Michael Swango was found guilty of murdering four patients in 2000, but investigators suspect that he may have actually had dozens more victims.
Ohio State University Police DepartmentMichael Swango’s mugshot.
While enrolled in medical school, Michael Swango’s classmates called him “Double-O-Swango.” The nickname was a dark joke, a nod to how a number of patients had died under Swango’s care. Like James Bond, his classmates mocked, Swango had a “license to kill.” But they were uncomfortably close to a truth about the young doctor.
Obsessed with poison, death, the Nazis, and the Holocaust, Swango would go on to poison his colleagues and kill scores of his own patients. He was eventually found guilty of four murders, but investigators believe that he may have killed as many as 60 people in the United States and Zimbabwe.
Disturbingly, though death seemed to follow Michael Swango wherever he went, he was able to practice medicine at multiple hospitals before he was finally arrested. In 2000, Swango was found guilty of murder, and ultimately sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for his crimes.
The Quiet Early Life Of Michael Swango
Born on Oct. 21, 1954 in Tacoma, Washington, Michael Joseph Swango was raised in the quiet town of Quincy, Illinois. His father was a Vietnam War veteran who struggled with depression and alcoholism. According to Behind the Murder Curtain: Special Agent Bruce Sackman Hunts Doctors and Nurses Who Kill Our Veterans, he also regaled his children with stories “about his war experiences and especially the killings in which he participated.”
Swango’s parents later divorced, but Swango followed in his father’s footsteps. After excelling academically and serving as the valedictorian of his 1972 class at Quincy Catholic Boys High School, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He never saw combat, but Swango’s military experience left a lasting impression on him. He became obsessed with physical fitness, and used push-ups and jogging as a means of self-discipline.
Quincy CollegeMichael Swango during his time at Quincy College, where he graduated summa cum laude in chemistry.
Then, after graduating summa cum laude from Quincy University, Swango enrolled at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine to become a doctor. Here, the first signs of Michael Swango’s dark side began to surface.
A Doctor Known As ‘Double-O-Swango’
At the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Michael Swango began to develop a disturbing reputation. He struck his classmates as “viciously competitive,” according to Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor Get Away with Murder, and had a seeming fascination with death. He purportedly asked dying patients about what kind of pain they were in, and a number of patients died on his watch.
This led to Swango’s nickname, “Double-O-Swango” — a doctor with a “license to kill.”
SIU School of MedicineThe Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.
Still, no one suspected that Swango was doing anything seriously wrong. Even when it came out that he had faked a report about a pregnant woman, Swango was effectively let off with a slap on the wrist. He could have been expelled, but a member of the disciplinary committee decided to give the promising young student a second chance.
Even with growing doubts about his competency, Swango still managed to graduate in 1983. What’s more, despite a “poor evaluation” from South Illinois University School of Medicine, he was awarded a prestigious neurosurgical residency at Ohio State University.
There, even more disturbing stories about Michael Swango would emerge.
Michael Swango’s Crimes In Ohio And Illinois
After graduation, Michael Swango secured a neurosurgery internship at Ohio State University Medical Center. He quickly disturbed those around him. Not only did Swango have a fascination with the Holocaust and the Nazis, but stable or improving patients seemed to deteriorate when he was near.
One patient alerted the hospital when Swango put something in her IV line, causing her to have a seizure — but she wasn’t believed. Another patient died after Swango treated him, and was later found to have a ball of gauze in his throat. And, decades later, Swango would admit to murdering a 19-year-old woman named Cynthia McGee after giving her a fatal dose of potassium.
Find a GraveCynthia Ann McGee was one of Michael Swango’s confirmed victims at Ohio State University Medical Center.
Michael Swango’s crimes weren’t limited to patients, however. He also once brought a bucket of fried chicken for his fellow doctors, several of whom fell violently ill with symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
Nurses alerted hospital administrators about Swango and, though they were ultimately dismissed as “paranoid,” Swango’s residency was not renewed. That said, doctors at OSU wrote him recommendations which helped him get a medical license.
In July 1984, Swango returned to Quincy and worked as an EMT for the Adams County Ambulance Corps. As elsewhere, Swango disturbed his colleagues with his fascination for violence and murder, even remarking that he fantasized about a tanker crashing into a bus full of children.
Then, Swango turned his violent fantasies on his co-workers. On one occasion, he brought them donuts and coffee, and multiple people fell ill. On another, they left out iced tea as a trap, and after Swango passed through the room, found that it contained traces of arsenic.
That October, police searched Swango’s home and discovered a “mini-laboratory” stocked with arsenic, ant poison, and handwritten recipes for ricin, botulism, and concentrated cyanide, according to reporting from Columbus Monthly in 2022.
Swango was arrested and found guilty of aggravated battery. He received a five-year prison sentence, and served two years before release. Yet Michael Swango was able to then reenter the medical field once again.
The Deadly Final Crimes Of ‘Doctor Death’
After leaving prison, Michael Swango created a new identity for himself. He claimed that his aggravated battery conviction stemmed from a bar fight, and he changed his name to David Jackson Adams.
But he didn’t stop practicing medicine.
Columbus DispatchMichael Swango flew under the radar for years, even though his behavior disturbed those who worked with him.
Swango worked at a medical-career vocational school in Virginia, where three of his colleagues fell mysteriously ill, and then worked in South Dakota. Though Swango was able to be hired at University of South Dakota because his record showed only that his license had been suspended for “disciplinary,” reasons, he was dismissed when his criminal history came to light.
Incredibly, Swango was nevertheless able find work as a resident in psychiatry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. As part of his residency, Swango worked at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport, New York, and murdered at least three patients there: Thomas Sammarco, George Siano, and Aldo Serini.
When Swango’s past caught up to him in 1993, he was dismissed from Stony Brook and effectively blacklisted in the United States. He then went to Zimbabwe, and found work at the Mnene Lutheran Mission Hospital in Bulawayo. Before long, Swango’s patients began to die. Authorities believe that he poisoned at least seven people, five of them fatally.
Swango found yet another job, this time in Saudi Arabia, but had to return to the United States for a visa. There, in 1997 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, he was arrested for making a false statement to Stony Brook officials. For this, Swango was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison
Shortly before his release from prison in 2000, however, Michael Swango was charged with three counts of murder after Sammarco, Siano, and Serini’s bodies were exhumed and tested positive for poison. Swango plead guilty to avoid the death penalty — and extradition to Zimbabwe — and later also pleaded guilty to a fourth murder, that of Cynthia McGee. He is currently serving four consecutive life sentences at ADX Florence.
But though Michael Swango is behind bars, and formally charged with four murders, investigators suspect that he killed many more people. It’s possible that he murdered as many as 60 patients, which makes Swango one of the most murderous doctors in human history.
After learning about Michael Swango, read about Charles Cullen, the nurse who murdered hundreds of his patients. Then, check out this article about 21 doctors and nurses who killed their patients.
