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

WEBVTT

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Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm
Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter

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in the Book of the Dead,
brought to you by Darkcast Network Indie Podcasts

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with a Twist. Hi, guys, welcome to the next chapter of the

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Book of the Dead. Here with
me today, I have a very special

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guest, someone that I am honored
to speak to with me is Bruce Sackman,

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who served as a Special Agent in
charge US Department of Veteran Affairs,

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Office of Inspector General Criminal Investigations Division, North Eastfield Office until May of two

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thousand and five, when he retired
after thirty two years of service. Bruce,

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thank you so much for being here
to say it is truly an honor

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to have you well, thank you
very much for having me. It's an

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honor to be in law enforcement,
and it was a double honor to be

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in law enforcement that's dedicated to helping
our nations heroes. That being the Inspected

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General of the Department of Verman's Affairs. So I was very honored to being

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in that position for so many years. And then when I left there,

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I went to the private sector and
essentially did similar type of investigations for the

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private sector for many many years after
that. You have had an extensive career,

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an honorable career, and it is
a joy to have you here to

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talk about that career and the work
that you have done. And there's of

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course a specific case that I would
love to talk to you about, which

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we'll get to in a little bit, because I did read Behind the Murder

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Curtain, and I will have a
link for that in the source notes for

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you guys, because I truly recommends
that read. It was it was quite

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a tale, a true tale,
and it the investigation and the work that

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you put into that case was astounding. Well, these cases, and many

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of them, have occurred all over
the world, not just at the VA,

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but all over the world. They
are very very intense cases. They're

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intense from many different angles. One. It takes literally a village of people

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to solve these cases. Now you
could be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes.

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One investigator cannot do this case alone. It literally takes a team of people

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to do these cases. And the
cases cost a lot of money to run,

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and a lot of police departments,
especially smaller departments, don't have the

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resources, either the manpower or the
money to spend on things like lab fees.

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So a number of these cases will
go not only on solved, but

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even they'll go without investigation because the
local police departments just don't have the resources

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to do it. You know,
I was with the federal government, so

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we had plenty of resources. But
if you're a small police department somewhere and

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an incident like this happens in a
small hospital, it's going to be very

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very difficult for that police department to
spend the time and the resources it takes

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to solve these cases. Absolutely absolutely, And we've covered a couple of medical

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serial killers here on The Buck of
the Dead, and when we covered the

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Lanes Angels of Death, which is
one of our first episodes, it went

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on for so long, and part
of that was because it did happen in

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a small town in Austria and they
didn't have the resources to really look into

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what was happening. Well, look, you have to ask yourself this question.

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You know, if you're a police
officer in a small town, and

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then actually in any town, most
cops don't be come cops because we're good

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in chemistry and biology, so we
are really very very dependent on these medical

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experts to advise us as to what
may have happened from a medical standpoint,

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all right, And often what happens
is that the medical center will conduct their

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own inquiry, using their own staff, and they will at leash you a

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reporter that verbally or in writing saying
that all the patients expired as a direct

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result of their natural disease processes.
Hey, that's why they're in the hospital,

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particularly in the ICU, because they
have so much wrong with them.

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Okay, So when the police show
up, because brave whistleblowers, it will

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come forth and say, we know
something is going on here. This is

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what the police will face. The
police will face the management from the hospital

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like this. Thank you very much
for sir, for your concern. And

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we were just as concerned as you
were here at the hospital. So we

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put together a team of our very
best experts, our doctors, and our

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nurses, and they reviewed all the
cases under this nurse's or this doctor's care,

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and we came to the conclusion that
all these patients expired as a direct

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result of their natural disease processes.
I mean, we looked at the debt

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certificates, we looked at the patients
records. Sometimes We even did our own

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in the house autopsies, and we
came to this conclusion. Now, how

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many police departments after they hear that, are going to want to continue that

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investigation as if they don't have enough
to do outside of the hospital, and

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they don't want to go in the
hospital begin with because they find the hospital

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very confusing. You know, the
hospital they have this hippo law, this

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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
What exactly is that? What records can

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I get? What records? Do
I need a subpoena fort Do I need

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a court order? Do I need
a judge to sign it? Where are

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all these records? How many different
departments do I really need all of this?

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Do I really have to go through
all this? Why I have this

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nice report for management saying everything is
fine. Oh, I'll just take that

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report and then I'll put it in
my investigator file and I'll go on to

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the many other cases that I have. And this is one reason why medical

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serial killers throughout the world, throughout
the world have successfully murdered so many people

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until they are finally brought to justice. You know, you're traditional serial killer

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kill maybe six or seven people,
but they are actually amateurs. Compared to

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my medical serial killers, the average
kills only are thirty sixty. I've had

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killers over one hundred as a doctor
in England, suspective of killing three hundred

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patients. I mean, so,
why are these numbers so horrific? Well,

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they are so horrific in part because
the police get turned away frequently from

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the hospital management, who convinces them
that there's nothing there. And why do

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they do that, Because they're trying
to save their own butts as managers,

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and they're trying to save the reputation
of the hospital. So how did these

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allegations actually come forth? Well they
come forth to me from the brave whistleblowers,

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the doctors and nurses who have gone
to management, got pooh poohed by

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management and still took it upon themselves, many times at their own personal risk,

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to come forth and tell us about
these allegations. Hey, look,

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my office wasn't in the hospital.
My office was in the regional office.

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I had no idea what was going
on in the VA hospital unless somebody called

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me and told me. And it
was the brave doctors and nurses who called

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me and told me that was going
on that started these investigs, gations.

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Otherwise I would have never known about
it at all, never known about it

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at all. And you know,
there have actually been cases of whistleblowers that

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have had a lot of problems as
a result of whistle blowing. You know

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in the book, remember the Kristin
Gilbert case, Well, Kristin Gilbert.

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We found out about it from a
couple of really brave nurses who went to

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management, and management p poo them
the whole story. This is true throughout

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the world. And then they came
to us. And you know what,

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these nurses, they're human beings,
and when you're human beings, you have

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your own problems. So what happened
was the nurse could go to management and

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the management would say, well,
did you actually see Kristin Gilbert kill anybody?

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Well, I didn't see Kristin Gilbert
kill anybody. But and this is

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truth out the world. Every time
this nurse is on duty, the death

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rate goes up. This nurse takes
a vacation, the death rate goes down.

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Well that doesn't mean this nurse is
a serial killer, doesn't no.

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But you know something interesting, These
patients weren't expected to expire. When they

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did, sometimes they were actually improving, only to all of a sudden code

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and have a heart attack and Kristin
Gilbert would come in and try to rescue

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them, but they expired. But
the strange thing is they were actually improving.

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And management says this, Well,
so you didn't actually see this nurse

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killing anybody, did you know?
Well, let me ask you some questions

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about yourself. Nurse, is allly
your education up? The stuff? Is

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your license and everything current? I
mean, if we drug tested you right

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now, are we going to find
some substances that we shouldn't find? You

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know why I'm asking this, nurse, it's actually for your own protection.

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It's for your own protection because you
see, once you making these allegations,

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well you sort of kind of become
under investigation yourself. Okay, So we

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just want to protect you and we
want to make sure that you're okay.

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Well, these nurse whistle blows in
the Christin Gilbert case, yeah, they

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had issues like this, But in
spite of that, they came forth and

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they had to admit it in court. They had to come right out in

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a minute in court about the problems
that they were having, and that took

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a tremendous amount of courage. So
after Christin Gilbert gets convicted and murdering a

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number of our nation's heroes at the
Northampton VA Medical Center, when these whistle

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bows returned to work, do you
think they're greeted as heroes. Oh,

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of course not. It's the opposite. You know what their coworkers will say,

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what the hell did you do to
us in this hospital? You know,

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this hospital used to have the finest
reputation now because of you and bringing

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in the investigation. When people drive
by this hospital, you know what they

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say, that's where that nurse serial
killer worked. I'm not going in there.

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You know, you can actually close
this hospital down. We could lose

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all of our jobs. A thanks
a lot, whistleblower. You know,

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did you really have to do all
this? That's the thanks that they get

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for saving lives, because otherwise you
would have continued working there and killing people.

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But that's the thanks to the appreciation
they got from their own coworkers.

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You know, there's a very interesting
story. This is outside of the VA,

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in the private sector, about two
nurses in a place called Kermit,

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Texas. Kermit, Texas is in
the oil basin. It's a very remote

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area. It's very tough to find
doctors and nurses to work in this place.

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Well, these two nurses, they
were actually the entire compliance department of

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the hospital, and they realized that
this doctor is harming patients. So they

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go to the management, and management
says, do you know how hard it

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is to find doctors and nurses in
Kermit, Texas? Why we have to

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go all the way to the Philippines
or I on. So you know what,

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be happy we even have doctors here, and keep your mouth shut and

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just go back to your little office. And these nurses say, well,

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what the hell do we do now? When nurses, I have an idea,

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Let's send an anonymous letter, an
anonymous letter to state medical board about

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this doctor. Well, eventually the
doctor gets wind of it, and boy

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is he pissed. So he calls
the local sheriff, a guy named Sheriff

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Roberts, who happens to be one
of his patients, and he says,

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Sheriff Roberts, I think these women
are intentionally trying to harm my reputation.

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Do something about it. And the
chef says, don't worry, doc,

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I'm on the case, and he
gets a search warrant for their hospital computers,

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finds out that they were the authors
of theonymous letter and actually has them

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fired and are then arrested and prosecuted
for misuse of official information, which is

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a felony in those parts. Okay, so these ladies have to defend themselves,

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they have to get their own attorneys. They're fires, They go to

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trial, The jury is out for
about twenty minutes. The jury comes back

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and says, what are you kidding
me? These nurses deserve a metal for

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what they did, not to be
criminally prosecuted. And they got they won

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and they got money back. But
what kind of message? What kind of

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message does that send out to other
whistle blowers? They say, Hey,

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did you hear about those two nurses
in Texas? Did you hear what they

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had to go through? You know
what, I don't think I want to

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be the one to blow the whistle. I don't think I want to say

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anything here. There's no incentive for
me to blow the whistle here. You

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know, just the opposite. There's
certainly no financial incentive for me to blow

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the whistle here. So it takes
a lot of courage throughout the world,

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throughout the world, and there are
many, many, many instance of nurses

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and doctors who worked with say,
in hospital A who suspected something, who

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never said anything to hospital B,
they never said anything to the hospital.

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See. Probably one of the most
grievous cases is the case of Charles Colin

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from Jerseys. You remember Charles Colin. Charles Colin started out in Pennsylvania and

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he wound up in New Jersey.
And when Hospital I did in its internal

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investigation, and some of these hospitals
did a pretty good internal investigation, but

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none of them ever called the police. So when hospital one suspected something,

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they never said anything. To Hospital
two, they never said anything to hospital

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three, They never sent anything to
hospital four, five, six, seven,

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eight nine. Finally in hospital ten, after leaving a trail of about

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sixty people dead, were the authorities
called and get involved. And when the

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authorities went back to the previous hospitals
where Charle's calling them, Mark, do

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you think the hospitals were cooperative with
the authorities, Just the opposite. They

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didn't want to give them copies of
their reports of investigations. They didn't want

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to cooperate, They didn't want to
do anything. And this is why medical

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serial killers throughout the world get away
with murdering so many people until they get

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caught, until things change, We'll
be having this conversation hear after year after

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year. Oh absolutely, And just
with the cases that I've covered most recently

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with Lucy Leppie, you could see
the pattern from pretty much the very beginning

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forming and taking place, and these
whistleblowers like doctor j RM trying to get

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the medical board to listen say there's
something not right. When she's there,

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when these babies are thriving and they're
doing better, all of a sudden they

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crash. And it's sad that these
whistleblowers who are so brave take the fall

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because the hospitals are trying to protect
their reputation because that's what's important to them,

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not their patients that are dying,
that they have taken an oath to

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heal and look out for the best
interest stuff. Look, the overwhelming majority

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of healthcare providers are the most honest, hard working, dedicated, compassionate people

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on the face of the earth.
But if you're so inclined to want to

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commit a series of murders, that's
the group you want to work with.

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Look, if you're a murderer and
you're a member of an or motorcycle game

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or organized crime. That's where we
think murderers are. But you can't hide

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in the mafia, or you can't
hide in an outlaw motorcycle gang, but

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in a hospital where everyone has taken
an oath to save life, and there

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are numerous, numerous examples of how
many times maybe even you and your co

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worker has saved lives. Who's going
to believe that someone on that wold is

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intentionally taking lives? It's just like
impossible to believe, you know. It's

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like the firemen who can't believe that
a fireman would actually start a fire,

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you know. I mean it's the
best place to hide if you're so inclined

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to commit a series of murders.
Look, if you think about it,

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if you're so inclined to committed series
of murder, what profession and what location

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might you want? Well, first
of all, you'd want a profession that

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has the power of life and death
all of a sudd And what professions do

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we know how have the power of
life and death all of a suddene?

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Okay, I mean you want to
work with a group of people that have

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taken an oath to save lives,
you know, I mean, and that

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is the absolute fact. Ninety nine
point nine nine percent of them. That's

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exactly what they want to do.
They want to save lives. Okay,

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you want to get a profession where
the victim and the family trust you implicitly.

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Listen to that nurse, sweetheart,
listen to that doctor. They have

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your best interest in mind, and
of course again almost always have your best

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interest in mine. That's absolutely true. I mean, you want to work

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in a place where the strong and
assertive all of a sudden become the meek

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and mild. You know, you
could be a big, tough construction worker

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on the outside, but when you're
in the hospital, you see that big

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tough guy shaken when that little nurse
is coming over with a big needle,

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you know, and they don't ask
any questions, they don't question anything.

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They're not feeling well. They just
want to get better, and they just

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allow the staff to do whatever they're
doing because they're not themselves. They're not

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the tough guy or the tough gal
they are on the outside, They all

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of a sudden become pretty meek and
mild on the inside. And you want

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to work in a place where there's
a shortage of staff. Look, nursing

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is a very tough profession. It
has a very high burnout rate. I

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mean, in some parts of the
world, it's so hard to find doctors

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and nurses. So you know,
excuse me if we didn't do the best

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background investigation possible. But luckily we
even found somebody to work here. Okay,

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so you know you have to cut
us a little slack, right,

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Look, you want to work in
a place where death is a common everyday

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occurrence. You know, if somebody
body it dies in a hospital or a

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nursing home, is that news,
you know, the news truck's going to

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show up there, or police's gonna
show up. No, death is a

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common, everyday at occurrence. Right. You want to work somewhere where you're

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kind of alone, like three am
on a ward and it's just a nurse

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and maybe a nurse's aid, and
you could take that curtain and put that

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curtain around you and a patient and
nobody's going to really see what's going on,

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and no cameras are going to see
what's going on there. So you

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know, it's a pretty pretty good
place to work, you know. And

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then if you think about it,
and we talked about this is a place

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where cops don't want to come into
do investigations. It's an environment they're totally

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unfamiliar with. So you could see
how all these ducks kind of start to

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line up as a really perfect place
to commit a murder. So then what

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do you do, like smuggling a
knife for a gun. Well, there's

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no need to do that because the
hospital provides all the death dealing chemicals you

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would ever need, some of which
are untraceable even with today's modern toxicology.

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So you got the perfect job,
you got the perfect location, and then

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management is going to defend you at
the killer because they're so concerned about their

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own reputation and the reputation of the
hospital. So, my god, what

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a wonderful place to work if you
are so inclined to kill people, and

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that's why they get away with it
for so long all over the world.

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Absolutely, it is truly for a
killer. It is the perfect environment.

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You have vulnerable victims literally handed to
you on a daily basis, you have

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a arsenal of murder weapons at your
disposal, you have it's it's truly a

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perfect environment for a wolf in sheep's
clothing. But how exactly did you get

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into this line of work. How
did you get started into working for the

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federal government being an investigator? You
know? How did that path happen for

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you? Okay, Well, I
was always a fan of shows like Colombo,

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you know, and I'm not a
big, strong, tough guy,

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so I could never be like a
dirty Harry kind of guy. But then

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when I watched Columba said, gee, that looks like something I'd like to

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do. So, you know,
when I was in college, someone from

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the federal government came around and they
spoke to us, and they said,

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hey, listen, you got to
get in the federal government. It's a

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great place to work. Take any
job again. So I started out being

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a technician for an Army reserve unit. I was in the Army Reserve,

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and six months later there was an
opening to be an investigator for the Defense

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Department. So now I'm starting to
work my way in the world of investigations.

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And I started out doing background investigations
for applicants who required a top secret

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security clearance. And I did that
for a couple of years, and then

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I started doing fraud cases involving the
department offense. And then Jimmy Carter created

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these offices of Inspector Generals throughout the
federal government, and most offices of inspected

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generals are set up this way.
There's an Office of Audit which has your

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CPAs and your auditors, and an
Office of Investigations which the criminal investigators.

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We go through the same school as
the Treasury agents do, carry guns,

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make arrests, the whole law enforcement
thing. But the VA, we were

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a little unique. We had a
third arm, and that was the Office

288
00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:55.160
of Healthcare Inspections and the Office of
Healthcare Inspections. Their responsibility is to go

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around to all the VA hospitals and
nursing homes and make sure that everything is

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safe and secure for our veterans,
and the hospital is following its policies or

291
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procedures. And sometimes all three groups
work together, and sometimes they work separately.

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So I started out then at the
VA and doing the hospital investigations.

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This was this time I started in
the hospital, was nineteen eighty and basically

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stayed in hospital investigations for the entire
rest of my career in the government and

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in the private sector. And you
know, hospitals, you have to remember,

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they're like small cities. I mean, just think of the tremendous procurement

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00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:40.119
and construction. Right, You're always
going by a hospital. They're building a

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new way, they're building something,
all right. So there is a tremendous

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00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:49.400
amount of money that flows in and
out of hospitals, both government money and

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private money. They also have a
lot of narcotics in hospitals, right.

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They have some of the most complex
medical and scientific aqui and they also purchase

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00:25:00.839 --> 00:25:06.599
little items like diapers. So is
everything from diapers to the most complex scientific

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00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:11.720
equipment of being purchased there. And
like any major city, you have theft

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00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:19.000
problems, you have security problems concerning
the medical records you have. There are

305
00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:22.720
I mean, there are so many
problems in the hospital. There's theft,

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00:25:23.319 --> 00:25:29.440
drug diversion. You know, nurses
and doctors who steal drugs, sometimes for

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00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:37.160
their own personal use on rarer occasion
for resales. You have hospitals electronic records

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00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:42.160
that are constantly under attacked by hackers. So there's so much outside of medical

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serial killers that a hospital has to
worry about. And that was the smorgas

310
00:25:48.359 --> 00:25:52.480
board of cases I was dealing with
until one day I get a call from

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the chief of psychiatry at the north
Port via medical Center and she says,

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00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:02.519
Bruce, you're not going to believe
this, but there's a doctor working here

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00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:07.880
who spent time in prison for poisoning
his coworkers. What how could anybody pass

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00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:15.160
a government background investigation and become a
doctor treating our nation's heroes who spent time

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00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:21.359
in prison for poisoning his coworkers.
It seems impossible, But I was wrong.

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This is exactly what the situation was. And that's how I met this

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00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:33.400
chap by the name of doctor Michael
Swango, MD. And Michael Swango killed

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00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:37.599
people all over the world, not
just that at the VA. And just

319
00:26:37.640 --> 00:26:41.799
to give you a little background on
Michael Swango, when he was in medical

320
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:48.759
school, his fellow students referred to
him as double O'swango licensed to kill because

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00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:53.599
it seemed like patients were expiring unexpectedly. After they got a visit from this

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00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:59.039
medical student, but they couldn't prove
anything, but they showed that he was

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very sloppy with his documentation. And
so they go to the dean and they

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00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:07.279
say, you know, Dean,
we don't think this guy Swango should be

325
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:11.559
a doctor. And the dean says, what do you know, You're only

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00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:17.160
students. I'm the dean. He
should be a doctor. He just needs

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00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:21.599
a little more training, a little
bit more education, So we'll keep him

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00:27:21.599 --> 00:27:23.599
an extra six months and then he'll
graduate. And that's what happens. He

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goes to Ohio State University. In
Ohio State University, patients start expiring unexpectedly,

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00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:37.559
including this one patient and name was
Cynthia McGhee. Cynthia McGee was a

331
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:41.839
student at the university. She got
in a car accident with another student.

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She's actually improving until he gets a
visit from doctor Swango and then she dies

333
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:51.960
unexpectedly. But Michael Swango was never
charged with that. You see, the

334
00:27:52.079 --> 00:27:56.240
student who hit her with his car. He was charged with the Hickey O

335
00:27:56.319 --> 00:28:02.880
homicide, but he didn't actually kill
Cynthia McGee. Swang kills something. Well.

336
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:07.480
The hospital does its internal investigation and
they can't prove that swein gonna kill

337
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:14.640
anybody. So Swango leaves the hospital
and it becomes an EMT. He goes

338
00:28:14.680 --> 00:28:18.440
back home. He becomes an EMT, and he loves the CMT. He

339
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:22.440
loves the excitement pulling up to an
accident and their bodies and blood and he

340
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:26.319
loves all the stuff. He's doing
pretty well. And one day, he

341
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:33.359
invites his coworkers in to their little
lounge area and he brings in donuts and

342
00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:37.160
he gives them donuts. That night, they go home and they're all very,

343
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:41.079
very sick from eating the doughnut,
and Swego would call each one of

344
00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:45.119
them up and say, tell me
all your symptoms, Tell me everything that

345
00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:49.119
happened to you. Give me all
the details. You see, this is

346
00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:55.240
his second bite of excitement in the
pond. The first one is the donuts

347
00:28:55.440 --> 00:29:00.039
sprinkling austin it on them. The
second one is hearing how the people so

348
00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:04.319
well these empts are not stupid.
A couple of weeks later, Swango comes

349
00:29:04.319 --> 00:29:08.480
in with some iced tea, but
this time they don't want to drink the

350
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:14.640
iced tea. They have the iced
tea tested and it's loaded with austin and

351
00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:19.160
Swango gets arrested and prosecuted and spends
three years in jail for poisoning his coworkers.

352
00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:25.119
Now, I didn't think in the
United States of America you could spend

353
00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:27.599
three years in jail for poisoning people
and come out and be a physician.

354
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:32.319
But I was wrong, of course. You see, Michael Swangell being a

355
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:37.440
sociopath could be incredibly charming. He
was a handsome guy, could be incredibly

356
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:41.039
charming, and he lied and he
fabricated documents, and he said that he

357
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:47.039
was in a prison because of a
barroom brawl. He's a tough ex marine,

358
00:29:47.359 --> 00:29:49.599
but here's a piece of paper.
The governor restored his civil rights,

359
00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:55.119
and in the hospitals that were short
for staff said, oh great, come

360
00:29:55.160 --> 00:29:57.559
on in. And he winds up
working on the West Coast, and on

361
00:29:57.599 --> 00:30:02.880
the West Coast, he's doing well
until the story comes out that he's spent

362
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:07.200
time in prison for poisoning his coworkers. When he was on the West coasts,

363
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:12.160
he gets engaged to this wonderful VA
nurse, Kristin Kenny her name was,

364
00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:18.759
and once the story comes out,
they separate and Kristen goes home to

365
00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:21.839
her mom and dadd and she says, you know, I really love this

366
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:25.440
guy, Swango, but when I
was living with him, I was getting

367
00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:27.920
these headaches. I was getting these
headaches. But you know, I feel

368
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.880
better now. And then a couple
of weeks later, ding dong, the

369
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:36.799
doorbell rings and it's mister Charming himself, Swango, and he charms his way

370
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:41.799
back into her life, and things
don't work out that well, and she's

371
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.119
very upset and she takes a gun. She goes to the park and she

372
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:49.200
blows her brains out. Well you
can't blame Swango for that, can you.

373
00:30:49.319 --> 00:30:56.839
Well, actually you can because the
family, although the body was cremated,

374
00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.319
kept the lock of her hair and
we had the hair tested and it

375
00:31:00.440 --> 00:31:03.440
was loaded with awesome. So,
to make a long story short, Swango

376
00:31:03.559 --> 00:31:07.079
travels about and then he winds up
at the V in my neighborhood, at

377
00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:11.799
the VA Hospital in Northport, Long
Island, and he was there for a

378
00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:18.039
residency in psychiatry, which meant he
had to go in front of a board

379
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:22.200
of training psychiatrists and convinience each one
of them that he should be in the

380
00:31:22.200 --> 00:31:26.400
program, which he did. And
he winds up at the VA and that's

381
00:31:26.400 --> 00:31:30.960
when I get that phone call.
So I go visit this guy as soon

382
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:33.279
as I get the phone call.
And he looked like he came right off

383
00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:37.599
the golf course. Well, hand
handsome, charming guy. You know,

384
00:31:37.640 --> 00:31:41.200
if I didn't know better, I'd
want to introduce him to my daughter.

385
00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:47.759
Hey is a handsome x marine doctor. If she brought him home, say

386
00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:52.119
welcome to the family. Win's the
wedding. He gives me the same story,

387
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:55.519
you know, the bar and brawl
story and a little bit and then

388
00:31:55.559 --> 00:32:00.599
when we get a little bit more
serious and I asked him for permission to

389
00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:07.000
search his room, that's when he's
not so charming anymore. And that's when

390
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:10.000
he tells us we have to leave. And then the next thing you know,

391
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:15.799
he leaves. He's on a point
to Zimbabwe, Africa. And in

392
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:22.480
Zimbabwe Africa, he kills women and
children and pregnant women. So what do

393
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:24.839
we do now, Well, Swango
had to return to the United States,

394
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:28.640
so we knew his passport, and
that's when we arrested him, but not

395
00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:32.160
for murder, because we didn't have
any evidence that he murdered anybody. We

396
00:32:32.319 --> 00:32:38.200
arrested him for every federal agent's favorite
crime, lying to the government. If

397
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:42.440
you lie on a piece of paper, if you lie when you talk to

398
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:45.920
a government agent, that's a felony. And he got three years in jail

399
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:51.079
for lying about his background. And
then the assistant US attorney says, all

400
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:53.839
right, Bruce, you've got this
window of time now while he's in prison,

401
00:32:54.519 --> 00:32:59.079
to try to find out if he
murdered anybody at the Northward via medical

402
00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:02.759
Center. Now, I've never done
a murder case before because my schmrgas board

403
00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:12.279
of cases were everything but every other
conceivable hospital crime imaginable except a professional who's

404
00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:15.640
murdering patients. I never had anything
like that. So that's when my boss

405
00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:22.039
introduces me to doctor Michael Boden.
Doctor Michael Bonden, the famous forensic pathologist,

406
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:27.119
had a show on TV equal Low
Autopsy. He's always on the news

407
00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:30.319
of these high profile cases, and
he said, don't worry, Bruce,

408
00:33:30.359 --> 00:33:34.039
I'll teach you how to do this, and this is what we're going to

409
00:33:34.119 --> 00:33:38.519
do, and this has now become
the standard procedure probably throughout the world.

410
00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:43.799
The first thing we're gonna do,
we're going to assemble a team, and

411
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:49.599
this team is to consist of himself
as a forensic pathologist. Of course my

412
00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:55.119
investigators as the investigators. But we're
going to need a physician who's expert in

413
00:33:55.279 --> 00:34:01.559
chant review, who could review patients
chants and make it determination that there's no

414
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:07.319
medical reason why that patient should have
expired when they did. And we had

415
00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:10.400
to gather up all the medical records
of all the patients at the North Fork

416
00:34:10.519 --> 00:34:16.039
Vaight at that time. Because Swengo
used to like to walk around and travel

417
00:34:16.119 --> 00:34:21.800
throughout the hospital and visit patients.
Then we need a toxicologist, somebody to

418
00:34:21.880 --> 00:34:24.039
do the TX work, you know, the blood work and the talks work,

419
00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:29.320
and then we're going to recruit.
At that time, it was a

420
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:35.960
relatively new profession called forensic nursing nurses
who were trained in both forensic science and

421
00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:40.119
the science nursing, and they were
phenomenal. They were fantastic, and this

422
00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:47.519
team kind of narrowed it down to
six really good cases where all these professionals,

423
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:53.880
in their opinion, could not really
come to a valid medical reason as

424
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:58.880
to why these patients expired when they
did. So, the next step is

425
00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:04.480
to exhume the body, because these
patients are all dead and buried, which

426
00:35:04.519 --> 00:35:10.039
means that my agents had to go
to the families of the diseased and ring

427
00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:13.760
their door bells and say something like
this, you know, hi, my

428
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.599
name is Bruce Sackman. I'm with
the Inspected General's Office of the US Department

429
00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:23.320
of Veterans Affairs. We have reason
to believe that your dad's death may have

430
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:30.559
been of a suspicious nature. Can
we have permission to go to the cemetery

431
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:35.159
and dig up his body and run
some test. Imagine getting a visit like

432
00:35:35.239 --> 00:35:39.840
that. That's that's quite a shock
to get a visit like this. But

433
00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:45.480
of course the families were fantastic.
Sometimes they actually wanted to be at the

434
00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:50.000
exclamation and watch it happen. Other
times they didn't want. And then I

435
00:35:50.039 --> 00:35:54.199
find myself at the Suffolk County Medical
Examiner's office and I've never done anything like

436
00:35:54.239 --> 00:36:00.599
this before where there's a whole host
of bodies half open like they thoughts and

437
00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:05.880
the difference. That was a cultural
experience, as you can imagine. And

438
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:08.280
then doctor Bond and he's showing me
the heart of one of these veterans and

439
00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:14.239
he says, you see the death
certificate says this vetman died of heart disease,

440
00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:19.440
myocardial and function. There's nothing wrong
with this heart here. He says,

441
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:23.360
this is bogus. There's something else
that killed these people. Some kind

442
00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:30.159
of external drug d probably killed these
people. So what is it? And

443
00:36:30.199 --> 00:36:34.599
that's when we had to turn to
toxicology. You first, we asked the

444
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:38.039
FBI lab to do this. They
declined to do them, so we had

445
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:44.679
to go to a private lab lab
called National Medical Services in Pennsylvania. They're

446
00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:49.519
the largest private forensic lab in the
United States, and the question is can

447
00:36:49.559 --> 00:36:57.280
you find certain poisons or drugs in
embalmbed tissue, because remember these people buried

448
00:36:57.360 --> 00:37:01.039
and then bombed. And the answer
was yes. You know, we have

449
00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:07.800
this new machine, Bruce. It's
called the high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass

450
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:13.960
spectrometer. Holy cow, as it
work. Oh you couldn't understand, Bruce,

451
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:16.639
You wouldn't understand. Trust us,
it works. You know, they

452
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:20.719
get a little tissue stamp on.
It's like Willie Walker to me, it

453
00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:24.679
goes around, boom, comes out. All right, so came out.

454
00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:30.280
There were traces of sucksonal coaling,
which is a paralytic which they use in

455
00:37:30.280 --> 00:37:31.800
the hospital. They want to put
it too, Dan, you there was

456
00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:36.880
no medical reason in the chart while
why some of these patients should have had

457
00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:43.320
sucks on coaling. And there were
traces of epinephrine, which is adrenaline which

458
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:46.719
is used to speed up. Then
so now Swengo's getting out of jail and

459
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:52.480
he thinks he's just going to hop
on a plane and continue his worldwide murder

460
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:57.000
crusade. Not so fast. Well, first of all, we got very,

461
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:00.400
very lucky because the United States had
entered into an extradition treaty with the

462
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:07.119
government of Zimbabwe. The government in
Zimbabwe had an arrestaurant for Michael Swango for

463
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:12.719
killing women and children and pregnant women. Boy, were they anxious to get

464
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:15.039
their hands on him. So when
he gets out of jail that we say,

465
00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:19.440
look, we've just indicted you for
the murder of a number of our

466
00:38:19.519 --> 00:38:22.880
veterans at the North Port Via Medical
Center. If we go to trial,

467
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:28.119
and even if you're acquitted, we're
just going to put you on the plane

468
00:38:28.159 --> 00:38:31.920
and drop you off on the tarmac
in Zimbabwe, good luck, buddy.

469
00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:37.599
Well, he decided to plead guilty, and he pled guilty. And this

470
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:39.679
is where the whole emotional part of
this, because you know, we talk

471
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:45.119
about the science and the investigations of
all these cases and a number of murders,

472
00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:50.000
but we forget there's a whole human
side to this. There's a families.

473
00:38:50.559 --> 00:38:54.079
How emotional this is for the families. And you realize this as an

474
00:38:54.079 --> 00:39:00.239
investigator, not only when you speak
to the families as witnesses, but the

475
00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:05.760
sentencing, when the families have an
opportunity to get up and speak about their

476
00:39:05.880 --> 00:39:09.239
dad, how their dad survived the
war, whether it was Korea or Vietnam,

477
00:39:09.920 --> 00:39:14.079
you know, only to be murdered
at a VIA hospital. It's very

478
00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:17.840
very moving. Of course, Swango
sat there almost reminded me of like a

479
00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:22.800
Nazi war criminal, just sat there
at attention and didn't flinch. And then

480
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:27.480
the judge asked him to explain,
in his own words exactly what he did,

481
00:39:27.519 --> 00:39:30.000
and he said, he stood up
at attention, and he said he

482
00:39:30.199 --> 00:39:35.679
murdered these people using a paralytic.
He didn't say exactly why drug, but

483
00:39:35.719 --> 00:39:38.760
he just said using a paralytic like
sucks on ucle He didn't say that.

484
00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:44.920
But and then it was time for
sentencing, and Judge Mitcheler out in the

485
00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:49.920
Eastern District sentenced him to three consecutive
life terms without the possibility of parole.

486
00:39:50.840 --> 00:39:53.280
And then he said something I had
never heard before. The judge says,

487
00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:59.119
you know, right now there's no
parole in the federal system. But if

488
00:39:59.159 --> 00:40:05.079
Congress should change the law and grand
parole, your parole is denied in advance.

489
00:40:06.239 --> 00:40:08.559
So there's no way this guy is
getting out. He's in super max

490
00:40:08.639 --> 00:40:14.199
federal penitentiary. And then about a
month ago, I get a phone call

491
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:17.199
from this woman and she says,
Bruce, I think you missed one.

492
00:40:17.679 --> 00:40:22.440
What are you talking about? She
says, my dad was at Northport when

493
00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:28.119
Swango was there, and she goes
through the whole scenario. I don't remember

494
00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:30.760
this case, to tell you the
truth, I mean, I don't remember

495
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:32.679
this. She may be right,
I just I don't remember the case.

496
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:36.119
But there's really nothing we could do
at this point. I mean, the

497
00:40:36.159 --> 00:40:38.320
guy got three consecutive life terms.
A fourth is not going to make a

498
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:42.400
difference. You know. I said, well, what exactly do you want?

499
00:40:43.239 --> 00:40:47.079
And she says, I want the
VA to acknowledge that my dad was

500
00:40:47.159 --> 00:40:51.719
murdered at the hospital, not for
me to say. You know, I'm

501
00:40:51.719 --> 00:40:54.119
not at the VA. I doubt
if they're going to do that, but

502
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.199
I understood, And you know what, it's probably not the only one I

503
00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:01.679
missed. I probably missed. And
this is true also throughout the world.

504
00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:08.400
We have no choice but to concentrate
on the very very best cases because if

505
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:13.360
we brought them all and they start
knocking some out, then the jury is

506
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:17.440
going to start questioning everything. So
we have to always narrow down. It's

507
00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:22.920
amount of resources too, the very
very best cases we could get. And

508
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:28.920
so after that case, all of
a sudden, I'm the expert. I

509
00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:32.400
make one case, one case,
but no one else has ever made a

510
00:41:32.480 --> 00:41:37.079
case like this in the VA.
So all of a sudden, I'm the

511
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:42.760
VA's expert. And the next thing
you know, Kristin Gilbert services. You

512
00:41:42.800 --> 00:41:47.320
know, there's Kristin Gilbert and those
people who google her to see you know,

513
00:41:47.519 --> 00:41:53.239
look, my vision of a serial
killer was always like a Charles Manson

514
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:59.400
type, you know, are crazy
swastike arms fighter here comes to typical soccerma.

515
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:04.239
In fact, when you looked at
her and you look at Lucy let

516
00:42:04.239 --> 00:42:07.320
Be, they could almost be sisters, these two all right, as a

517
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.199
matter of like they had more in
common than the way they look. Because

518
00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:15.320
if you remember with Lucy Letb,
you know, the nurse who murdered a

519
00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:21.440
number of babies in England for those
who aren't familiar, just recently the child

520
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:25.840
just recently ended. One of her
aunt scenarios or motivations, and we could

521
00:42:25.880 --> 00:42:32.960
talk about that was that as a
physician who she probably really had the odds

522
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:38.760
for, would show up every time
there was a code and the two of

523
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:44.039
them would be interacting during the code. Well, this is exactly what happened

524
00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:49.079
with Kristin Gilbert and Kristin Gilbert.
Every time a code was called, her

525
00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:53.719
boyfriend, who happened to be a
VA police officer, would respond to the

526
00:42:53.760 --> 00:42:58.559
code as well, and witnesses would
say, the two will are kind of

527
00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:01.639
grabbing each other, you know,
during the code. It was almost like

528
00:43:01.719 --> 00:43:08.360
a sexual experience for them. So
Lucy let Be and Kristin Gilbert was a

529
00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:13.800
lot more in common than the fact
that they look like each other. They

530
00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:17.679
all caused the code. And when
this code happened by a code, I

531
00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:22.360
mean a cardiac arrest and the crash
card and the nurses come running in.

532
00:43:22.360 --> 00:43:29.159
Its very, very excitement. That
was the same scenario for both Kristin Gilbert

533
00:43:29.599 --> 00:43:34.599
and for Lucy let Be. So, Kristin Gilbert, what's the cause of

534
00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:39.239
death? What did she use?
Well, we went to the lab and

535
00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:45.320
you know they have that machine that
high performers, you know the name about

536
00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:52.400
that long epinephrine. They said,
okay, great. Witnesses say they actually

537
00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:58.320
saw her with an EpiPen, an
epinephrin pen all the time, and the

538
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:01.639
debts were certainly consistent that benefferent poisoning. And then I get a phone call

539
00:44:01.719 --> 00:44:07.559
from the lab and they say,
sorry, Bruce, we made a mistake.

540
00:44:07.679 --> 00:44:12.039
We can't really say it's at beneficent
but have a nice trial. So

541
00:44:12.079 --> 00:44:15.239
then we had to let the defense
know, of course that we didn't have

542
00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:20.800
the toxicology, but we went forth
anyway. The trial lasted for six months

543
00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:28.679
because we had our scientists lined up
to say that the death was consistent with

544
00:44:28.840 --> 00:44:35.119
epinefferent poisoning, even though we didn't
have the toxicology. The jury agreed and

545
00:44:35.159 --> 00:44:38.800
she got sentenced to multiple life terms, also without the possibility of parole.

546
00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:45.079
But this is interesting because this case
occurred in Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts.

547
00:44:45.639 --> 00:44:50.760
It was a death penalty case in
a state that doesn't have the death

548
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:54.559
penalty. Well, how that happened
because the crime actually occurred at a federal

549
00:44:54.679 --> 00:45:00.840
hospital, so the federal law kicked
in, not the state law, and

550
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:06.199
the federal law has a death penalty. In fact, if she was given

551
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:10.639
the death penalty, she would have
been the first woman executed outside or from

552
00:45:12.199 --> 00:45:15.360
Ethel Rosenberg, the atomic bomb spary. She was the last woman executed in

553
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:21.519
the federal system. So there's a
separate trial. Now, the same jury

554
00:45:21.559 --> 00:45:27.280
that just convicted her of these murders, now there's a separate trial to determine

555
00:45:27.519 --> 00:45:32.280
whether Kristin Gilbert should get the death
penalty or not, and talk about moving.

556
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:39.599
That is really moving because that's when
pictures of the deceased have shown their

557
00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:46.320
history in the military. The family
gets up and speaks about how wonderful dad

558
00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:51.440
was. I mean, it was
very veriable. But the jury came back

559
00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:54.679
and they said life without parole,
not the death penalty. And we were

560
00:45:55.039 --> 00:45:59.840
actually happy with that because Kristen was
a mom, she had two kids,

561
00:46:00.920 --> 00:46:02.760
you know. I mean you wouldn't
know that reading the newspapers, because the

562
00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:07.440
newspapers thought we were like the castopol
ready to hang her in the town square.

563
00:46:07.519 --> 00:46:10.920
And believe me, nothing could be
further from the truth. Were really

564
00:46:12.039 --> 00:46:15.599
kind of happy that she got life, you know, But did we get

565
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:22.320
every victim? We actually suspected maybe
she killed as many as thirty people,

566
00:46:22.960 --> 00:46:28.639
but we couldn't prove that number.
And that's that's true with all these cases

567
00:46:28.679 --> 00:46:34.199
that I've done or I've assisted with
throughout the world. You know, in

568
00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:38.360
Germany, there's a fellow by the
name of Niles Hogel, Niles Hogel,

569
00:46:38.840 --> 00:46:45.000
when he worked in hospital a and
they suspected something. This is Germany.

570
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:47.719
Do you think they said anything the
hospital be Do you think they said anything

571
00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:52.280
the hospitals say. The German police, to their credit, had to with

572
00:46:52.360 --> 00:47:00.719
zoom bodies in three different countries.
Niles Hogel himself eventually admitted to killing over

573
00:47:00.760 --> 00:47:06.119
one hundred people. The German police
think it's closer to three hundred. These

574
00:47:06.360 --> 00:47:10.239
medical serial killers kill so many people
they can't remember themselves how many people they

575
00:47:10.320 --> 00:47:16.000
killed. All right, here's a
famous medical serial killer named Donald Harvey.

576
00:47:16.519 --> 00:47:21.920
Killed people in the VA and outside
of the VA. And Donald Horvey his

577
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.440
own words with this, He says, after I killed the first fifteen and

578
00:47:27.639 --> 00:47:31.840
no one even questioned me. Wow, I thought I was ordained by the

579
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:37.199
Almighty himself to do this. Not
so crazy if you kill fifteen people and

580
00:47:37.239 --> 00:47:43.960
your coworkers don't even raise an eyebrow. So this is the crazy world of

581
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:47.719
medical serial killers, all right.
And this is why they get away with

582
00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:58.000
killing so many people until we changed
the education, changed the laws for whistleblowers,

583
00:47:58.039 --> 00:48:01.519
and we start to prosecute, my
opinion, one or two of these

584
00:48:01.599 --> 00:48:07.119
managers who actually ate it and abedded
these murders. This thing is going to

585
00:48:07.199 --> 00:48:12.880
continue. I mean, I'm sure
you probably read about the terrible COVID deaths

586
00:48:13.880 --> 00:48:20.079
at the Veterans Nursing Homes in New
Jersey. Right over one hundred veterans died.

587
00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:27.159
The state had to pay out millions
of dollars to the families. But

588
00:48:27.239 --> 00:48:30.519
did anyone get prosecuted for No.
So, you see, if you're a

589
00:48:30.599 --> 00:48:37.159
manager and all you do is defend
the reputation of the hospital, even at

590
00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:42.400
the cost of lives of people,
what's the worst that's going to happen to

591
00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:46.159
you? Yeah, maybe you'd lose
your job, Maybe probably just get transferred

592
00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:51.599
or find the job at another hospital. Is it going to cost you personally

593
00:48:51.639 --> 00:48:57.440
any money out of your savings.
No, because either the state or the

594
00:48:57.440 --> 00:49:00.800
hospital is going to pay all the
fines and penalties. Now you're going to

595
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:06.599
go to jail. Never, there's
never. In my view, I've never

596
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:14.519
seen successful prosecution of any manager anywhere
who aided and abedded these murders. And

597
00:49:14.639 --> 00:49:20.079
until that happens, managers are going
to say, my job is to defend

598
00:49:20.119 --> 00:49:23.519
the reputation at a hospital, even
at the cost of lives. And if

599
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:27.880
things go bad, well, the
hospital is going to have to pay the

600
00:49:27.960 --> 00:49:34.480
fines. It's not going to be
me. Where's the incentive the whistleblower is

601
00:49:34.679 --> 00:49:37.159
did they get any money out of
this? No? All they got is

602
00:49:37.159 --> 00:49:43.440
a lot of heartache, right and
aggravation from it. You know, if

603
00:49:43.480 --> 00:49:47.400
you report a fraud against the government, you can actually make money. There's

604
00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:52.000
a thing called a key tam suit. Have you ever heard of this or

605
00:49:52.119 --> 00:49:55.760
have not? No? A key
tam is spelled qui tam. It's actually

606
00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:01.599
based on the Latin he who's sings, he who sues, excuse me,

607
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:06.960
he who sues on behalf of the
king and himself the whale works. It

608
00:50:07.039 --> 00:50:10.280
goes back to English common law.
Let's say you're an employee of the hospital

609
00:50:10.360 --> 00:50:15.480
and you know the hospital is defrauding
the Medicare program, a Medicaid program.

610
00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:20.440
You go to an attorney. You
lay out the evidence to the attorney.

611
00:50:20.559 --> 00:50:25.519
The attorney files a suit in federal
court called the key tam suit. It's

612
00:50:25.519 --> 00:50:31.119
a whistleblower suit, and you,
as the relator of that lawsuit, can

613
00:50:31.199 --> 00:50:36.840
get a reward of up to twenty
five percent of all the money recovered.

614
00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:43.719
I had a case at the VA
where a whistleblower filed a suit against the

615
00:50:43.760 --> 00:50:49.360
pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company had
to pay millions and millions and millions and

616
00:50:49.559 --> 00:50:54.880
millions of dollars in fines to the
government. The rolater got twenty five million

617
00:50:54.960 --> 00:51:00.400
dollars as a reward for this.
Okay, that's called the key Tamp suit.

618
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:06.679
But if you, as a whistleblower
report doctor Swango, Oh, Kristen

619
00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:09.519
Gilbert or Lucy let Be, are
you going to get a dollar out of

620
00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:14.039
that? No? Are you going
to get an attorney that's gonna want to

621
00:51:14.119 --> 00:51:19.519
work with you? No, Because
there's no financial incentive for reporting murders.

622
00:51:19.960 --> 00:51:24.320
There's only financial incentive for reporting fraud. So until we change that, there

623
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:28.760
are a lot of things that have
to be changed to you when we change

624
00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:35.719
that system and make it possible for
people to get a financial reward when it's

625
00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:39.679
proven, and of course that's to
be proven that someone's intentionally harming patients and

626
00:51:39.800 --> 00:51:45.079
the hospital is fine, well,
that relator should get part of that fine

627
00:51:45.119 --> 00:51:49.000
as well. It shouldn't just be
for fraud, it should also be for

628
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:53.159
when a patient, when patients get
injured and the staff needs training. You

629
00:51:53.239 --> 00:51:58.119
know, in my book, I
have the red flags. Staff need to

630
00:51:58.159 --> 00:52:04.960
be trained on these red flags.
And finally three prong approach here, Education

631
00:52:06.119 --> 00:52:15.239
whistleblower protection and changing the law and
in my view, criminally prosecuting managers who

632
00:52:15.480 --> 00:52:21.840
aided and embedded these murders. Until
that happens, I'll be your guests next

633
00:52:21.920 --> 00:52:25.079
year and we'll be having the same
conversation again, only with new names.

634
00:52:25.599 --> 00:52:28.880
You know, as we speak right
now, there are a number of cases

635
00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:32.679
ongoing. A number of cases are
ongoing. There's a case in Canada involving

636
00:52:32.760 --> 00:52:37.840
gay a physician who leegedly murdered a
number of people. There's a case in

637
00:52:37.960 --> 00:52:42.920
Germany. There's a case in Texas
that's ongoing, and one in North Carolina.

638
00:52:43.039 --> 00:52:46.960
So these cases are still ongoing.
But what has changed? You know?

639
00:52:47.079 --> 00:52:51.840
I went on British TV and they
asked me about the Lucy let the

640
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.159
case, and they had all their
experts and they said all the important things.

641
00:52:55.400 --> 00:53:00.199
And then I said to them,
okay, experts, what's different that's

642
00:53:00.239 --> 00:53:02.960
going to be different tomorrow in England. That's going to prevent this from happening.

643
00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:08.920
You know, what training is different? What whistle blow up protections are

644
00:53:08.960 --> 00:53:14.880
going to be different? All right? What managers are going to be prostituted

645
00:53:14.960 --> 00:53:22.480
to put the fear of God into
other managers? Silence silence. Nothing has

646
00:53:22.639 --> 00:53:27.880
changed until it changes. I guess
I'll be there. I guess next year

647
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:32.960
when they have another surreal go what
Absolutely and a I agree that is one

648
00:53:34.239 --> 00:53:39.880
thousand percent. Half the battle is
the reform that's needed in approaching these cases,

649
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:45.880
in handling whistleblowers and dealing with the
management that has allowed this to happen

650
00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:50.360
for so long. Like, yeah, sure they're investigating Chester Hospital for not

651
00:53:50.559 --> 00:53:52.920
doing anything about Lucy Leppie for so
long. Is anything going to happen with

652
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:59.239
that? No? Absolutely not.
Everyone knows it because nothing ever happens.

653
00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:04.159
Thing ever happens to hold the management
accountable, nothing ever happens to hold the

654
00:54:04.199 --> 00:54:09.800
border directors accountable for the hospital.
I mean, doctor Jayrum, you know,

655
00:54:09.960 --> 00:54:15.920
has been given so much shit for
trying to blow the whistle on Lucy

656
00:54:15.079 --> 00:54:20.679
let be and he should be regaled
as a hero. Wasn't he told by

657
00:54:20.840 --> 00:54:25.039
management to apologize to her? He
was. He was told to apologize,

658
00:54:25.440 --> 00:54:31.800
He was told to let it go. He was told to essentially just leave

659
00:54:31.840 --> 00:54:36.679
her alone. Why are you bothering
with this? Leave her alone. She's

660
00:54:36.719 --> 00:54:39.800
a good nurse, you know,
she helps these babies. She's not helping

661
00:54:39.880 --> 00:54:43.880
these babies because the only time these
babies were safe was when she was in

662
00:54:44.800 --> 00:54:46.719
wherever she's Spain, I think,
on vacation. That's the only time these

663
00:54:46.760 --> 00:54:51.400
babies were safe. And then the
day she came back to work, two

664
00:54:51.559 --> 00:54:55.079
triplets died and another one almost died. And yet, like I say,

665
00:54:55.440 --> 00:55:01.760
we're going to be having this conversation
again again until things change, you know,

666
00:55:01.880 --> 00:55:05.679
there was I mean, look,
we'll be watching these cases. This

667
00:55:05.840 --> 00:55:09.400
case in Canada, it's a doctor
named Adla. He's accused of killing,

668
00:55:09.800 --> 00:55:15.119
intentionally murdering some COVID nineteen patients.
And there's a similar case in Germany where

669
00:55:15.119 --> 00:55:20.239
a doctor's accused of murdering some COVID
nineteen patients. You know, the interesting

670
00:55:20.320 --> 00:55:24.280
thing about COVID nineteen. What was
the first thing we heard when COVID nineteen

671
00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:29.400
came up. Well, families are
not allowed in the hospital. It's not

672
00:55:29.639 --> 00:55:34.880
safe. So, getting back to
our original discussion, if you're looking for

673
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:38.599
a place to murder people, the
hospital was the best place before COVID.

674
00:55:39.440 --> 00:55:45.360
What about after COVID when the families
can't even come in to visit the patient.

675
00:55:45.960 --> 00:55:51.760
That makes your job just that much
easier, doesn't it. All Right,

676
00:55:52.119 --> 00:55:57.079
So there are a number of cases
now you know, connected with COVID

677
00:55:57.679 --> 00:56:02.840
go forbid. We never see that
again, but could happen. Absolutely absolutely.

678
00:56:02.920 --> 00:56:07.840
I think just seeing all the cases
that are cropping up out of the

679
00:56:07.920 --> 00:56:14.519
woodwork, it's like it makes you
realize that not only was the pandemic just

680
00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:23.639
crippling for everybody and affected everybody so
devastatingly, but it also allowed medical serial

681
00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:29.400
killers to essentially run rampant. Yeah. Yeah, you know what, they

682
00:56:30.039 --> 00:56:32.360
had the best place to work to
begin with. That made it even better.

683
00:56:32.760 --> 00:56:37.719
And not only that, but many
hospitals couldn't find staff, you know,

684
00:56:37.880 --> 00:56:43.239
and fanness to them. In New
York, they had to bring in

685
00:56:43.400 --> 00:56:45.440
pace. You know, they had
to bring in physicians and nurses from all

686
00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:50.559
over the world to help out.
I understand that. And you know what,

687
00:56:51.119 --> 00:56:53.159
if let's say, for instance,
you're in the infantry and the enemy's

688
00:56:53.199 --> 00:56:58.119
coming over the lawne well, you
don't have time to do a thorough background

689
00:56:58.159 --> 00:57:01.239
investigation on every infantry and who's going
to be standing next to you. You're

690
00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:05.920
just happy you have a body there
next to you. Right. Absolutely,

691
00:57:06.199 --> 00:57:08.599
it was the same thing. I
mean, the hospitals had to rely on

692
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:15.079
all these outside services to do quickly
background investigations, and look, they had

693
00:57:15.079 --> 00:57:19.280
a number of traveling doctors and nurses. The majority of them were fine,

694
00:57:20.239 --> 00:57:22.440
but there were a number of them
who had their own evil intent, not

695
00:57:22.639 --> 00:57:28.519
necessarily the murder patients, but a
number of them were involved in diverting drugs,

696
00:57:28.599 --> 00:57:31.239
stealing drugs from the hospital for their
own personal use, and they had

697
00:57:31.280 --> 00:57:36.880
a long history of it, but
that history was never disclosed because we were

698
00:57:36.920 --> 00:57:40.960
in panic mode. We had to
get the bodies there. That's what happens

699
00:57:42.360 --> 00:57:45.199
when you high as my boss us, my old boss used to have a

700
00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:50.639
great saying. It used to say, hire in haste, repent and leisure.

701
00:57:51.719 --> 00:58:00.400
That's exactly what happened in the hospitals. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, and

702
00:58:00.039 --> 00:58:07.599
just it's sad to think that these
medical professionals have to take a hit because

703
00:58:07.639 --> 00:58:14.840
of the nefarious doings of those that
are supposed to be caring for our patients,

704
00:58:15.519 --> 00:58:19.480
and because at the end of the
day, as you said, they

705
00:58:19.519 --> 00:58:25.400
are some of the most giving and
heartfelt people and you know, dedicating their

706
00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:30.719
lives to caring for those that need
to be cared for, and it is

707
00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:40.159
a tough job and it's sad that
they are infiltrated by these evil people,

708
00:58:42.800 --> 00:58:49.719
when this should be at the very
least. Hospitals and doctor's offices should be

709
00:58:49.880 --> 00:58:57.519
a safe place and a peaceful place
for those that are incredibly ill, that

710
00:58:57.679 --> 00:59:02.679
may be dying, that may have
any plethora of medical issues. And then

711
00:59:02.719 --> 00:59:08.800
you have a medical serial killer come
along and turn everything upside down. That's

712
00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:13.599
exactly right, you know. To
me, a hospital was always well a

713
00:59:13.679 --> 00:59:17.159
sanctuary from crime. You know,
you went to a hospital after you became

714
00:59:17.239 --> 00:59:22.639
a victim of crime, not the
first be a victim of crime. Absolutely,

715
00:59:22.360 --> 00:59:27.239
it has been such an honor speaking
with you today. It has been

716
00:59:27.280 --> 00:59:32.679
such an honor kind of picking your
brain about medical serial killers and hearing about

717
00:59:35.119 --> 00:59:42.039
Swango in your own words, because
I read them, and it's so different

718
00:59:42.199 --> 00:59:49.320
to hear it from you who actually
lived it and dealt with it and investigated

719
00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.000
it. And it has been wonderful
having you on. And I really hope

720
00:59:52.039 --> 00:59:57.159
that my listeners out there have enjoyed
this experience as much as I have.

721
00:59:58.480 --> 01:00:00.480
Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it as well.

722
01:00:01.639 --> 01:00:06.280
Well. Thank you very much.
And guys, as I said in the

723
01:00:06.519 --> 01:00:10.360
beginning, I will have the link
to Behind the Murder Curtain in the source

724
01:00:10.440 --> 01:00:14.760
notes below. It is such a
good read. You know, I love

725
01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:17.800
you know, I love a good
book, and this was phenomenal. It

726
01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:24.480
was so interesting to really see get
a look behind the scenes of an investigation.

727
01:00:25.400 --> 01:00:30.480
And Lisa will be on the next
one. You know, she's sorry

728
01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:34.280
she missed this, but we will
see you all in the next one.

729
01:00:35.119 --> 01:00:39.079
Bye, guys, thank you so
much for listening to this chapter of the

730
01:00:39.119 --> 01:00:44.599
Book of the Dead, and don't
forget that you could always connect with us

731
01:00:44.800 --> 01:00:49.719
on Instagram, you can connect with
us on Twitter, and you can absolutely

732
01:00:49.800 --> 01:00:53.960
connect with us on Patreon. We
also have a merch store as well that

733
01:00:54.119 --> 01:00:59.760
we have frequent discount codes coming out
for so that you guys can get merch

734
01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:04.119
hand your on by myself at a
better cost. We hope you have a

735
01:01:04.239 --> 01:01:08.800
lovely rest of your week and just
remember, please be kind and don't forget

736
01:01:09.239 --> 01:01:15.440
to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye,