Bio

Joseph Michael Swango was born on October 21, 1954, in Tacoma, Washington. He grew up in Quincy, Illinois, where he attended Quincy Catholic Boys High School. He graduated as valedictorian in 1972. In school, he played the clarinet and was part of the school band. Although he attended a Catholic school, he was raised in a Presbyterian household.

After high school, Swango served in the Marine Corps and received an honorable discharge in 1980. He then went on to attend Quincy College, where he graduated summa cum laude and won the American Chemical Society Award. Following that, he entered the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.

During his time at medical school, Swango began to show signs of trouble. While he was a bright student, he was often described as lazy and preferred working as an ambulance attendant to studying. He also developed a disturbing fascination with dying patients. It was noted that many patients he was assigned to check on suffered emergencies, and at least five died during this time. Concerns about his competence started to arise.

Swango faced serious disciplinary actions in his final year at medical school. He was caught faking checkups during his obstetrics and gynecology rotation. Although he was nearly expelled, he managed to graduate by completing extra requirements after his class had already graduated.

After graduating, Swango secured an internship at Ohio State University Medical Center in 1983. However, during his time there, nurses began to report that patients who were seemingly healthy were dying unexpectedly, particularly when Swango was assigned to them. Concerns were raised, but administrative investigations failed to find conclusive evidence. Swango was cleared after a superficial investigation but was not invited to continue into residency due to his poor evaluation.

In July 1984, Swango returned to Quincy and worked as an emergency medical technician. Soon, coworkers noticed that several of them became violently ill after consuming food or drinks that he provided. In October 1984, Swango was arrested when police found arsenic and other poisons in his possession. He was convicted of aggravated battery for poisoning colleagues and sentenced to five years in prison. He served two years before being released in 1991.

After his release, Swango forged documents to hide his criminal past and assumed a new identity, David J. Adams. He found work in various medical positions, including a residency program, but his past eventually caught up with him. He continued to face scrutiny and moved to Zimbabwe in 1994, where he also worked in a hospital. His time there was marked by mysterious patient deaths before he fled the country.

Murder Story

In 1983, Dr. Joseph Michael Swango began a surgical internship at Ohio State University Medical Center. During his time there, several patients under his care died unexpectedly. Nurses started to notice a pattern. It seemed that many of the patients who were healthy became gravely ill or died shortly after Swango tended to them. On one occasion, a nurse reported seeing him injecting something into a patient's IV line, which led to the patient becoming seriously unwell. Despite these alarming reports, a preliminary investigation cleared him of wrongdoing.

In 1984, after leaving Ohio State, Swango returned to Quincy, Illinois, and started working as an emergency medical technician. His colleagues soon became suspicious as well. Whenever he prepared food or drinks, many of them became violently ill. Soon after, the Quincy Police discovered arsenic and other poisons in his possession. He was arrested for aggravated battery after poisoning fellow workers, and in 1985, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

After serving some time, he changed his name and tried to rebuild his career. Swango managed to secure jobs as a doctor in various facilities across the United States. However, patients continued to suffer mysterious deaths under his care. In the early 1990s, he began working at a hospital in Northport, New York. Here, it was reported that several patients died shortly after he treated them, and an investigation was opened.

In 1994, Swango fled to Zimbabwe. While working at Mnene Hospital there, reports surfaced of unusual patient deaths again. Authorities eventually traced suspicious deaths back to him, leading to his arrest. However, he escaped before his trial.

Swango returned to the U.S. in 1997 while trying to board a flight to Saudi Arabia and was arrested by federal agents. He faced various charges, including murder, due to his long history of poisonings. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder in connection to some of the patients he had harmed during his medical career. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance of parole.

His methods primarily included poisoning patients with overdoses or writing false prescriptions. It is estimated that he may have caused the deaths of between 30 and 60 people during his medical career, although he was only officially convicted of a few.