Chapter 63: A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing-Dr. Michael Swango w/ Bruce Sackman

0:00 Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead, brought to you by Darkcast Network Indie Podcasts with a Twist. Hi, guys, welcome to the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Here with me today, I have a very special guest, someone that I am honored to speak to with me is Bruce Sackman, who served as a Special Agent in charge US Department of Veteran Affairs, Office of Inspector General Criminal Investigations Division, North Eastfield Office until May of two thousand and five, when he retired after thirty two years of service. Bruce, thank you so much for being here to say it is truly an honor to have you well, thank you very much for having me. It's an honor to be in law enforcement, and it was a double honor to be in law enforcement that's dedicated to helping our nations heroes. That being the Inspected General of the Department of Verman's Affairs. So I was very honored to being in that position for so many years. And then when I left there, I went to the private sector and essentially did similar type of investigations for the

1:30 private sector for many many years after that. You have had an extensive career, an honorable career, and it is a joy to have you here to talk about that career and the work that you have done. And there's of course a specific case that I would love to talk to you about, which we'll get to in a little bit, because I did read Behind the Murder Curtain, and I will have a link for that in the source notes for you guys, because I truly recommends that read. It was it was quite a tale, a true tale, and it the investigation and the work that you put into that case was astounding. Well, these cases, and many of them, have occurred all over the world, not just at the VA, but all over the world. They are very very intense cases. They're intense from many different angles. One. It takes literally a village of people to solve these cases. Now you could be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes.

2:35 One investigator cannot do this case alone. It literally takes a team of people to do these cases. And the cases cost a lot of money to run, and a lot of police departments, especially smaller departments, don't have the resources, either the manpower or the money to spend on things like lab fees. So a number of these cases will go not only on solved, but even they'll go without investigation because the local police departments just don't have the resources to do it. You know, I was with the federal government, so we had plenty of resources. But if you're a small police department somewhere and an incident like this happens in a small hospital, it's going to be very very difficult for that police department to spend the time and the resources it takes to solve these cases. Absolutely absolutely, And we've covered a couple of medical serial killers here on The Buck of the Dead, and when we covered the Lanes Angels of Death, which is one of our first episodes, it went on for so long, and part of that was because it did happen in a small town in Austria and they didn't have the resources to really look into what was happening. Well, look, you have to ask yourself this question.

3:50 You know, if you're a police officer in a small town, and then actually in any town, most cops don't be come cops because we're good in chemistry and biology, so we are really very very dependent on these medical experts to advise us as to what may have happened from a medical standpoint, all right, And often what happens is that the medical center will conduct their own inquiry, using their own staff, and they will at leash you a reporter that verbally or in writing saying that all the patients expired as a direct result of their natural disease processes. Hey, that's why they're in the hospital, particularly in the ICU, because they have so much wrong with them.

4:41 Okay, So when the police show up, because brave whistleblowers, it will come forth and say, we know something is going on here. This is what the police will face. The police will face the management from the hospital like this. Thank you very much for sir, for your concern. And we were just as concerned as you were here at the hospital. So we put together a team of our very best experts, our doctors, and our nurses, and they reviewed all the cases under this nurse's or this doctor's care, and we came to the conclusion that all these patients expired as a direct result of their natural disease processes. I mean, we looked at the debt certificates, we looked at the patients records. Sometimes We even did our own in the house autopsies, and we came to this conclusion. Now, how many police departments after they hear that, are going to want to continue that investigation as if they don't have enough to do outside of the hospital, and they don't want to go in the hospital begin with because they find the hospital very confusing. You know, the hospital they have this hippo law, this Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. What exactly is that? What records can I get? What records? Do I need a subpoena fort Do I need a court order? Do I need a judge to sign it? Where are all these records? How many different departments do I really need all of this?

6:11 Do I really have to go through all this? Why I have this nice report for management saying everything is fine. Oh, I'll just take that report and then I'll put it in my investigator file and I'll go on to the many other cases that I have. And this is one reason why medical serial killers throughout the world, throughout the world have successfully murdered so many people until they are finally brought to justice. You know, you're traditional serial killer kill maybe six or seven people, but they are actually amateurs. Compared to my medical serial killers, the average kills only are thirty sixty. I've had killers over one hundred as a doctor in England, suspective of killing three hundred patients. I mean, so, why are these numbers so horrific? Well, they are so horrific in part because the police get turned away frequently from the hospital management, who convinces them that there's nothing there. And why do they do that, Because they're trying to save their own butts as managers, and they're trying to save the reputation of the hospital. So how did these allegations actually come forth? Well they come forth to me from the brave whistleblowers, the doctors and nurses who have gone to management, got pooh poohed by management and still took it upon themselves, many times at their own personal risk, to come forth and tell us about these allegations. Hey, look,

7:42 my office wasn't in the hospital. My office was in the regional office. I had no idea what was going on in the VA hospital unless somebody called me and told me. And it was the brave doctors and nurses who called me and told me that was going on that started these investigs, gations. Otherwise I would have never known about it at all, never known about it at all. And you know, there have actually been cases of whistleblowers that have had a lot of problems as a result of whistle blowing. You know in the book, remember the Kristin Gilbert case, Well, Kristin Gilbert. We found out about it from a couple of really brave nurses who went to management, and management p poo them the whole story. This is true throughout the world. And then they came to us. And you know what, these nurses, they're human beings, and when you're human beings, you have your own problems. So what happened was the nurse could go to management and the management would say, well, did you actually see Kristin Gilbert kill anybody?

8:46 Well, I didn't see Kristin Gilbert kill anybody. But and this is truth out the world. Every time this nurse is on duty, the death rate goes up. This nurse takes a vacation, the death rate goes down. Well that doesn't mean this nurse is a serial killer, doesn't no. But you know something interesting, These patients weren't expected to expire. When they did, sometimes they were actually improving, only to all of a sudden code and have a heart attack and Kristin Gilbert would come in and try to rescue them, but they expired. But the strange thing is they were actually improving.

9:30 And management says this, Well, so you didn't actually see this nurse killing anybody, did you know? Well, let me ask you some questions about yourself. Nurse, is allly your education up? The stuff? Is your license and everything current? I mean, if we drug tested you right now, are we going to find some substances that we shouldn't find? You know why I'm asking this, nurse, it's actually for your own protection. It's for your own protection because you see, once you making these allegations, well you sort of kind of become under investigation yourself. Okay, So we just want to protect you and we want to make sure that you're okay.

10:11 Well, these nurse whistle blows in the Christin Gilbert case, yeah, they had issues like this, But in spite of that, they came forth and they had to admit it in court. They had to come right out in a minute in court about the problems that they were having, and that took a tremendous amount of courage. So after Christin Gilbert gets convicted and murdering a number of our nation's heroes at the Northampton VA Medical Center, when these whistle bows returned to work, do you think they're greeted as heroes. Oh, of course not. It's the opposite. You know what their coworkers will say, what the hell did you do to us in this hospital? You know, this hospital used to have the finest reputation now because of you and bringing in the investigation. When people drive by this hospital, you know what they say, that's where that nurse serial killer worked. I'm not going in there.

11:07 You know, you can actually close this hospital down. We could lose all of our jobs. A thanks a lot, whistleblower. You know, did you really have to do all this? That's the thanks that they get for saving lives, because otherwise you would have continued working there and killing people. But that's the thanks to the appreciation they got from their own coworkers. You know, there's a very interesting story. This is outside of the VA, in the private sector, about two nurses in a place called Kermit, Texas. Kermit, Texas is in the oil basin. It's a very remote area. It's very tough to find doctors and nurses to work in this place.

11:50 Well, these two nurses, they were actually the entire compliance department of the hospital, and they realized that this doctor is harming patients. So they go to the management, and management says, do you know how hard it is to find doctors and nurses in Kermit, Texas? Why we have to go all the way to the Philippines or I on. So you know what, be happy we even have doctors here, and keep your mouth shut and just go back to your little office. And these nurses say, well, what the hell do we do now? When nurses, I have an idea, Let's send an anonymous letter, an anonymous letter to state medical board about this doctor. Well, eventually the doctor gets wind of it, and boy is he pissed. So he calls the local sheriff, a guy named Sheriff Roberts, who happens to be one of his patients, and he says, Sheriff Roberts, I think these women are intentionally trying to harm my reputation.

12:46 Do something about it. And the chef says, don't worry, doc, I'm on the case, and he gets a search warrant for their hospital computers, finds out that they were the authors of theonymous letter and actually has them fired and are then arrested and prosecuted for misuse of official information, which is a felony in those parts. Okay, so these ladies have to defend themselves, they have to get their own attorneys. They're fires, They go to trial, The jury is out for about twenty minutes. The jury comes back and says, what are you kidding me? These nurses deserve a metal for what they did, not to be criminally prosecuted. And they got they won and they got money back. But what kind of message? What kind of message does that send out to other whistle blowers? They say, Hey, did you hear about those two nurses in Texas? Did you hear what they had to go through? You know what, I don't think I want to be the one to blow the whistle. I don't think I want to say anything here. There's no incentive for me to blow the whistle here. You know, just the opposite. There's certainly no financial incentive for me to blow the whistle here. So it takes a lot of courage throughout the world, throughout the world, and there are many, many, many instance of nurses and doctors who worked with say, in hospital A who suspected something, who

14:20 never said anything to hospital B, they never said anything to the hospital. See. Probably one of the most grievous cases is the case of Charles Colin from Jerseys. You remember Charles Colin. Charles Colin started out in Pennsylvania and he wound up in New Jersey. And when Hospital I did in its internal investigation, and some of these hospitals did a pretty good internal investigation, but none of them ever called the police. So when hospital one suspected something, they never said anything. To Hospital two, they never said anything to hospital three, They never sent anything to hospital four, five, six, seven, eight nine. Finally in hospital ten, after leaving a trail of about sixty people dead, were the authorities called and get involved. And when the authorities went back to the previous hospitals where Charle's calling them, Mark, do you think the hospitals were cooperative with the authorities, Just the opposite. They didn't want to give them copies of their reports of investigations. They didn't want to cooperate, They didn't want to do anything. And this is why medical serial killers throughout the world get away with murdering so many people until they get caught, until things change, We'll be having this conversation hear after year after year. Oh absolutely, And just with the cases that I've covered most recently with Lucy Leppie, you could see the pattern from pretty much the very beginning

15:56 forming and taking place, and these whistleblowers like doctor j RM trying to get the medical board to listen say there's something not right. When she's there, when these babies are thriving and they're doing better, all of a sudden they crash. And it's sad that these whistleblowers who are so brave take the fall because the hospitals are trying to protect their reputation because that's what's important to them, not their patients that are dying, that they have taken an oath to heal and look out for the best interest stuff. Look, the overwhelming majority of healthcare providers are the most honest, hard working, dedicated, compassionate people on the face of the earth. But if you're so inclined to want to commit a series of murders, that's the group you want to work with.

16:53 Look, if you're a murderer and you're a member of an or motorcycle game or organized crime. That's where we think murderers are. But you can't hide in the mafia, or you can't hide in an outlaw motorcycle gang, but in a hospital where everyone has taken an oath to save life, and there are numerous, numerous examples of how many times maybe even you and your co worker has saved lives. Who's going to believe that someone on that wold is intentionally taking lives? It's just like impossible to believe, you know. It's like the firemen who can't believe that a fireman would actually start a fire, you know. I mean it's the best place to hide if you're so inclined to commit a series of murders. Look, if you think about it, if you're so inclined to committed series of murder, what profession and what location might you want? Well, first of all, you'd want a profession that has the power of life and death all of a sudd And what professions do we know how have the power of life and death all of a suddene?

18:04 Okay, I mean you want to work with a group of people that have taken an oath to save lives, you know, I mean, and that is the absolute fact. Ninety nine point nine nine percent of them. That's exactly what they want to do. They want to save lives. Okay, you want to get a profession where the victim and the family trust you implicitly. Listen to that nurse, sweetheart, listen to that doctor. They have your best interest in mind, and of course again almost always have your best interest in mine. That's absolutely true. I mean, you want to work in a place where the strong and assertive all of a sudden become the meek and mild. You know, you could be a big, tough construction worker on the outside, but when you're in the hospital, you see that big tough guy shaken when that little nurse is coming over with a big needle, you know, and they don't ask any questions, they don't question anything.

19:07 They're not feeling well. They just want to get better, and they just allow the staff to do whatever they're doing because they're not themselves. They're not the tough guy or the tough gal they are on the outside, They all of a sudden become pretty meek and mild on the inside. And you want to work in a place where there's a shortage of staff. Look, nursing is a very tough profession. It has a very high burnout rate. I mean, in some parts of the world, it's so hard to find doctors and nurses. So you know, excuse me if we didn't do the best background investigation possible. But luckily we even found somebody to work here. Okay, so you know you have to cut us a little slack, right, Look, you want to work in a place where death is a common everyday occurrence. You know, if somebody body it dies in a hospital or a nursing home, is that news, you know, the news truck's going to show up there, or police's gonna show up. No, death is a common, everyday at occurrence. Right. You want to work somewhere where you're kind of alone, like three am on a ward and it's just a nurse and maybe a nurse's aid, and you could take that curtain and put that curtain around you and a patient and nobody's going to really see what's going on, and no cameras are going to see what's going on there. So you know, it's a pretty pretty good place to work, you know. And then if you think about it, and we talked about this is a place

20:38 where cops don't want to come into do investigations. It's an environment they're totally unfamiliar with. So you could see how all these ducks kind of start to line up as a really perfect place to commit a murder. So then what do you do, like smuggling a knife for a gun. Well, there's no need to do that because the hospital provides all the death dealing chemicals you would ever need, some of which are untraceable even with today's modern toxicology. So you got the perfect job, you got the perfect location, and then management is going to defend you at the killer because they're so concerned about their own reputation and the reputation of the hospital. So, my god, what a wonderful place to work if you are so inclined to kill people, and that's why they get away with it for so long all over the world.

21:38 Absolutely, it is truly for a killer. It is the perfect environment. You have vulnerable victims literally handed to you on a daily basis, you have a arsenal of murder weapons at your disposal, you have it's it's truly a perfect environment for a wolf in sheep's clothing. But how exactly did you get into this line of work. How did you get started into working for the federal government being an investigator? You know? How did that path happen for you? Okay, Well, I was always a fan of shows like Colombo, you know, and I'm not a big, strong, tough guy, so I could never be like a dirty Harry kind of guy. But then when I watched Columba said, gee, that looks like something I'd like to do. So, you know, when I was in college, someone from the federal government came around and they spoke to us, and they said, hey, listen, you got to get in the federal government. It's a great place to work. Take any job again. So I started out being a technician for an Army reserve unit. I was in the Army Reserve, and six months later there was an opening to be an investigator for the Defense Department. So now I'm starting to work my way in the world of investigations.

22:57 And I started out doing background investigations for applicants who required a top secret security clearance. And I did that for a couple of years, and then I started doing fraud cases involving the department offense. And then Jimmy Carter created these offices of Inspector Generals throughout the federal government, and most offices of inspected generals are set up this way. There's an Office of Audit which has your CPAs and your auditors, and an Office of Investigations which the criminal investigators. We go through the same school as the Treasury agents do, carry guns, make arrests, the whole law enforcement thing. But the VA, we were a little unique. We had a third arm, and that was the Office of Healthcare Inspections and the Office of Healthcare Inspections. Their responsibility is to go around to all the VA hospitals and nursing homes and make sure that everything is safe and secure for our veterans, and the hospital is following its policies or procedures. And sometimes all three groups work together, and sometimes they work separately.

24:11 So I started out then at the VA and doing the hospital investigations. This was this time I started in the hospital, was nineteen eighty and basically stayed in hospital investigations for the entire rest of my career in the government and in the private sector. And you know, hospitals, you have to remember, they're like small cities. I mean, just think of the tremendous procurement and construction. Right, You're always going by a hospital. They're building a new way, they're building something, all right. So there is a tremendous amount of money that flows in and out of hospitals, both government money and private money. They also have a lot of narcotics in hospitals, right.

24:56 They have some of the most complex medical and scientific aqui and they also purchase little items like diapers. So is everything from diapers to the most complex scientific equipment of being purchased there. And like any major city, you have theft problems, you have security problems concerning the medical records you have. There are I mean, there are so many problems in the hospital. There's theft, drug diversion. You know, nurses and doctors who steal drugs, sometimes for their own personal use on rarer occasion for resales. You have hospitals electronic records that are constantly under attacked by hackers. So there's so much outside of medical serial killers that a hospital has to worry about. And that was the smorgas board of cases I was dealing with until one day I get a call from the chief of psychiatry at the north Port via medical Center and she says, Bruce, you're not going to believe this, but there's a doctor working here who spent time in prison for poisoning his coworkers. What how could anybody pass a government background investigation and become a doctor treating our nation's heroes who spent time in prison for poisoning his coworkers. It seems impossible, But I was wrong.

26:21 This is exactly what the situation was. And that's how I met this chap by the name of doctor Michael Swango, MD. And Michael Swango killed people all over the world, not just that at the VA. And just to give you a little background on Michael Swango, when he was in medical school, his fellow students referred to him as double O'swango licensed to kill because it seemed like patients were expiring unexpectedly. After they got a visit from this medical student, but they couldn't prove anything, but they showed that he was very sloppy with his documentation. And so they go to the dean and they say, you know, Dean, we don't think this guy Swango should be a doctor. And the dean says, what do you know, You're only students. I'm the dean. He should be a doctor. He just needs a little more training, a little bit more education, So we'll keep him an extra six months and then he'll graduate. And that's what happens. He goes to Ohio State University. In Ohio State University, patients start expiring unexpectedly, including this one patient and name was Cynthia McGhee. Cynthia McGee was a student at the university. She got in a car accident with another student.

27:41 She's actually improving until he gets a visit from doctor Swango and then she dies unexpectedly. But Michael Swango was never charged with that. You see, the student who hit her with his car. He was charged with the Hickey O homicide, but he didn't actually kill Cynthia McGee. Swang kills something. Well. The hospital does its internal investigation and they can't prove that swein gonna kill anybody. So Swango leaves the hospital and it becomes an EMT. He goes back home. He becomes an EMT, and he loves the CMT. He loves the excitement pulling up to an accident and their bodies and blood and he loves all the stuff. He's doing pretty well. And one day, he invites his coworkers in to their little lounge area and he brings in donuts and he gives them donuts. That night, they go home and they're all very, very sick from eating the doughnut, and Swego would call each one of them up and say, tell me all your symptoms, Tell me everything that happened to you. Give me all the details. You see, this is his second bite of excitement in the pond. The first one is the donuts sprinkling austin it on them. The second one is hearing how the people so well these empts are not stupid. A couple of weeks later, Swango comes in with some iced tea, but this time they don't want to drink the iced tea. They have the iced tea tested and it's loaded with austin and

29:14 Swango gets arrested and prosecuted and spends three years in jail for poisoning his coworkers. Now, I didn't think in the United States of America you could spend three years in jail for poisoning people and come out and be a physician. But I was wrong, of course. You see, Michael Swangell being a sociopath could be incredibly charming. He was a handsome guy, could be incredibly charming, and he lied and he fabricated documents, and he said that he was in a prison because of a barroom brawl. He's a tough ex marine, but here's a piece of paper. The governor restored his civil rights, and in the hospitals that were short for staff said, oh great, come on in. And he winds up working on the West Coast, and on the West Coast, he's doing well until the story comes out that he's spent time in prison for poisoning his coworkers. When he was on the West coasts, he gets engaged to this wonderful VA nurse, Kristin Kenny her name was, and once the story comes out, they separate and Kristen goes home to her mom and dadd and she says, you know, I really love this guy, Swango, but when I was living with him, I was getting these headaches. I was getting these headaches. But you know, I feel better now. And then a couple of weeks later, ding dong, the doorbell rings and it's mister Charming himself, Swango, and he charms his way back into her life, and things don't work out that well, and she's very upset and she takes a gun. She goes to the park and she

30:45 blows her brains out. Well you can't blame Swango for that, can you. Well, actually you can because the family, although the body was cremated, kept the lock of her hair and we had the hair tested and it was loaded with awesome. So, to make a long story short, Swango travels about and then he winds up at the V in my neighborhood, at the VA Hospital in Northport, Long Island, and he was there for a residency in psychiatry, which meant he had to go in front of a board of training psychiatrists and convinience each one of them that he should be in the program, which he did. And he winds up at the VA and that's when I get that phone call. So I go visit this guy as soon as I get the phone call. And he looked like he came right off the golf course. Well, hand handsome, charming guy. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd want to introduce him to my daughter.

31:41 Hey is a handsome x marine doctor. If she brought him home, say welcome to the family. Win's the wedding. He gives me the same story, you know, the bar and brawl story and a little bit and then when we get a little bit more serious and I asked him for permission to search his room, that's when he's not so charming anymore. And that's when he tells us we have to leave. And then the next thing you know, he leaves. He's on a point to Zimbabwe, Africa. And in Zimbabwe Africa, he kills women and children and pregnant women. So what do we do now, Well, Swango had to return to the United States, so we knew his passport, and that's when we arrested him, but not for murder, because we didn't have any evidence that he murdered anybody. We arrested him for every federal agent's favorite crime, lying to the government. If you lie on a piece of paper, if you lie when you talk to a government agent, that's a felony. And he got three years in jail for lying about his background. And then the assistant US attorney says, all right, Bruce, you've got this window of time now while he's in prison, to try to find out if he murdered anybody at the Northward via medical Center. Now, I've never done a murder case before because my schmrgas board of cases were everything but every other conceivable hospital crime imaginable except a professional who's

33:12 murdering patients. I never had anything like that. So that's when my boss introduces me to doctor Michael Boden. Doctor Michael Bonden, the famous forensic pathologist, had a show on TV equal Low Autopsy. He's always on the news of these high profile cases, and he said, don't worry, Bruce, I'll teach you how to do this, and this is what we're going to do, and this has now become the standard procedure probably throughout the world. The first thing we're gonna do, we're going to assemble a team, and this team is to consist of himself as a forensic pathologist. Of course my investigators as the investigators. But we're going to need a physician who's expert in chant review, who could review patients chants and make it determination that there's no medical reason why that patient should have expired when they did. And we had to gather up all the medical records of all the patients at the North Fork Vaight at that time. Because Swengo used to like to walk around and travel throughout the hospital and visit patients. Then we need a toxicologist, somebody to do the TX work, you know, the blood work and the talks work, and then we're going to recruit. At that time, it was a relatively new profession called forensic nursing nurses who were trained in both forensic science and the science nursing, and they were phenomenal. They were fantastic, and this team kind of narrowed it down to six really good cases where all these professionals,

34:47 in their opinion, could not really come to a valid medical reason as to why these patients expired when they did. So, the next step is to exhume the body, because these patients are all dead and buried, which means that my agents had to go to the families of the diseased and ring their door bells and say something like this, you know, hi, my name is Bruce Sackman. I'm with the Inspected General's Office of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. We have reason to believe that your dad's death may have been of a suspicious nature. Can we have permission to go to the cemetery and dig up his body and run some test. Imagine getting a visit like that. That's that's quite a shock to get a visit like this. But of course the families were fantastic. Sometimes they actually wanted to be at the exclamation and watch it happen. Other times they didn't want. And then I find myself at the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's office and I've never done anything like this before where there's a whole host of bodies half open like they thoughts and the difference. That was a cultural experience, as you can imagine. And then doctor Bond and he's showing me the heart of one of these veterans and he says, you see the death certificate says this vetman died of heart disease, myocardial and function. There's nothing wrong with this heart here. He says,

36:19 this is bogus. There's something else that killed these people. Some kind of external drug d probably killed these people. So what is it? And that's when we had to turn to toxicology. You first, we asked the FBI lab to do this. They declined to do them, so we had to go to a private lab lab called National Medical Services in Pennsylvania. They're the largest private forensic lab in the United States, and the question is can you find certain poisons or drugs in embalmbed tissue, because remember these people buried and then bombed. And the answer was yes. You know, we have this new machine, Bruce. It's called the high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometer. Holy cow, as it work. Oh you couldn't understand, Bruce, You wouldn't understand. Trust us, it works. You know, they get a little tissue stamp on. It's like Willie Walker to me, it goes around, boom, comes out. All right, so came out.

37:25 There were traces of sucksonal coaling, which is a paralytic which they use in the hospital. They want to put it too, Dan, you there was no medical reason in the chart while why some of these patients should have had sucks on coaling. And there were traces of epinephrine, which is adrenaline which is used to speed up. Then so now Swengo's getting out of jail and he thinks he's just going to hop on a plane and continue his worldwide murder crusade. Not so fast. Well, first of all, we got very, very lucky because the United States had entered into an extradition treaty with the government of Zimbabwe. The government in Zimbabwe had an arrestaurant for Michael Swango for killing women and children and pregnant women. Boy, were they anxious to get their hands on him. So when he gets out of jail that we say, look, we've just indicted you for the murder of a number of our veterans at the North Port Via Medical Center. If we go to trial, and even if you're acquitted, we're just going to put you on the plane and drop you off on the tarmac in Zimbabwe, good luck, buddy.

38:32 Well, he decided to plead guilty, and he pled guilty. And this is where the whole emotional part of this, because you know, we talk about the science and the investigations of all these cases and a number of murders, but we forget there's a whole human side to this. There's a families. How emotional this is for the families. And you realize this as an investigator, not only when you speak to the families as witnesses, but the sentencing, when the families have an opportunity to get up and speak about their dad, how their dad survived the war, whether it was Korea or Vietnam, you know, only to be murdered at a VIA hospital. It's very very moving. Of course, Swango sat there almost reminded me of like a Nazi war criminal, just sat there at attention and didn't flinch. And then the judge asked him to explain, in his own words exactly what he did, and he said, he stood up at attention, and he said he murdered these people using a paralytic. He didn't say exactly why drug, but he just said using a paralytic like sucks on ucle He didn't say that.

39:38 But and then it was time for sentencing, and Judge Mitcheler out in the Eastern District sentenced him to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. And then he said something I had never heard before. The judge says, you know, right now there's no parole in the federal system. But if Congress should change the law and grand parole, your parole is denied in advance. So there's no way this guy is getting out. He's in super max federal penitentiary. And then about a month ago, I get a phone call from this woman and she says, Bruce, I think you missed one. What are you talking about? She says, my dad was at Northport when Swango was there, and she goes through the whole scenario. I don't remember this case, to tell you the truth, I mean, I don't remember this. She may be right, I just I don't remember the case.

40:32 But there's really nothing we could do at this point. I mean, the guy got three consecutive life terms. A fourth is not going to make a difference. You know. I said, well, what exactly do you want? And she says, I want the VA to acknowledge that my dad was murdered at the hospital, not for me to say. You know, I'm not at the VA. I doubt if they're going to do that, but I understood, And you know what, it's probably not the only one I missed. I probably missed. And this is true also throughout the world. We have no choice but to concentrate on the very very best cases because if we brought them all and they start knocking some out, then the jury is going to start questioning everything. So we have to always narrow down. It's amount of resources too, the very very best cases we could get. And so after that case, all of a sudden, I'm the expert. I make one case, one case, but no one else has ever made a case like this in the VA. So all of a sudden, I'm the VA's expert. And the next thing you know, Kristin Gilbert services. You know, there's Kristin Gilbert and those people who google her to see you know, look, my vision of a serial killer was always like a Charles Manson type, you know, are crazy swastike arms fighter here comes to typical soccerma.

42:00 In fact, when you looked at her and you look at Lucy let Be, they could almost be sisters, these two all right, as a matter of like they had more in common than the way they look. Because if you remember with Lucy Letb, you know, the nurse who murdered a number of babies in England for those who aren't familiar, just recently the child just recently ended. One of her aunt scenarios or motivations, and we could talk about that was that as a physician who she probably really had the odds for, would show up every time there was a code and the two of them would be interacting during the code. Well, this is exactly what happened with Kristin Gilbert and Kristin Gilbert. Every time a code was called, her boyfriend, who happened to be a VA police officer, would respond to the code as well, and witnesses would say, the two will are kind of grabbing each other, you know, during the code. It was almost like a sexual experience for them. So Lucy let Be and Kristin Gilbert was a lot more in common than the fact that they look like each other. They all caused the code. And when this code happened by a code, I mean a cardiac arrest and the crash card and the nurses come running in.

43:22 Its very, very excitement. That was the same scenario for both Kristin Gilbert and for Lucy let Be. So, Kristin Gilbert, what's the cause of death? What did she use? Well, we went to the lab and you know they have that machine that high performers, you know the name about that long epinephrine. They said, okay, great. Witnesses say they actually saw her with an EpiPen, an epinephrin pen all the time, and the debts were certainly consistent that benefferent poisoning. And then I get a phone call from the lab and they say, sorry, Bruce, we made a mistake.

44:07 We can't really say it's at beneficent but have a nice trial. So then we had to let the defense know, of course that we didn't have the toxicology, but we went forth anyway. The trial lasted for six months because we had our scientists lined up to say that the death was consistent with epinefferent poisoning, even though we didn't have the toxicology. The jury agreed and she got sentenced to multiple life terms, also without the possibility of parole. But this is interesting because this case occurred in Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts. It was a death penalty case in a state that doesn't have the death penalty. Well, how that happened because the crime actually occurred at a federal hospital, so the federal law kicked in, not the state law, and the federal law has a death penalty. In fact, if she was given the death penalty, she would have been the first woman executed outside or from Ethel Rosenberg, the atomic bomb spary. She was the last woman executed in the federal system. So there's a separate trial. Now, the same jury that just convicted her of these murders, now there's a separate trial to determine whether Kristin Gilbert should get the death penalty or not, and talk about moving.

45:32 That is really moving because that's when pictures of the deceased have shown their history in the military. The family gets up and speaks about how wonderful dad was. I mean, it was very veriable. But the jury came back and they said life without parole, not the death penalty. And we were actually happy with that because Kristen was a mom, she had two kids, you know. I mean you wouldn't know that reading the newspapers, because the newspapers thought we were like the castopol ready to hang her in the town square. And believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. Were really kind of happy that she got life, you know, But did we get every victim? We actually suspected maybe she killed as many as thirty people, but we couldn't prove that number. And that's that's true with all these cases that I've done or I've assisted with throughout the world. You know, in Germany, there's a fellow by the name of Niles Hogel, Niles Hogel, when he worked in hospital a and they suspected something. This is Germany.

46:45 Do you think they said anything the hospital be Do you think they said anything the hospitals say. The German police, to their credit, had to with zoom bodies in three different countries. Niles Hogel himself eventually admitted to killing over one hundred people. The German police think it's closer to three hundred. These medical serial killers kill so many people they can't remember themselves how many people they killed. All right, here's a famous medical serial killer named Donald Harvey. Killed people in the VA and outside of the VA. And Donald Horvey his own words with this, He says, after I killed the first fifteen and no one even questioned me. Wow, I thought I was ordained by the Almighty himself to do this. Not so crazy if you kill fifteen people and your coworkers don't even raise an eyebrow. So this is the crazy world of medical serial killers, all right. And this is why they get away with killing so many people until we changed the education, changed the laws for whistleblowers, and we start to prosecute, my opinion, one or two of these managers who actually ate it and abedded these murders. This thing is going to continue. I mean, I'm sure you probably read about the terrible COVID deaths at the Veterans Nursing Homes in New Jersey. Right over one hundred veterans died.

48:21 The state had to pay out millions of dollars to the families. But did anyone get prosecuted for No. So, you see, if you're a manager and all you do is defend the reputation of the hospital, even at the cost of lives of people, what's the worst that's going to happen to you? Yeah, maybe you'd lose your job, Maybe probably just get transferred or find the job at another hospital. Is it going to cost you personally any money out of your savings. No, because either the state or the hospital is going to pay all the fines and penalties. Now you're going to go to jail. Never, there's never. In my view, I've never seen successful prosecution of any manager anywhere who aided and abedded these murders. And until that happens, managers are going to say, my job is to defend the reputation at a hospital, even at the cost of lives. And if things go bad, well, the hospital is going to have to pay the fines. It's not going to be me. Where's the incentive the whistleblower is did they get any money out of this? No? All they got is a lot of heartache, right and aggravation from it. You know, if you report a fraud against the government, you can actually make money. There's a thing called a key tam suit. Have you ever heard of this or

49:52 have not? No? A key tam is spelled qui tam. It's actually based on the Latin he who's sings, he who sues, excuse me, he who sues on behalf of the king and himself the whale works. It goes back to English common law. Let's say you're an employee of the hospital and you know the hospital is defrauding the Medicare program, a Medicaid program. You go to an attorney. You lay out the evidence to the attorney. The attorney files a suit in federal court called the key tam suit. It's a whistleblower suit, and you, as the relator of that lawsuit, can get a reward of up to twenty five percent of all the money recovered.

50:37 I had a case at the VA where a whistleblower filed a suit against the pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company had to pay millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars in fines to the government. The rolater got twenty five million dollars as a reward for this. Okay, that's called the key Tamp suit. But if you, as a whistleblower report doctor Swango, Oh, Kristen Gilbert or Lucy let Be, are you going to get a dollar out of that? No? Are you going to get an attorney that's gonna want to work with you? No, Because there's no financial incentive for reporting murders.

51:19 There's only financial incentive for reporting fraud. So until we change that, there are a lot of things that have to be changed to you when we change that system and make it possible for people to get a financial reward when it's proven, and of course that's to be proven that someone's intentionally harming patients and the hospital is fine, well, that relator should get part of that fine as well. It shouldn't just be for fraud, it should also be for when a patient, when patients get injured and the staff needs training. You know, in my book, I have the red flags. Staff need to be trained on these red flags. And finally three prong approach here, Education whistleblower protection and changing the law and in my view, criminally prosecuting managers who aided and embedded these murders. Until that happens, I'll be your guests next year and we'll be having the same conversation again, only with new names.

52:25 You know, as we speak right now, there are a number of cases ongoing. A number of cases are ongoing. There's a case in Canada involving gay a physician who leegedly murdered a number of people. There's a case in Germany. There's a case in Texas that's ongoing, and one in North Carolina. So these cases are still ongoing. But what has changed? You know? I went on British TV and they asked me about the Lucy let the case, and they had all their experts and they said all the important things. And then I said to them, okay, experts, what's different that's going to be different tomorrow in England. That's going to prevent this from happening. You know, what training is different? What whistle blow up protections are going to be different? All right? What managers are going to be prostituted to put the fear of God into other managers? Silence silence. Nothing has changed until it changes. I guess I'll be there. I guess next year when they have another surreal go what Absolutely and a I agree that is one thousand percent. Half the battle is the reform that's needed in approaching these cases, in handling whistleblowers and dealing with the management that has allowed this to happen for so long. Like, yeah, sure they're investigating Chester Hospital for not doing anything about Lucy Leppie for so long. Is anything going to happen with that? No? Absolutely not. Everyone knows it because nothing ever happens.

54:00 Thing ever happens to hold the management accountable, nothing ever happens to hold the border directors accountable for the hospital. I mean, doctor Jayrum, you know, has been given so much shit for trying to blow the whistle on Lucy let be and he should be regaled as a hero. Wasn't he told by management to apologize to her? He was. He was told to apologize, He was told to let it go. He was told to essentially just leave her alone. Why are you bothering with this? Leave her alone. She's a good nurse, you know, she helps these babies. She's not helping these babies because the only time these babies were safe was when she was in wherever she's Spain, I think, on vacation. That's the only time these babies were safe. And then the day she came back to work, two triplets died and another one almost died. And yet, like I say, we're going to be having this conversation again again until things change, you know, there was I mean, look, we'll be watching these cases. This case in Canada, it's a doctor named Adla. He's accused of killing, intentionally murdering some COVID nineteen patients. And there's a similar case in Germany where a doctor's accused of murdering some COVID nineteen patients. You know, the interesting thing about COVID nineteen. What was the first thing we heard when COVID nineteen came up. Well, families are not allowed in the hospital. It's not safe. So, getting back to our original discussion, if you're looking for

55:35 a place to murder people, the hospital was the best place before COVID. What about after COVID when the families can't even come in to visit the patient. That makes your job just that much easier, doesn't it. All Right, So there are a number of cases now you know, connected with COVID go forbid. We never see that again, but could happen. Absolutely absolutely. I think just seeing all the cases that are cropping up out of the woodwork, it's like it makes you realize that not only was the pandemic just crippling for everybody and affected everybody so devastatingly, but it also allowed medical serial killers to essentially run rampant. Yeah. Yeah, you know what, they had the best place to work to begin with. That made it even better.

56:32 And not only that, but many hospitals couldn't find staff, you know, and fanness to them. In New York, they had to bring in pace. You know, they had to bring in physicians and nurses from all over the world to help out. I understand that. And you know what, if let's say, for instance, you're in the infantry and the enemy's coming over the lawne well, you don't have time to do a thorough background investigation on every infantry and who's going to be standing next to you. You're just happy you have a body there next to you. Right. Absolutely, it was the same thing. I mean, the hospitals had to rely on all these outside services to do quickly background investigations, and look, they had a number of traveling doctors and nurses. The majority of them were fine, but there were a number of them who had their own evil intent, not necessarily the murder patients, but a number of them were involved in diverting drugs, stealing drugs from the hospital for their own personal use, and they had a long history of it, but that history was never disclosed because we were in panic mode. We had to get the bodies there. That's what happens when you high as my boss us, my old boss used to have a great saying. It used to say, hire in haste, repent and leisure.

57:51 That's exactly what happened in the hospitals. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, and just it's sad to think that these medical professionals have to take a hit because of the nefarious doings of those that are supposed to be caring for our patients, and because at the end of the day, as you said, they are some of the most giving and heartfelt people and you know, dedicating their lives to caring for those that need to be cared for, and it is a tough job and it's sad that they are infiltrated by these evil people, when this should be at the very least. Hospitals and doctor's offices should be a safe place and a peaceful place for those that are incredibly ill, that may be dying, that may have any plethora of medical issues. And then you have a medical serial killer come along and turn everything upside down. That's exactly right, you know. To me, a hospital was always well a sanctuary from crime. You know, you went to a hospital after you became a victim of crime, not the first be a victim of crime. Absolutely,

59:22 it has been such an honor speaking with you today. It has been such an honor kind of picking your brain about medical serial killers and hearing about Swango in your own words, because I read them, and it's so different to hear it from you who actually lived it and dealt with it and investigated it. And it has been wonderful having you on. And I really hope that my listeners out there have enjoyed this experience as much as I have. Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it as well. Well. Thank you very much. And guys, as I said in the beginning, I will have the link to Behind the Murder Curtain in the source notes below. It is such a good read. You know, I love you know, I love a good book, and this was phenomenal. It was so interesting to really see get a look behind the scenes of an investigation.

1:00:25 And Lisa will be on the next one. You know, she's sorry she missed this, but we will see you all in the next one. Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you could always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a merch store as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get merch hand your on by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week and just remember, please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye,