Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder (32 page)

When she received the letter, Kristin’s friend quickly realized its significance. She went to see the dean, Dr. Talley, and told him that Swango was practicing medicine again in New York. Dr. Talley happened to know the dean of the medical school at Stony Brook, Jordan Cohen; he called Cohen to alert him to the possibility that Swango had been accepted into the school’s residency program. He told him of the experience in South Dakota, the
Justice Files
segment, and the ensuing uproar.

When Cohen found that Swango had indeed begun his residency at Stony Brook, he called Fritz Henn, the department chairman, who in turn called Alan Miller to tell him that the “battery” Swango had told them about with such seeming candor was in fact a case of poisoning. Miller was stunned. He reached Swango at the VA hospital, and said, “I need to see you right away.”

Swango arrived in about fifteen minutes. “I’ve just heard the following,” Miller told him, then outlined the cases of poisoning and what he’d learned about South Dakota. Swango visibly blanched. He said, “It’s true. That’s what they did convict me of. I didn’t do it, but they convicted me.” He seemed genuinely remorseful. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel bad.” But he said he had felt he had no alternative but to conceal the reason for his conviction. Miller had to agree that Swango was probably correct. It was one thing to hire someone convicted of battery after a barroom brawl. But Stony Brook would never have taken such a risk with someone convicted of poisoning people. Miller told Swango that his residency was suspended, effective immediately.

Miller was upset, castigating himself for not having checked out Swango more thoroughly. He called Swango’s references again in the wake of the disclosure, trying to figure out whether he had missed something. To his amazement one reference reiterated his belief that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion and that Swango was innocent.

The next day, Swango asked to see Miller again. He repeated how sorry he was. “What can I ever do with my life?” he asked, seeming near despair. “It’s doubtful you can ever practice medicine,” Miller replied, but then, moved by Swango’s seeming contrition, he qualified his remark. Almost in spite of himself, he found himself feeling sorry for Swango. He seemed so sincere and heartbroken. “The only way would be for you to go somewhere that really needed a doctor, somewhere that was desperate,” Miller said, thinking that Swango might go abroad. “And they would have to know everything.” Swango had tears in his eyes as he left the meeting. If he was acting, it seemed to fool Miller, despite his skills as a psychiatrist.

That day the VA also automatically suspended Swango’s hospital privileges and ordered him out of his quarters. It dispatched its resident investigator, Thomas Valery, a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement investigator, to oversee the removal of his belongings. Valery watched as Swango backed up his red pickup to the storage room and loaded his things, mostly books, into the back of the truck. Then he was gone.

That same day, October 20, 1993, the electrifying news broke in
Newsday
, which devoted its entire tabloid front page to the story: “Poison in His Past: Hospital Fires M.D. After Learning He Fed Ant Killer to Paramedics.”

“A young doctor sent to prison for feeding ant poison to six paramedics in Illinois and investigated by authorities for suspicious patient deaths in Ohio was hired at University Hospital at Stony Brook, where officials now say he lied about his criminal past,” the story began.

“He didn’t tell anyone he was put in jail for poisoning anyone,” said hospital spokeswoman Michaele Gold. “We just found out a little while ago he falsified documents and lied to us through his teeth.”

When Elsie Harris arrived at the hospital that day to see her comatose husband, she asked for Dr. Kirk. “Have you read the papers? I’d advise you to go home and read them,” a nurse said cryptically. Harris got a copy of
Newsday.
She burst into tears when she saw Swango—Kirk’s—picture. Her daughter joined her, read the article, too, and cried. They drove back to the hospital and demanded
an explanation, but none was offered. Then it seemed all the doctors in the intensive care unit were rotated. The new doctors knew nothing about Swango or what had happened to Barron Harris. Finally Harris did get to speak to the doctor in charge of the ICU, but all he told her was that Swango had nothing to do with her husband’s condition, and that it was unlikely he’d ever recover. Harris was shocked and grief-stricken.

Barron Harris never regained consciousness and died on November 8. The cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary failure, secondary to encephalitis.

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S
at Ohio State and in South Dakota, university and hospital officials rushed to reassure the public that whatever Swango’s past record, nothing untoward had happened at their hospital. Only a week after Swango was suspended, VA chief of staff Thomas Horvath announced at a press conference that investigators were still going through records of the 147 patients known to have been treated by Swango, but that the inquiry so far had revealed “no suspicious illnesses or deaths.” He emphasized that “the rate of complications did not change during Swango’s tenure,” and insisted that “as a first-year resident, he had no independent patient responsibilities”—even though Swango had in fact been alone with Buffalino and Harris and had had ample opportunity to inject others.

Medical school dean Jordan Cohen issued a statement saying that “we are also mindful of the natural concern the public has expressed about whether Swango had caused any harm to patients or staff while he was in our employ.” Cohen emphasized that Swango’s “patient care activities were closely and contemporaneously supervised by the teaching attending staff”; that the VA’s “quality assurance” system uncovered “no untoward events”; and that a subsequent review of every patient’s chart had thus far “revealed nothing that would lead us to conclude that any patient was harmed.” Cohen later said, “There were some deaths, which is not unusual. Those were of particular concern, nonetheless. We looked carefully, scrutinized. There was no indication that there had been any unnatural events. That came as something of a relief.”

There was some accountability imposed on the medical school, however, as there had not been in Ohio or South Dakota. Several
days after Swango was suspended, Dean Cohen called Miller. “Alan,” he began, which Miller thought was presumptuous, since the two barely knew each other, “I think it would be best if you resign as chairman of the admissions committee.”

“That’s fine with me,” Miller replied. He pointed out that given his part-time status, he was bound to have to leave sooner or later. The school needed a full-time admissions director.

“I’m going to have to make a statement to the press,” Cohen continued, and Miller recognized with some bitterness that he was going to be made the fall guy.

Cohen announced Miller’s resignation on October 26. In his prepared statement, he said: “During all the years of our medical program here at Stony Brook, we have never encountered a case like Michael Swango; we believe that evidence shows that we are dealing here, at a minimum, with a pathological liar.” Nonetheless, he went on, “we have determined that a critical error in judgment was made during the interview and selection process, a process supervised personally by Dr. Alan Miller . . . . In recognition of the serious, albeit unprecedented, lapse on Dr. Miller’s part, he has resigned his duties as Program Director.” Cohen later explained, “I felt the deviation from standard procedures was so egregious that there had to be accountability for that. It was a very unfortunate circumstance, but he was responsible for the quality-control process, and I felt it was essential that there be public accountability.”

Then, only two weeks later, Cohen himself resigned. Before he left, he faxed a letter about Swango to the dean of every medical school in the country. Cohen wrote: “In reviewing our records, I was chagrined to find that [Swango] had again conned very experienced faculty with outright lies about his past. He is an exceedingly charming young man who can weave a very convincing story that elicits sympathy and compassion. I bring this matter to your attention because I think we must assume that he will try yet again to secure a residency position of some kind somewhere.”

During the week after the news broke, Swango was seen several times in the Stony Brook area driving his red pickup. A group of nurses, one of whom he had begun dating even before Kristin’s death, held a going-away party for him. It was only then that FBI agents began to look for him. Though the police had been notified
of Swango’s presence on October 19, a squabble over whether the Justice Department or the Veterans Administration would be in charge of any investigation had wasted valuable time. Finally the Justice Department took charge, but by the time agents arrived, Swango had emptied his storage locker. It didn’t occur to anyone to issue a warrant for his arrest on charges that he had defrauded SUNY and the VA by making false statements in his application, which is a federal offense. In any event, Swango himself was gone.

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FTER
the news broke on Long Island, the
Daily Press
in Newport News ran a brief article on Swango’s unmasking and his earlier conviction on poison charges. The Coopers had to read it several times before it fully sank in. Poison? They had never heard anything about a poisoning conviction. “Oh my God!” Sharon exclaimed repeatedly. “It’s real.” Her worst fears were being borne out.

Al called the
Daily Press
reporter, who knew little more about the case and suggested he check at a local library for access to articles that had run in Illinois and Ohio. The next day, the Coopers traveled to the College of William and Mary library in nearby Williamsburg, which was able to provide copies of many of the articles on Swango. When she read them, Sharon felt as though she might faint.

The Newport News article mentioned that Swango had disappeared, so Al called the Norfolk office of the FBI. “I might have information on the whereabouts of Michael Swango,” he told an agent. Ed Schrader returned the call and came to see the Coopers. He said the FBI was trying to develop a profile of Swango, and the Coopers answered his questions as best they could. Al told him that they suspected Swango would try to stay with Bert Gee, who lived outside Atlanta and had been so friendly with Swango at Kristin’s funeral.

Soon after, Schrader called to thank the Coopers and said the FBI had discovered a storage shed in Portsmouth rented by Swango and would like to examine the contents. Absent an arrest warrant or probable cause for a search warrant, the FBI needed the Coopers’ help. The Coopers went to the police and explained how Swango had taken all of Kristin’s belongings, which they suspected were in the shed. But the police said they couldn’t do anything, given
Kristin’s note bequeathing all her possessions to him. Then the FBI asked the Coopers to file a civil lawsuit alleging that Swango had wrongfully taken their daughter’s things. But Sharon refused. Kristin’s note had said she wanted Swango to have all her things, and she felt that a suit maintaining otherwise would require her to make a false statement under oath. However, Schrader assured the Coopers that the FBI had the shed under surveillance and that the storage facility’s owner had pledged to notify them should Swango try to remove anything.

Months later, the agent called to report that Swango’s red truck had been spotted in Bert Gee’s driveway, and the FBI had him under surveillance.

In fact, Swango was living with Gee, and on February 24, 1994, had taken a job as a chemist at a company called Photocircuits in Peachtree City, just outside Atlanta. Photocircuits makes computer equipment, but significantly, Swango, using the alias Jack Kirk, was working in its wastewater treatment facility, which feeds directly into the metropolitan Atlanta water supply. Given Swango’s fascination with mass tragedy, and the books he had checked out of Quincy’s library, including the one about poisoning a city’s food supply, his new employment alarmed the FBI. Acting on the Bureau’s tip, Photocircuits fired Swango on July 22 on the grounds that he had lied on his job application.

The action apparently alerted Swango that he was under surveillance. He and his truck disappeared, and Schrader had to call the Coopers to report that the FBI had lost track of him.

In November, a friend of Kristin’s from her time in Florida, Tracy Dunlap, got a call from Swango, saying he was in Georgia but wanted to come to Florida for a visit. Dunlap was still working as a nurse in Naples. She’d never met Kristin’s fiancé, but Kristin had spoken about him occasionally, never mentioning anything about his past or the trouble in South Dakota. Swango had called Dunlap several times after Kristin’s death, complaining that the Coopers weren’t being very supportive and that he needed someone to talk to.

The next day, when Dunlap got home after work, her answering machine was full of messages from Swango, calling from a pay phone in Naples. When she called the phone, Swango answered,
saying he’d been waiting there all day. He wanted to come over immediately. Somewhat apprehensively, Dunlap agreed.

Thinking it odd that Swango would have come to Florida so quickly and sat all day by a pay phone, Dunlap called Al Cooper to ask what he thought of Swango.

“Why?” Al asked. Dunlap said that he’d shown up and wanted to stay with her.

“Get rid of him,” Al told her, though he wasn’t more specific because he didn’t want to frighten her.

Despite the warning, Dunlap and Swango sat up talking that night until three
A.M
. He seemed so earnest and pleasant, and, after all, he had been close to Kristin. “I felt so sorry for him,” she later told the Coopers. The next day Dunlap was moving into a house with two friends. Swango helped her move, volunteering his truck, and then he just stayed, sleeping on the pull-out sofa bed and using one closet for his belongings. What Dunlap and her roommates had expected would be a two- or three-day visit stretched into weeks. Swango was pleasant, but increasingly odd. He was out most days, saying only that he was doing “research” at the library. He’d never join them at the pool or hot tub. He refused to eat anything from the refrigerator, or share a pizza, even when they offered, preferring to keep his food in his closet. Her roommates noticed that he kept numerous containers on the passenger side of his truck. Finally Dunlap asked Swango when he planned to leave. “Well, I thought I’d stay,” he replied. But Dunlap said that might be a problem for her roommates.