"On June 27, 1997, an immigration official at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago took the American passport of a man arriving from Johannesburg via London. He was en route to Portland, Oregon, and then, on the same day, to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The immigration official entered the name on the passport, Michael J. Swango, and the passport number into a computer. When the results appeared, he asked Swango to step into a private room."
Dr. Swango was arrested on an old warrant for federal charges of fraud. There was no mention of his previous arrest and conviction of poisoning, nor were any new charges added for the many accusations of murder that followed Swango like a dark cloud wherever he traveled.
In Quincy, Illinois, Dennis Cashman, the judge who had found Swango guilty of poisoning five coworkers eleven years earlier, heard about Swango's arrest from a Newsday reporter who called, and then from Nancy Watson, the official at the AMA in Chicago who had rejected Swango's application for medical certification while he was in South Dakota. "The judge was amazed and dismayed that Swango had surfaced yet again, en route to still another job as a physician."
This time, Judge Cashman picked up the telephone and called James B. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who was originally from Quincy. Call it fate, call it what you will, one telephone call sent Stewart on a journey of discovery from his hometown, to various cities in the United States and all the way to Africa. The result of his discoveries provides a nonfiction story that makes the so-called Police Blue Wall look like first-graders at play. This time the wall is not blue. It is pristine white, and it is more deadly than the bite of a cobra.
James B. Stewart is the best-selling author of "Blood Sport" and "Den of Thieves." He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading. He is a former editor of the Wall Street Journal, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker and SmartMoney. His credentials for writing the tale of Michael J. Swango, MD are impeccable. Stewart interviewed hundreds of people for this work and has included notes on his sources, acknowledgments, and a complete index of the personalities and institutions involved.
Readers may recently have seen stories about Swango on 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, or other television shows. Some may even remember seeing the blond haired Swango himself with his clear blue eyes staring straight into the camera denying any wrong doing in what the FBI now estimates as 60 possible homicides in the U.S. alone.
Stewart starts at the beginning and gives readers insights into what it takes to make a serial killer, a psychopathic personality so dangerous he can pass among us without detection. It is no surprise that Swango came from a dysfunctional family, but that alone is not enough to explain his obsessive need to commit murder.
This story, however, is not only Swango's but that of the medical schools, doctors, professors, the AMA, and the political powers that exist which make it possible for the Swangos of their profession to escape expulsion or punishment. It is also about the family members, victims, nurses, and other hospital employees who were left helpless to protect their patients against Swango. And, it is the story of the women who loved this most amiable young doctor, who believed him when he cried out that he was innocent of all the charges against him.
The publisher's literature states, "In this terrifying story of a criminal at large in our hospitals, where patients are at the mercy of their doctors, Stewart makes clear that time and time again Swango's patients were exposed to mortal danger as doctors and hospital administrators dismissed accusations from nurses and patients, chose to believe the word of a fellow physician, and turned a blind eye to the possibility that one of their own could be a murderer."
The most frightening aspect of this case to me was Stewart's detailed look at how Swango, despite his notorious record, was able to secure employment as a hospital physician (with unfettered access to potentially deadly pharmaceuticals) throughout the U.S. and overseas. Stewart reveals exactly how Swango gained admission to a residency program at the University of South Dakota even after acknowledging he had been convicted of poisoning in Illinois.
In concluding his expose Stewart offers clinical insights obtained by his interview with Dr. Jeffrey Smalldown, a forensic psychologist whose specialty is serial killers. Smalldown has appeared as an expert witness in more than 120 death penalty cases, and has interviewed numerous serial killers, including John Wayne Gacy. Stewart also brings to light the latest efforts of the FBI to gather evidence against Swango. Sadly, there has been no accountability for doctors who failed to properly investigate Swango, who accepted Swango's word to the detriment of the hospitals' patients. All this, and more, is included in a book that readers will live with long after the last word is read.
It is just as Judge Cashman described it, "a national scandal," that doctors like Swango do slip through the safeguards in our hospitals and clinics. One more chilling thought, Swango who is serving a 42-month sentence for fraud is due for parole in July 2000 and with good behavior will be on the streets as early as January 2000. He will be about 46 years old then with the possibility of a long medical career ahead of him. Remember the name, Michael J. Swango. It could save your life.
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(Jones is a published writer & a literary critic for the Tulsa World)
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