Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder (27 page)

Talley and Salem had yet to formulate a plan for dealing with Swango. Then matters were taken out of their hands. That night at ten
P.M
., on the Discovery Channel,
The Justice Files
aired a segment on Swango that used the footage from the earlier
20/20
broadcast on which John Stossel interviewed Swango in prison. At 10:20
P.M
. Dr. Salem got a call from a panicked staff member at the VA hospital. Five minutes later, he heard from a doctor, who, recognizing
Swango, was shocked by the disclosures. Salem rushed to his office to review all the files on Swango, trying to determine if he had falsified anything or distorted his record. By e-mail, he revoked Swango’s pharmacy privileges and suspended his residency. Just after midnight, he returned home and watched a tape of the
Justice Files
episode. For the first time, he realized that the conviction in Quincy of his fellow physician had been no miscarriage of justice.

On Tuesday morning, the Sioux Falls
Argus Leader
was emblazoned with the headline “Medical Resident Suspended”: “A first-year resident practicing medicine at three Sioux Falls hospitals was convicted of poisoning six co-workers in Illinois and spent 2
¹
/
₂
years in jail,” the newspaper reported. “Swango is also suspected in the death of at least one patient at an Ohio hospital.”

Swango’s coworkers were suddenly reluctant to talk to the paper. “There’s a concern knowing that he has poisoned six of his co-workers in the past,” one unidentified resident told the
Argus Leader.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of doing. He seems like a very nice person, but the thing that’s always worried us is he couldn’t look us straight in the eye. A lot of times that made us concerned that maybe he was dealing with some problems of his own.”

At nine
A.M
., Salem called Swango to tell him not to show up for work at the hospital, and to set up a meeting with him at two
P.M
. Swango asked to bring his fiancée. Meanwhile, Salem notified the medical school’s board members, and the hospitals launched a review of the files of all patients whom Swango had treated.

When Swango arrived for the meeting, accompanied by Kristin, he was neatly dressed in a jacket and tie. He seemed puzzled by all the controversy and eager to clear things up. Rather than summarize the
Justice Files
story, Salem put the tape in his VCR and had Swango and Kinney watch it in its entirety. Then he asked for an explanation. Kinney had turned ashen and said nothing. It was obvious to Salem that she had not seen the program, and knew little of the history it presented. Under the circumstances, Swango remained remarkably calm and poised. He still seemed puzzled. He had no idea he had been investigated at Ohio State, he insisted. And he continued to maintain that the poisoning conviction was a miscarriage of justice fueled by disgruntled coworkers, some of whom appeared on the program. Salem thought it was at least possible that
Swango didn’t know about the investigation at Ohio State. But everything else he said seemed to be flatly contradicted by the show. Salem said Swango’s suspension would remain in effect.

Salem didn’t report Swango’s suspension to the national data bank created by the Wyden legislation. Presumably, because Swango was a medical resident, not licensed anywhere to practice medicine, he wasn’t a “physician” within the law’s definition, and the reporting requirement did not apply—a glaring loophole in the law.

The next day, the university sent Swango a certified letter giving him until four
P.M
. Friday, December 4, to submit his resignation. If he failed to do so, the letter said he would be dismissed.

O
NE
of Kristin’s friends in the ICU, Linda Wipf, was in a patient’s room with the TV on when she heard the announcer say, “Coming up, a local doctor accused of poisoning.” Wipf wondered who that could be. South Dakota had experienced the odd case of a physician charged with using drugs, but nothing like this. When the news resumed she looked up and saw Swango’s face. “That can’t be,” she thought. “It’s got to be a mistake.”

She hurried back to the nurses’ station. Everyone was talking about the news. Kristin hadn’t come in that day, but that afternoon, after the meeting with Salem, she called in tears, saying that Michael had been suspended. Through her sobs, it was hard to get a coherent story, but she indicated that although she knew he had been in prison in Illinois—either for a bar brawl or after being framed in the poison case—she’d known nothing about the allegations at Ohio State. Lisa Flinn dispatched another nurse to be with Kristin, so she wouldn’t be alone and would have someone to talk to.

Later Kristin spoke to Flinn; she said she trusted her own judgment about Swango, no matter what the media said. Swango was a “good person”; he “really cares about people”; he really liked to practice medicine; and “he would never do anything to hurt another human being, not the Mike I know,” she insisted. Flinn asked whether she wasn’t afraid to be around Swango, given the nature of the charges. No, she said, she was angry and upset, but not at Swango. She felt the media were defaming his character and ruining his career. “There is no one who is more caring than Mike,” she said.

I
N
Virginia that evening, Sharon Cooper was taking a bath when she heard the phone ring. Al answered it. She was still toweling off when he came into the bathroom and said, “You’d better sit down.”

“What?” she asked, alarmed by his tone.

Al Cooper explained that he’d just spoken with Swango in South Dakota. “Michael just told me about this incident from his past,” he said. “It’s all over the news there in South Dakota that he poisoned people.”

Sharon felt sick, faint, as if she might pass out.

“It’s okay,” Al said, trying to reassure her. “Michael says it’s all a media hoax.”

“Where’s Kristin?” Sharon demanded. She had an impulse to jump in the car and go get her daughter.

“She’s fine, she’s okay.” Al went on: Michael had explained that he’d been in prison, but hadn’t poisoned anyone. He’d pleaded guilty to battery because he’d been “led astray” by his lawyer, who said that if he did plead, he wouldn’t be given any prison time. But then a harsh judge had sent him to prison anyway.

Al hadn’t asked Michael what he had pleaded guilty to. He was skeptical of the story, but he didn’t want to arouse Kristin’s doubts, for fear that to do so might put her in jeopardy. Nor did he want Sharon to panic. At least they finally knew what accounted for the missing years in Michael’s résumé, the ones he’d said weren’t important. They couldn’t believe that Kristin had known the truth, or she wouldn’t have considered dating him.

But now it was too late. Sharon immediately got on the phone to Kristin. “Mom, everything’s okay,” Kristin insisted. “Michael assures me this is just a media hoax”—the same words Michael had used with Al. When Sharon asked Kristin to come home to Virginia, she refused. She told them she loved Michael and that she needed to support him while he fought his suspension.

Though he was worried about Swango, Al admired her fortitude. “I commend you for standing by your man,” he told her. Sharon, too, once she realized Kristin was determined to stay with Michael, tried to be supportive. “I know this is rough,” she said to her daughter. “But remember, God doesn’t send you more than you can handle.”

Then Michael spoke. It wasn’t clear whether he’d been listening
all along on an extension. “This will all blow over,” he assured the Coopers. “This is just a temporary setback.”

T
HE
discovery of a convicted poisoner in their midst naturally caused an uproar at the University of South Dakota and in the hospitals where he had worked. South Dakota governor George Mickelson said he was “incredulous” that such a thing could have happened: “I think the public is going to have an extremely difficult time understanding this, and I don’t blame them.”

Hospital officials rushed to reassure the public. On December 3, only two days after the news broke, the three Sioux Falls hospitals where Swango had worked issued statements that a review of patient files had uncovered no mysterious deaths or other irregularities that could be linked to Swango. Sioux Valley Hospital had reviewed fifty patient files; the VA had reviewed 129; McKennan simply issued a statement saying it had found “no problems.” But no statistics appear to have been compiled to determine whether during Swango’s tenure the number of deaths or codes at any of the hospitals exceeded the norm.

The South Dakota board of regents convened on December 10 and 11 to consider a report by the medical school on how Swango had been hired and what steps needed to be taken to prevent such a thing from happening again. Dr. Talley said bluntly that the admission process was “shallow and failed.” He said doctors at the medical school had “trusted their personal evaluations” and let them override the felony conviction, yet he hoped doctors there “would continue to judge people on an individual basis.”

The medical school’s own report to the regents found it difficult to assign any individual blame for Swango’s admission. It noted that “all sources are unanimous in their assessment of Swango as an open, enthusiastic, good-natured person. He appeared to be trustworthy.”

Nor did it fault Dr. Salem, whom it praised for being “open and empathetic”—but though these qualities tend to be valued in South Dakota, where people often say they are more trusting than residents of many more-urban states, they are the very qualities that had enabled Swango to slip past the admissions process. Although Dean Talley offered to assume full responsibility for the affair, the
report noted that he was never consulted or involved in the hiring of residents, nor would he be in routine residency matters.

Still, the report noted that the admission of an admitted felon was not routine, and implied that the dean and legal counsel should have been consulted, which might have led to questioning the Illinois authorities and to doubts about Swango’s eligibility to be admitted to practice medicine in South Dakota. And although Dr. Vogt had summarized the family practice group’s rejection of Swango, the report also faulted those doctors for not “sharing” their information with the internal medicine committee. It further faulted national organizations for not maintaining any “medical clearing house” concerning criminal charges against physicians. The report’s writers appear to be unfamiliar with the Wyden legislation or the national data bank.

Although one of the regents denounced the university’s decision on Swango as “shocking” and another characterized it as a “drastic mistake,” the regents recommended only that admissions procedures be reviewed and detailed guidelines prepared. Neither Talley nor Salem was blamed. On the contrary, the regents said that Talley shouldn’t let “this one blemish” lessen his “eagerness to serve the people of the State of South Dakota.”

By the comparatively tame standards of Sioux Falls, the Swango story triggered a media frenzy. Television crews camped on Swango and Kinney’s small lawn, aiming bright lights at the house during the night. Kristin was afraid to turn on a light in the house, for the instant she did, indicating someone was home, reporters would start banging on the front door. She and Swango checked into a local hotel for a few days to escape the attention. But wherever Swango went, camera crews dogged him.

The Swango story dominated local call-in radio shows, and even inspired Swango-themed doggerel. In mid-December, KXRB disc jockey Dan Christopherson sang his own lyrics to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”:

Swango the troubled doctor

USD says out he goes

And if you saw his rap sheet

All of us would say “Oh, No!”

All of the administrators

Prefer their patients not be maimed

They won’t let Michael Swango

Play any more doctor games.

Finally Swango broke his silence. He compiled a handwritten list of all the local reporters on the story and began calling them to issue a prepared statement. The
Argus Leader
headlined its December 7 edition with “Swango: ‘I’m a Good Doctor.’ ” Swango stressed that he had been open and honest with university officials at the time he applied. “I was fully open concerning my conviction eight years ago,” he said in the prepared statement. “If the university wishes to change their requirements so that that cannot occur again, so be it. But I was accepted into this program after full disclosure, with every intention of completing a successful residency.” He pleaded with the public to let him bury his past. No one should “crawl into a hole and waste away . . . my conviction was eight years ago. Let it rest.

“I truly regret all of the problems and all of the difficulties that this has caused everybody, certainly most of all myself, but obviously everyone in a medical community is affected by something like this. And I will say that no one in this town has any reason to hang their head at all, because of the decision or because of my performance.”

In an appearance on radio station KSOO, he added, “I know of course that I’m innocent, but whether I could convince everybody of that is certainly—I don’t know that. But I truly believe that the people who have known me in Sioux Falls, who know what I think of this community and especially the medical community, and have worked with me, and have helped me treat patients and care for patients, I think they know that I’m a good doctor and I’m a good person.”

Swango also hired a local lawyer, Dennis McFarland, to challenge his dismissal from the residency program. McFarland represented him at formal suspension hearings in December, to no avail. A review committee upheld the dismissal on the grounds that Swango had withheld information and distorted the facts of his conviction when he applied for a residency. At McFarland’s recommendation,
Swango called Vern Cook, an administrator at the VA hospital who coordinated doctors’ orders and prescriptions in the cancer ward, one floor below the ICU where Kinney worked. Among his other duties, Cook was president of the hospital’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees, and McFarland had suggested that Swango challenge his suspension on the theory that he was a federal employee by virtue of his work at the VA hospital, and thus entitled to federal employment protections. “Do you know who I am?” Swango asked Cook on the phone, and asked if he could come for a visit.