise of remaining in the state. Increasingly, that had meant recruiting foreigners. So Swango’s application was highly attractive, except for the curious matter of the battery conviction. Salem wondered what had happened. He was almost certain that a felony conviction would bar Swango from being admitted to the program, but he thought he’d follow up, mostly to satisfy his own curiosity. He suspected that Swango might have been convicted of some kind of domestic violence.

Dr. Salem was known as thorough and meticulous, detail-oriented almost to a fault. On September 18, he called the Illinois Department of Registration and Education, the Ohio State Medical Board, and the American Medical Association.

Illinois reported that Swango’s medical license had been revoked for “disciplinary reasons.” Ohio reported the same information. Neither licensing agency provided any details, saying only that Swango had been convicted of a felony. The AMA was even vaguer, responding over a month later that Swango had been subject to unspecified “action by two licensing boards.” All of this was consistent with what Swango had already revealed in his letter, and did nothing to signal any more serious problems. It also failed to satisfy Salem’s curiosity.

The next day, Salem had an associate contact Swango in Virginia, asking for more information about the battery conviction, and Swango provided a one-page supplement to his earlier letter and application. This time he abandoned the fictions he had created when he applied to the Wheeling, West Virginia, residency program, fictions that had ultimately backfired. Not only was he using his real name, but he acknowledged that the battery was a case of poisoning, not a restaurant brawl. He explained that during the summer of 1985, he and his fellow paramedics had become suddenly ill at work. (Swango himself, of course, had not been ill.) To his “utter surprise,” several weeks later he was arrested and charged with putting something in their food and drink. He claimed the accusations were made by his coworkers, who were jealous of the fact that he was a
physician, and he added that the physical evidence of poison had come from a state laboratory “later closed by the Governor of Illinois and the State Police due to gross incompetence and numerous deficiencies.” He offered to provide further information if requested.

Now Salem was even more intrigued, and instead of rejecting the application outright, he called Swango on the phone. Swango was at his most charming and persuasive. He eagerly elaborated on the letter, weaving a sophisticated fabric of truth, half-truth, and outright fabrication to support his claim that he was a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. Swango shrewdly premised his story on the notion of jealousy and hostility toward doctors—a scenario likely to appeal to other physicians, who increasingly saw themselves confronted by hostile forces.

Salem came away from this and several subsequent phone conversations persuaded that Swango was not only a remarkably candid young man, but also a courageous one. Increasingly, Salem found himself liking him.

Still, he thought it unlikely that Swango could be a serious candidate, because USD policy was not to hire residents who couldn’t later be licensed to practice medicine in South Dakota. Salem assumed that a felony conviction would preclude licensing. Hearing this, Swango himself offered to research the question, and reported back to Salem that nothing in South Dakota law precluded him from being licensed if he showed he had successfully completed a three-year residency. Without consulting anyone else in South Dakota—such as, for example, the university’s lawyers—Salem accepted Swango’s assertion and invited him to Sioux Falls for a round of personal interviews. (While Swango’s assertion may have been technically accurate—no law specifically bars a felon from practicing medicine—as a matter of policy South Dakota treats felony convictions as a bar to licensure on the grounds that the underlying crime constitutes unprofessional conduct.)

Five internists, including Salem, interviewed Swango on October 3. They asked about his experience and knowledge of internal medicine and his willingness to practice in South Dakota; Dr. Salem asked him again whether he could be licensed to practice in the state. Swango emphasized that South Dakota was one of a “handful”
of states where, if someone “turns their life around,” they can be licensed to practice. Incredibly, no one asked any other questions about his conviction on battery charges. Swango was seemingly earnest, sincere, persuasive. Salem’s positive impressions were substantially reinforced by the meeting. It never occurred to Salem, or anyone else who interviewed Swango, to contact police or judicial authorities in Quincy.

But the next day, when Swango was interviewed by participants in the family practice program, to which he had also applied, things didn’t go so smoothly. Dr. Bruce Vogt, the residency program coordinator at an area hospital, asked about the battery charges, and seemed more skeptical of Swango’s explanation. When he asked for Swango’s permission to interview his parole officer, Swango seemed uncomfortable, and finally refused. The group told Swango on the spot that they wouldn’t consider his application any further. After the meeting, Swango lobbied Dr. Vogt, asking if there was any way he could apply for a “transitional” residency program directed by Vogt. Vogt told Swango it was possible, but he would probably be wasting his time.

But no one who participated in the family practice interviews conveyed the group’s decision or misgivings to Salem or anyone else in internal medicine. This wasn’t so surprising, because the two residency programs often competed for the same applicants and tended to keep decisions to themselves.

Then Salem learned from the Federation of State Medical Boards that Swango had had his licenses revoked by Illinois and Ohio, which Salem already knew; that his application for a license had been rejected by Virginia; and that he had legally changed his name to David Jackson Adams. The name change troubled Salem, but Swango explained on the phone and in writing that he had changed his name to “get a fresh start” and had since reverted to using his real name. “Perhaps most importantly,” he wrote, “I realized that I did not want there to be even the appearance of any attempt to conceal my past difficulties.”

To gain a residency appointment in South Dakota, Swango had to go through the same national match process that had gotten him accepted by Iowa and then Ohio State.

The University of South Dakota’s internal medicine residency
ranking committee met on February 24, 1992, to rank the seventeen applicants still under consideration for the eight positions in the program. Four doctors attended, including Dr. Salem and Dr. Vogt, who had participated in the family practice discussions. For the first time, Dr. Vogt told the group that the family practice group had declined to rank Swango. But Dr. Salem argued persuasively on Swango’s behalf; since Salem had had by far the most contact with him, and the other doctors trusted Salem’s judgment, they decided to rank Swango. However, there was little expectation that he would rank high enough to gain a match and hence an appointment. Dr. Vogt ranked Swango last or close to last. So did one of the other doctors. Another ranked him only several names from the bottom. But Dr. Salem must have given him a fairly high ranking, because when the results were totaled, Swango ranked eleventh of the seventeen candidates. Of the six applicants ranked behind him, five were foreign doctors. The other showed evidence of mental instability.

The results of the national match program were announced on March 18, 1992. Swango was accepted to a residency in internal medicine at the University of South Dakota.

N
OW
that Swango’s future seemed secure, he and Kristin became engaged, in May 1992. He took her shopping for a ring, and she chose a small diamond in an antique shop. Kristin loved old jewelry and antiques. The Coopers finally met Swango that same month, at a dinner at Gus’ Mariner Restaurant, located on the beach. Swango was neatly dressed, poised and charming. Sharon thought he treated her daughter like a queen. He held her hand throughout the meal and told the Coopers how much he loved her. Kristin beamed with appreciation, and her parents thought she’d never looked better. She showed them her new ring, and said she’d be moving to South Dakota with “Mike-O,” as she called him. But they weren’t planning to be married right away.

During dinner, Al asked Swango to tell them about his background and education. He mentioned his many awards and achievements, his medical degree, his internship at Ohio State. But Al noticed there was a gap of about three years, from 1984 to 1987, and he asked Swango what he was doing then. “I’ll tell you about that
later,” Swango said mysteriously, though he gave no hint it was anything awkward or embarrassing. “It’s not important.” He said nothing about any previous marriage.

The Coopers also asked about Swango’s parents. He told them about his father’s military career, and that he had died. He said nothing about his mother, so Al asked about her. Swango paused, then said, “She’s in a nursing home.”

“Where?” the Coopers asked.

“In Missouri,” Swango replied. He seemed uncomfortable, and volunteered nothing further.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Al continued.

Swango paused. “I haven’t.”

Kristin jumped in to defuse what was rapidly becoming a tense conversation. “It’s a really sad story,” she said. “He’ll tell you about it sometime.”

In fact, after Muriel complained to Judge Cashman just after Michael’s conviction that she wasn’t feeling well, her physical and mental health had deteriorated rapidly. She had confided in Ruth Miller that having two sons reject her when she refused to fund the appeal was even worse than Mike’s arrest and conviction. Still, she never broke down or showed any self-pity, preferring to keep her feelings to herself.

After the trial, Muriel had moved back to Florida to be near her youngest son, John, but a thank-you note to Louise Scharf in Springfield not long after Michael’s sentencing had been oddly written and barely coherent. Muriel soon entered a nursing home in Palmyra, Missouri, not far from Quincy; she was diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. But family members were convinced she was suffering from “a broken heart,” as Scharf put it. “She never got over the fact that Mike was found guilty.”