Latest / NO FILTER / Medical Monsters_ _Angels of Death_ _ The Greatest Crimes of All Time(M4A_128K)

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Medical Monsters_ _Angels of Death_ _ The Greatest Crimes of All Time(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:02
Speaker 1: Their job is to protect life, but in reality they're
0:09
Speaker 1: angels of death. In England, Harold Shipman a general practitioner
0:15
Speaker 1: who everyone trusts, trust that ends in death.
0:23
Speaker 2: They say he's a good doctor, but you don't last.
0:25
Speaker 2: Lots of old ladies have died with him.
0:27
Speaker 1: In Germany, Stefan Letter leads a double life as a
0:32
Speaker 1: diligent nurse and a killer.
0:36
Speaker 3: It is a perversion, the opposite of healing. It is killing.
0:40
Speaker 4: Shataire.
0:42
Speaker 1: And in the US, Michael Swango a devilish physician who
0:47
Speaker 1: injects his patients with poison. The hunt for him leads
0:50
Speaker 1: through the whole of the US.
0:55
Speaker 4: The police just couldn't think the thinkable. They couldn't believe
1:03
Speaker 4: that a doctor could do this.
1:05
Speaker 1: Angels of death. Their murders are among the worst crimes
1:09
Speaker 1: of all time. Hide a small city in northwestern England.
1:31
Speaker 1: No one yet suspects that one of the worst angels
1:34
Speaker 1: of death is doing his dirty work here. His name
1:41
Speaker 1: Harold Shipman. He treats over three thousand patients in his practice.
1:49
Speaker 1: No one suspects that the friendly doctor has one thing
1:52
Speaker 1: in mind above all killing.
1:55
Speaker 5: When you look at Shipman, you recognize, first of all
1:58
Speaker 5: his doctor. So he's really in the most prime position
2:03
Speaker 5: to have an effect on someone's life, to be in
2:06
Speaker 5: a position to administer drugs that can take someone's life.
2:12
Speaker 1: The case of such proportions that even today hardly anyone
2:16
Speaker 1: in England talks about it. August the nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight.
2:22
Speaker 1: MIKHAELA Sitford is a journalist for the Manchester Evening News.
2:27
Speaker 1: She hears about a patient who has bequeathed her entire
2:30
Speaker 1: estate to her family physician.
2:34
Speaker 2: I first heard about Harold Shipman after the Manastream News
2:40
Speaker 2: had had a tip off that Kathleen Grundy's death has
2:43
Speaker 2: been investigated and her body had been exhumed, and that
2:47
Speaker 2: Harold Shipman, her GP, was part of the investigation, so
2:51
Speaker 2: I went in to hide.
2:54
Speaker 1: Sitford wants to know why police are investigating the Grundy
2:58
Speaker 1: case and goes looking for Shipmen.
3:03
Speaker 2: A most immediately I bumped into two old ladies and
3:07
Speaker 2: they said, oh, you mean Dr Death there, And I
3:09
Speaker 2: said pardon and they said, well, they say he's a
3:12
Speaker 2: good doctor, but you don't last. Lots of old ladies
3:14
Speaker 2: have died with him.
3:16
Speaker 1: Doctor Shipman cares mostly for old women up until they die.
3:22
Speaker 6: Now as a GP, as someone who is a doctor
3:25
Speaker 6: who's helping we often inherently have an added level of
3:29
Speaker 6: trust because we assume this person has chosen this profession
3:32
Speaker 6: to help people.
3:33
Speaker 1: Journalist Mikhaiela Sidford quickly learns police are investigating doctor Shipman
3:39
Speaker 1: not only in the Grundy case, but also because of
3:42
Speaker 1: the unusually high number of deaths connected with his practice.
3:50
Speaker 2: Once we published our first article, a lot more families
3:54
Speaker 2: came forward to say that that had happened to their mothers,
3:57
Speaker 2: and that families who were suspicious but couldn't really believe
3:59
Speaker 2: the doctor would do such a thing.
4:01
Speaker 1: Sidford's research reveals that doctor often reports old age, heart
4:07
Speaker 1: attack or stroke as causes of death, then he passes
4:12
Speaker 1: the death certificate on as usual.
4:14
Speaker 4: The second doctor has to be someone completely independent from
4:17
Speaker 4: a different practice or a different part of the hospital,
4:21
Speaker 4: who reads the notes and says, yes, I agree that
4:24
Speaker 4: this is a natural course of it.
4:26
Speaker 1: But these other doctors never perform their own or topsy.
4:31
Speaker 1: The people of Hyde get wind of the investigation and
4:34
Speaker 1: are rattled. Journalist Mikhaiela Sidford also has misgivings about Shipman.
4:40
Speaker 2: At this point, I began to think, how could a
4:44
Speaker 2: GP somebody was supposed to care for his community get
4:46
Speaker 2: away with this for so long and at such a
4:49
Speaker 2: high rate. And I thought it was really important that
4:52
Speaker 2: we kept following the story and researching the story so
4:55
Speaker 2: that the people have hide finally knew what had really
4:58
Speaker 2: been going on in their time.
5:01
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, police suspect the doctor in twenty homicides. The doctor
5:07
Speaker 1: with over three thousand patients, always has a sympathetic here,
5:12
Speaker 1: even makes house calls the doctor people treasure. Sidford wants
5:20
Speaker 1: to speak to doctor Shipman personally and find out what
5:24
Speaker 1: he has to say about all this.
5:32
Speaker 2: He didn't want to speak to me. He kind of
5:35
Speaker 2: stared at me very coldly, and pushed a piece of
5:37
Speaker 2: paper across the counter towards me with the Medical Defense
5:40
Speaker 2: Union telephone number on it, and said, ring this number.
5:45
Speaker 1: Shipman says nothing in response to the accusations.
5:49
Speaker 7: Why is the standard? And take a photograph and then
5:52
Speaker 7: go away.
5:53
Speaker 8: And I'm sure you've had enough time secretcent photographic and
5:56
Speaker 8: if it possible, I for.
5:57
Speaker 7: You just say.
5:58
Speaker 1: While the doctor simply continues to practice, the police requests
6:02
Speaker 1: the exhumation of his dead patients.
6:06
Speaker 4: The law in England about exhumation is quite strict. We
6:10
Speaker 4: don't want bodies being dug up for no good reason.
6:14
Speaker 4: But if the police feel there is the possibility of
6:17
Speaker 4: a crime, then they can apply to the Home Office
6:20
Speaker 4: and get a license to exumer body. Happens very infrequently.
6:25
Speaker 1: In the case of doctor Shipman, the authorities consent to
6:29
Speaker 1: the exhumation, just like journalists Mikaela Sitford. They hope to
6:34
Speaker 1: discover something new. On September the one, nineteen ninety eight,
6:42
Speaker 1: investigators examine eleven bodies, all patients of the general practitioner
6:48
Speaker 1: named Doctor Death. The investigators do not want to alarm anyone,
6:56
Speaker 1: and they proceed delicately. They work in the cover of night.
7:06
Speaker 7: Watching.
7:07
Speaker 2: The exgumations was macabre, but he was also very emotional,
7:11
Speaker 2: and there was the sound of the generators and the
7:14
Speaker 2: lights piercing the darkness in the middle of the night,
7:17
Speaker 2: and you knew what they were doing at that scene,
7:19
Speaker 2: so it was very emotional to what.
7:23
Speaker 1: The results are shocking. All the bodies contain an unusually
7:28
Speaker 1: high amount of morphine, a definitively deadly dose. The presumption,
7:36
Speaker 1: Shipman pretends to take a blood sample and secretly administers
7:40
Speaker 1: the morphine.
7:43
Speaker 4: Shipman is a very clever man. He knew how to kill,
7:48
Speaker 4: He had the ability to kill, and he had the
7:51
Speaker 4: materials to kill, and he put those three together to
7:55
Speaker 4: become a very prolific murderer.
7:58
Speaker 2: When the toxicology results showed that the women had died
8:02
Speaker 2: from an overdose of morphine, it became clear then that
8:06
Speaker 2: Shipman had killed them. What we didn't know was just
8:10
Speaker 2: how many he had murdered, and.
8:14
Speaker 1: Above all, why Shipman continues to kill. One day after
8:19
Speaker 1: the forensics results come back, the doctor must present himself
8:23
Speaker 1: to police. Sitford gets wind of it. Together with her
8:29
Speaker 1: press team, she follows him and his attorney to the
8:33
Speaker 1: police station.
8:37
Speaker 2: And he knew this was happening, but we kept at
8:40
Speaker 2: a distance that we couldn't hear what they were saying,
8:44
Speaker 2: and he was irritated by us, understandably, I guess. And
8:47
Speaker 2: at one point he turned round and he faced us
8:50
Speaker 2: and said, go on, then get you shot, and he
8:52
Speaker 2: put his arms out and Chriscleeve took that quite iconic
8:57
Speaker 2: picture of him, and it was the last picture of
8:59
Speaker 2: Shipman ever taken.
9:02
Speaker 1: Instead of simply interrogating Shipman, the police arrest him. They
9:07
Speaker 1: already have good evidence. Still, the doctor Stonewall's stating that
9:13
Speaker 1: he didn't kill the woman.
9:15
Speaker 8: Patient suggest that you have injected missus Grundit with a
9:20
Speaker 8: fatal overdose of one thing started.
9:22
Speaker 1: That No, but an examination of Shipman's computer shows he
9:29
Speaker 1: forges patient records after the fact.
9:35
Speaker 9: A good detective is far more experienced and investigating criminals
9:39
Speaker 9: than the criminal who's committing the crime. Usually, so very
9:42
Speaker 9: often people who try to cover up their tracks are
9:45
Speaker 9: doing it in the way that the police can quite
9:46
Speaker 9: easily and with their own experience figure out.
9:49
Speaker 1: Initially, investigators indict Shipment on fifteen counts of homicide, and
9:55
Speaker 1: the forensic examinations continue. Sitford also reali the cases taking
10:01
Speaker 1: on monstrous proportions.
10:04
Speaker 2: The police had to set up a special unit. It
10:06
Speaker 2: was a huge investigation, affecting hundreds and hundreds of people
10:10
Speaker 2: in Hide, and it was a terribly upsetting time.
10:14
Speaker 4: Most of the killings took place in the homes of
10:18
Speaker 4: the victims, but a few took place at his surgery,
10:21
Speaker 4: where people would come to see him and they would
10:24
Speaker 4: die in his consulting room. Very very unusual.
10:29
Speaker 1: Shipmen keeps silent both about the true number of murders
10:33
Speaker 1: and why he repeatedly has the urge to kill. In
10:37
Speaker 1: October of nineteen ninety nine, the trial begins. Meanwhile, it's
10:42
Speaker 1: clear the number of forged patient records goes into the hundreds,
10:48
Speaker 1: but only in fifteen cases is the evidence sufficient for
10:51
Speaker 1: an indictment.
10:53
Speaker 5: What you really are forced to do is try to
10:56
Speaker 5: identify cases where you think you can make very strong
11:01
Speaker 5: legal and forensic argument.
11:03
Speaker 1: Sidford is in the court room for the duration of
11:06
Speaker 1: the trial and remembers the homicidal physician sitting in the dock.
11:12
Speaker 2: I really don't think Shipman felt guilty or remorseful. I
11:16
Speaker 2: think he really didn't want to admit to what he'd
11:18
Speaker 2: done to himself, and so he continued in his usual way, impassive,
11:24
Speaker 2: slightly arrogant, and could hearted.
11:28
Speaker 1: After fifty seven days, the jury finds doctor Shipman guilty
11:32
Speaker 1: on all counts. He has given life in prison.
11:41
Speaker 4: The number of people Harold Shipman killed must always be
11:45
Speaker 4: a guest. It's certainly over two hundred, The question is
11:48
Speaker 4: it three hundred or four hundred or five hundred.
11:52
Speaker 1: Later, one thing becomes clear. It was more than fifteen
11:57
Speaker 1: after Shipman's conviction. Investigate ages discover he had already killed
12:02
Speaker 1: at least thirty people as a junior physician, and more
12:06
Speaker 1: than two hundred during his time as a general practitioner
12:10
Speaker 1: in the sleepy city of Hyde, on average, one murder
12:14
Speaker 1: every ten days.
12:18
Speaker 9: If we take into account the number of people that
12:20
Speaker 9: he's believed to have murdered, which is about two hundred
12:22
Speaker 9: and fifty, then he's definitely probably one of the most
12:24
Speaker 9: prolific serial murderers in any country's history.
12:29
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, the angel of Death takes
12:33
Speaker 1: his fate into his own hands. Shipman hangs himself in
12:36
Speaker 1: his cell. The question why he killed so many patients
12:41
Speaker 1: will never be answered for the people of Hyde.
12:46
Speaker 2: I worked on this story every day for eighteen months,
12:49
Speaker 2: and I saw the impacts it had on this town,
12:51
Speaker 2: and it was a very intense and emotional experience for me.
12:55
Speaker 2: And the fact is that impact is still fell in
12:58
Speaker 2: the town even today.
13:02
Speaker 1: Harold Shipman a doctor that neither the small city of
13:06
Speaker 1: Hyde nor all of England will ever forget Angels of
13:17
Speaker 1: death human beings who play god. They desire power over
13:23
Speaker 1: life and death.
13:25
Speaker 8: He said, I'm glad you appear to be unflappable, because
13:27
Speaker 8: the whole story is very disturbing.
13:31
Speaker 1: Investigators are on their heels. How do they bring the
13:34
Speaker 1: killers to trial? Sonthaufen in Algoy, the n idyllic town
13:46
Speaker 1: at the foothills of the German Alps and home to
13:50
Speaker 1: the angel of death Stiffhan Letter.
13:56
Speaker 4: His treatment was more than just helping a few people.
14:01
Speaker 1: It was deliberate mode. As a nurse, he leads a
14:05
Speaker 1: perfect double life. Neither colleagues nor the police suspect that
14:10
Speaker 1: someone here is secretly using this job to play god.
14:17
Speaker 3: Four weeks after his first ever shift as a nurse,
14:21
Speaker 3: he had already killed the first person.
14:23
Speaker 1: And this is only the beginning of an unbelievable killing spree.
14:32
Speaker 1: Snt Orfan, far from the noise of the big city,
14:37
Speaker 1: people live peacefully at the foot of the Alps. Until
14:42
Speaker 1: July twenty ninth, two thousand and four. Police arrests the
14:49
Speaker 1: nurse Stefanletter at his home the allegation stealing medicines. During
14:59
Speaker 1: his arrest, Stefan Letter suddenly begins talking about numerous murders.
15:06
Speaker 1: At first, no one really knows what it's all about.
15:13
Speaker 5: He immediately confesses not only to taking the drugs, but
15:17
Speaker 5: to administering them to a number of patients, and writes
15:21
Speaker 5: out a confession about all of these murders that he committed.
15:25
Speaker 4: So for the police, the investigation is turned upside down.
15:28
Speaker 4: Suddenly you have someone who's confessing, but you then have
15:31
Speaker 4: to go out and prove that actually what he's saying
15:33
Speaker 4: is true, not proving that what he's saying is incorrect.
15:39
Speaker 1: The police don't mention anything publicly. The crime journalist Mattias
15:45
Speaker 1: Frank feels that something big is turning up.
15:52
Speaker 3: I began researching right away and found an attorney named
15:56
Speaker 3: in one of these reports who had two or three
15:59
Speaker 3: joint plaintiffs. I got in touch with him very quickly.
16:06
Speaker 1: Through the attorney, Frank gets access to the hospital records. First,
16:12
Speaker 1: he wants to find out what drugs the nurse stole
16:16
Speaker 1: and what letter's intentions were.
16:22
Speaker 3: What was on the table A record of the drug thefts,
16:28
Speaker 3: and you knew they were narcotics and respiratory paralyzers, drugs
16:33
Speaker 3: that normally would not have been used in those cases.
16:38
Speaker 7: No matter will swam.
16:40
Speaker 1: Still, no one notices the beloved nurse orders the narcotics
16:46
Speaker 1: extremely frequently drugs that work like fatal poison in the
16:51
Speaker 1: case of an overdose.
16:55
Speaker 5: The most prolific killers are those who are poisoners.
16:59
Speaker 9: And of course us, it's in a healthcare environment, which
17:01
Speaker 9: is the last place to expect anybody to do something
17:04
Speaker 9: of this nature.
17:06
Speaker 1: Frank also discovers, for one and a half years, Letter
17:10
Speaker 1: has only worked the night shift when no one will
17:14
Speaker 1: disturb him. This is all suspicious. The journalist shares his
17:19
Speaker 1: hunch with police.
17:23
Speaker 3: Then they started to check all the fatalities on his
17:25
Speaker 3: ward during his shift.
17:29
Speaker 1: It turns out that the number of deaths during Letters
17:32
Speaker 1: shifts is conspicuously high.
17:38
Speaker 5: The time frame you typically see these types of poisoning
17:41
Speaker 5: cases with nurses is on that midnight shift. Why, because
17:45
Speaker 5: doctors are typically not around.
17:48
Speaker 1: At this point, Police block the flow of all information.
17:53
Speaker 1: Frank continues to investigate on his own. He contacts all
17:58
Speaker 1: the victims' families and discovers that many of them have
18:03
Speaker 1: long had doubts about their relatives' deaths.
18:09
Speaker 3: The worst nightmare was the story about the mother who
18:12
Speaker 3: is injected with poison in front of her family. It
18:17
Speaker 3: exceeds the limits of imagination to desputstrat.
18:22
Speaker 1: To know for sure how their relatives died, the families
18:26
Speaker 1: must consent to an exhumation. With Mattios Frank's help, they're
18:33
Speaker 1: finally able to be convinced. Police examined forty three former patients.
18:43
Speaker 5: So you're literally going back and looking at hundreds of
18:48
Speaker 5: individuals who died, both patients of his and patients that
18:53
Speaker 5: were not his, that were assumed to be natural deaths.
18:59
Speaker 1: And indeed, twenty eight victims show an overdoses of the
19:03
Speaker 1: stolen narcotics. It's clear the seemingly harmless and friendly nurse
19:10
Speaker 1: is in reality an angel of death. A shocking realization,
19:16
Speaker 1: especially for the families.
19:21
Speaker 3: They wanted to know, did my mother, did my father
19:25
Speaker 3: die like this? Or from natural causes? They were all curious,
19:29
Speaker 3: even though it was very difficult, both emotionally and psychologically,
19:34
Speaker 3: and the.
19:36
Speaker 1: Letter himself says his goal was always to help people
19:41
Speaker 1: and to free them from their suffering.
19:49
Speaker 4: His treatment was more than just helping a few people.
19:55
Speaker 4: It was deliberate murder.
19:57
Speaker 1: The German media gives Stefan lett to a name, the
20:02
Speaker 1: Angel of Death of Sinthoven.
20:06
Speaker 3: After these investigations, the police had everything they needed, so
20:10
Speaker 3: did the prosecutor who led the examination. That is, the
20:16
Speaker 3: evidence was so strong, so certain, that the case could
20:19
Speaker 3: only end with a severe punishment.
20:22
Speaker 7: Auged half a few muster.
20:26
Speaker 1: Stefan Letter's double life seems to be over for half
20:31
Speaker 1: a year. The court examines the evidence and the witness testimony,
20:37
Speaker 1: and the Angel of Death confesses again, portrays himself as
20:41
Speaker 1: a savior who acts out of pity. There is no
20:47
Speaker 1: trace of regret or guilt.
20:54
Speaker 6: There are numerous victims that he seemed to kill somewhat
20:58
Speaker 6: at random. They weren't old people, they weren't just people
21:02
Speaker 6: who were in unstable condition, they weren't just diseased people.
21:05
Speaker 6: And some people were noticeable because they came in for
21:08
Speaker 6: minor treatments and they ended up leaving dead.
21:11
Speaker 1: Mattias Frank is present at the entire trial, together with
21:15
Speaker 1: the victims' families, all the way to the end. Even
21:19
Speaker 1: now he cannot understand Letter.
21:23
Speaker 3: It is a perversion, the opposite of healing. It is
21:27
Speaker 3: killing Shatai.
21:30
Speaker 1: Finally the verdict, the Angel of Death of Sondhaufen receives
21:38
Speaker 1: life in prison for Mattias frank Letters deeds are still incomprehensible,
21:47
Speaker 1: and he hopes that thanks to his work, the like
21:51
Speaker 1: will never happen again. But there are angels of death
22:05
Speaker 1: who kill out of a pure desire for control, and
22:09
Speaker 1: who repeatedly get away with it.
22:12
Speaker 8: He was gone, and we had absolutely no idea where
22:15
Speaker 8: he was.
22:16
Speaker 1: Others live among us for years and even invoked Jesus Christ.
22:23
Speaker 5: She is a stone called killer. She had no remorse
22:28
Speaker 5: for these.
22:28
Speaker 1: Victims, Angels of death. They're among the worst criminals of
22:34
Speaker 1: all time the US nineteen ninety seven. A killer has
22:41
Speaker 1: been roaming the country for seventeen years. His trick forgery, deception,
22:46
Speaker 1: and getting away with it again and again.
22:49
Speaker 4: He is a doctor who killed his patients, but didn't
22:53
Speaker 4: just kill one or two, killed hundreds.
22:57
Speaker 1: What begins in one American state ends with a worldwide search.
23:06
Speaker 1: Michael Swango, hundreds of FBI agents are committed to hunting
23:13
Speaker 1: this angel of death.
23:15
Speaker 7: Well, that is why I saw us come into the room.
23:17
Speaker 8: The color drained from his face, and he said, I'm
23:21
Speaker 8: glad you appear to be unflappable, because the whole story
23:23
Speaker 8: is very disturbing.
23:25
Speaker 1: How does one catch a power hungry killer who always
23:29
Speaker 1: wraps everyone around his finger. Quincy, the cozy little town
23:37
Speaker 1: in the state of Illinois. Here the world seems a
23:40
Speaker 1: peaceful place until nineteen eighty four, when mysterious events punt
23:51
Speaker 1: Quincy's idyll. The city hospital calls Detective Billy Meyer for help.
23:58
Speaker 1: It's about a young doctor.
24:02
Speaker 10: The young men at work as paramedics on the ambulance
24:06
Speaker 10: had complained to their boss that they felt they were
24:09
Speaker 10: being poisoned by a co worker, namely Michael Swanga, and
24:15
Speaker 10: so the paramedics themselves were the one that actually brought
24:20
Speaker 10: the whole thing to the forefront.
24:22
Speaker 1: Maya is unsure has a plot been hatched against the
24:28
Speaker 1: new colleague or are the allegations true. Examinations show donuts
24:39
Speaker 1: that Swango has given to his colleagues are indeed laced
24:43
Speaker 1: with antkiller. On the basis of witness testimony and the
24:51
Speaker 1: new evidence, Detective Maya gets a search warrant for Swango's house.
24:57
Speaker 1: He hopes to find more evidence to prove whether the
25:00
Speaker 1: charming young doctor is a poisoner.
25:04
Speaker 10: When we first got here, we noticed there were all
25:08
Speaker 10: kinds of chemicals in the kitchen cabinets which would normally
25:11
Speaker 10: contain food products. Instead, it was a whole chemistry lab
25:16
Speaker 10: full of poisons. I felt a sense of evil in
25:20
Speaker 10: the apartment. I felt a sense of uneasiness in the apartment.
25:26
Speaker 10: He had other objects and things in there that was weird.
25:31
Speaker 1: Insecticides, corrosive acids, powerful drugs, and syringes. The place looks
25:38
Speaker 1: more like the home of a junkie than of a doctor.
25:45
Speaker 1: This is enough evidence from Aya to detain Swango and
25:49
Speaker 1: take a look at his past. Swango's childhood is marked
25:55
Speaker 1: by a strong interest in pain, poison, death. As a schoolboy,
26:03
Speaker 1: he already talks of becoming a doctor, a wish that
26:07
Speaker 1: will later cost hundreds of people their lives.
26:11
Speaker 5: He's really in the most prime position to have an
26:15
Speaker 5: effect on someone's life.
26:16
Speaker 6: He really enjoyed being in control, and I think the
26:19
Speaker 6: ultimate way to be in control is to decide when
26:21
Speaker 6: somebody has to die.
26:23
Speaker 1: In college and medical school, it's already apparent the more
26:28
Speaker 1: intimacy Swango establishes with patients, the more who die. His
26:35
Speaker 1: fellow students whisper that he is the doctor with a
26:39
Speaker 1: license to kill. The result, Swango must leave the university,
26:49
Speaker 1: but he simply moves to a new state, gets his
26:53
Speaker 1: medical license, and again mysterious fatalities pile up around him.
27:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, Swango goes back to Quincy.
27:04
Speaker 6: What we see is a clear facade of a caring doctor,
27:08
Speaker 6: someone who's there to help you, and actually, in the end,
27:12
Speaker 6: what he ended up doing was killing people.
27:16
Speaker 1: But even though Swango has a dark past, the only
27:19
Speaker 1: thing detected Billy Maya can prove is that he laced
27:22
Speaker 1: the doughnuts with ant killer. Swango's punishment two years in prison,
27:28
Speaker 1: the case seems closed.
27:33
Speaker 4: The police just couldn't think the unthinkable. They couldn't believe
27:41
Speaker 4: that a doctor could do this, and that's what stopped
27:44
Speaker 4: their understanding of what was happening.
27:50
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, barely out of prison, doctor Swango
27:55
Speaker 1: forges new documents, takes a new name, and begins working
27:59
Speaker 1: again as a specialist in several US states. The number
28:04
Speaker 1: of people he secretly kills with lethal injections in the
28:07
Speaker 1: next six years is still unknown.
28:10
Speaker 4: At this point, his need was entirely internal. He didn't
28:20
Speaker 4: want to be caught, He didn't want everyone to know,
28:23
Speaker 4: but he wanted the knowledge that he could kill at
28:28
Speaker 4: any time.
28:30
Speaker 1: Girlfriend job Swango leads a seemingly normal life, but then
28:36
Speaker 1: his girlfriend frequently gets sick. Her mother believes that Swango
28:40
Speaker 1: is poisoning her and reports the charming doctor to the
28:43
Speaker 1: American Medical Association. The FBI begins an undercover investigation. In
28:50
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, ten years after the poisonings in Quincy.
28:54
Speaker 1: FBI special agent Jim McCarthy takes over the case.
28:58
Speaker 7: What was difficult initially these are all suspicious deaths.
29:02
Speaker 8: However, they happened in a hospital setting, so there were
29:06
Speaker 8: sick people there, some of them were bound to die,
29:08
Speaker 8: and all the victims in our case, we're going to
29:10
Speaker 8: have death certificates and causes of death already established, so
29:15
Speaker 8: it would be difficult to pick out who was actually
29:17
Speaker 8: murdered and over turn those findings that were already on
29:22
Speaker 8: a medical death certificate.
29:25
Speaker 5: In most investigations, when you're looking at homicide cases, you
29:28
Speaker 5: have the victims, you've done each victim's analysis, and then
29:33
Speaker 5: you're working towards identifying an offender. Here we were in
29:37
Speaker 5: a position to work exactly the opposite way, which is
29:39
Speaker 5: a much more difficult way to work.
29:42
Speaker 1: Hospitals declined to exhume bodies on the basis of speculation.
29:47
Speaker 1: McCarthy searches for more evidence. He goes from hospital to
29:51
Speaker 1: hospital making inquiries, but Swango manages to escape each time,
29:57
Speaker 1: and no one thinks the courtis doctor is dangerous.
30:02
Speaker 8: I think the real problem was getting people to understand
30:04
Speaker 8: what they were seeing and then take the appropriate action.
30:07
Speaker 7: Doctor Swango.
30:11
Speaker 8: Is an evil genius and he used the superior intellect
30:15
Speaker 8: to kill people and get away with him.
30:19
Speaker 1: McCarthy is certain that Swango is continuing to work secretly
30:23
Speaker 1: under an assumed name and to kill, but he has
30:29
Speaker 1: not one piece of evidence. Even his FBI colleagues stopped
30:36
Speaker 1: taking him seriously. Now he investigates on his own. Months
30:41
Speaker 1: go by, and then a year.
30:47
Speaker 8: We had tracked him to Georgia and we had just
30:51
Speaker 8: obtained a warrant for a minor felony of false statements.
30:57
Speaker 8: When we went to have him arrested by our agents
30:59
Speaker 8: in the atlant Ant office, he was gone and we
31:03
Speaker 8: had absolutely no idea where he was.
31:06
Speaker 1: Swango vanishes again. Then Jim McCarthy hears from an employment
31:11
Speaker 1: agency for doctors, the Angel of Death has applied to
31:15
Speaker 1: work in Zimbabwe. Immediately, the FBI agent and the four
31:20
Speaker 1: mounteen take a flight to Africa. A hunt for evidence
31:24
Speaker 1: follows evidence whose purpose is to finally put Swango behind bars.
31:33
Speaker 8: We rented four by four vehicles or jeeps and went
31:36
Speaker 8: out to the bush to where the hospital was interviewed.
31:39
Speaker 8: The staff at the hospital gathered evidence from their records.
31:43
Speaker 8: Then the local police assisted us in finding the villagers
31:47
Speaker 8: where the bodies of his victims had been taken for burial.
31:52
Speaker 8: And when you finally find the records that indicate doctor
31:55
Speaker 8: Swango was in a certain area, these clues that would
31:58
Speaker 8: turn into evidence, Now it's exhilarating.
32:00
Speaker 7: Actually it's exhilarating.
32:02
Speaker 1: In Africa, McCarthy finds witnesses who have survived, who testify
32:08
Speaker 1: and also allow bodies to be exhumed. Here he finally
32:13
Speaker 1: finds the evidence that Swango's patients were poisoned, and investigators
32:19
Speaker 1: find the very same poison in Swango's house. After seventeen years,
32:26
Speaker 1: the noose is tightening around Swango's neck. Jim McCarthy is
32:32
Speaker 1: close on his heels and then Swango leaves the country.
32:43
Speaker 8: So he applied for a job in Saudi Arabia, but
32:46
Speaker 8: the catch was he had to come into the United
32:48
Speaker 8: States to get a work visa. He even tried mailing
32:51
Speaker 8: his passport to someone in the United States to get
32:54
Speaker 8: that for him, and they send it back saying, no,
32:56
Speaker 8: you have to come here. However, when he landed at Chico,
33:01
Speaker 8: we had put a notice in a lookout notice and
33:03
Speaker 8: we were immediately notified.
33:05
Speaker 7: So that led to his immediate arrest.
33:07
Speaker 1: On June the twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven, Airport police
33:12
Speaker 1: arrests Michael Swango. Initially, he receives the forty eight month
33:17
Speaker 1: sentence for falsifying documents and fleeing the country, but this
33:23
Speaker 1: doesn't satisfy McCarthy. He wants to get Swango for the
33:28
Speaker 1: murders too, so he requests a personal interview and hopes
33:32
Speaker 1: for a confession. Shortly before Swango's sentences up, a judge
33:38
Speaker 1: consents to a visit and the investigator has some serious
33:43
Speaker 1: leverage his evidence from Africa.
33:48
Speaker 8: When doctor Swangar saw us come into the room, the
33:50
Speaker 8: color drained from his face and he said, I knew
33:54
Speaker 8: this was going to happen.
33:54
Speaker 7: I heard him a document.
33:56
Speaker 8: There was a new extradition treaty between the United States
33:59
Speaker 8: and Zimbabwe. As he started to read it, I said,
34:02
Speaker 8: you're about to be in died in New York on
34:04
Speaker 8: murder or face the death penalty. He starts to put
34:08
Speaker 8: his hands up and says I cannot do this anymore.
34:10
Speaker 8: He says, I will make a dealew spare me the
34:14
Speaker 8: death penalty, agree not to actraduct me to Africa. I
34:17
Speaker 8: will tell you the whole story, and I'm glad you
34:19
Speaker 8: appear to be unflappable, because the whole story is very disturbing.
34:24
Speaker 1: Jim McCarthy reckons with a great deal of things, but
34:27
Speaker 1: not with Swrango's confession that his victim's number over five hundred.
34:32
Speaker 1: He could even be thousands of patients. The angel of
34:35
Speaker 1: death himself doesn't know the precise death toe anymore, a
34:40
Speaker 1: shot for McCarthy. Ultimately, the evidence is only sufficient in
34:45
Speaker 1: the case of four murders. Then on September the sixth,
34:49
Speaker 1: two thousand, the sentence Life in Prison, a chapter that
34:55
Speaker 1: finally ends after seventeen years of secret killing. Vienna nineteen
35:03
Speaker 1: ninety five. She's a dapper lady and a greedy angel
35:11
Speaker 1: of death. Elfrida Blauensteiner. Her pattern to treat old single
35:18
Speaker 1: men to drug cocktails the desired side effect death. Even
35:24
Speaker 1: experts are shocked.
35:28
Speaker 11: Step by step she started to kill.
35:31
Speaker 1: She considers herself innocent, a harmless old lady who wouldn't
35:35
Speaker 1: hurt a fly.
35:36
Speaker 5: She is a stone cold killer. She had no remorse
35:41
Speaker 5: for these victims.
35:42
Speaker 1: A killer who taunts the police and loves the press.
35:49
Speaker 11: I'd never kill anyone who.
35:51
Speaker 1: Is really behind the widows facade. Rossot's Ansbach a small
36:01
Speaker 1: town about an hour from Austria's capital of Vienna. Here
36:05
Speaker 1: everyone knows everyone, people take care of each other. On
36:10
Speaker 1: November the twenty first, nineteen ninety five, the town is
36:13
Speaker 1: in a state of shock. Alois Pichler, a beloved member
36:18
Speaker 1: of the community, lies dead in his bathtub. The last
36:22
Speaker 1: person with him was his nurse and lover, a lusty,
36:26
Speaker 1: friendly widow, Elfrida Blowensteiner. Aloys Pischler's nephew immediately grows suspicious.
36:39
Speaker 1: He challenges the will according to which the sole heir
36:43
Speaker 1: is supposedly Elfrida Blowensteiner.
36:49
Speaker 5: So he contacted the police and he said, you know what,
36:51
Speaker 5: I think. My uncle's death is very suspicious and the
36:55
Speaker 5: changing of this will is coming at a very odd time.
36:58
Speaker 5: I think you should invest.
37:01
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happens. The nephew of the deceased
37:06
Speaker 1: puts detectives on Blowensteiner's trail. Doctor Segrun rosmanit is commissioned
37:13
Speaker 1: by the police to give her professional opinion about the widow.
37:17
Speaker 1: She decides whether the woman is sane or not, for
37:20
Speaker 1: it is soon clear this is not a natural death.
37:25
Speaker 11: An autopsy was performed before Pichler's funeral, and a toxic
37:29
Speaker 11: dose of anafrenil, an antidepressant, and eug lucon, a diabetic medication,
37:35
Speaker 11: was found that raised suspicion amitimar.
37:39
Speaker 1: Pishles's doctor had never prescribed him any of the drugs.
37:43
Speaker 1: Police begin to investigate secretly in order to observe Blowensteiner
37:49
Speaker 1: in her everyday life. Then their chance, she travels to Vienna.
37:57
Speaker 11: The investigator searched the whole house eug lucon and anaphreniel.
38:02
Speaker 11: They found nothing, no drugs, no packaging, no prescriptions, no evidence.
38:10
Speaker 1: But why would a man who suffers from neither depression
38:13
Speaker 1: nor diabetes take these powerful drugs? Elfrida Bloensteiner could be
38:18
Speaker 1: the answer, Police learned from the deceased's nephew. Pischler and
38:24
Speaker 1: Bloensteiner had met through a lonely hearts ad seeking an
38:31
Speaker 1: amiable partner, also oder a clever ploy on Bloensteiner's part.
38:39
Speaker 1: The choice was Alois Pischler, retiree, single and above all wealthy.
38:48
Speaker 1: During the undercover investigation, Bloensteiner fritters away her inheritance on
38:54
Speaker 1: expensive jewelry and clothing, and officers discover from their observation.
39:00
Speaker 1: Blouensteiner is addicted to gambling. She needs money, a clear
39:05
Speaker 1: murder motive.
39:09
Speaker 4: This lady had two driving forces in her life, which
39:14
Speaker 4: in a sense were opposites. She was desperate that she
39:18
Speaker 4: had money, that she wasn't poor, and yet when she
39:21
Speaker 4: got money, she had an addiction to the casinos in Vienna.
39:26
Speaker 1: From now on, officers tap her phone and get lucky.
39:31
Speaker 1: Blauensteiner speaks to her attorney about a forged will, a
39:38
Speaker 1: will from which he expects to get a lot of money.
39:41
Speaker 1: This is enough evidence for detectives to arrest the lusty
39:44
Speaker 1: Austrian woman, Sigrun Ross money. It speaks with her trying
39:49
Speaker 1: to break through the facade.
39:52
Speaker 11: It was a very tricky case. It was a new
39:55
Speaker 11: thing using diabetes medication to induce a de like condition.
40:01
Speaker 11: It was poisoning with an unusual poison.
40:06
Speaker 1: Gift, and forensic experts establish Pichler died of a heart attack.
40:12
Speaker 1: The evil angel of death must have planned the murders
40:15
Speaker 1: ahead of time.
40:20
Speaker 4: The method that she used was to drug the individual
40:24
Speaker 4: with an antidepressant drug so that they were at least
40:28
Speaker 4: sleepy and probably unconscious. She would also give them the
40:32
Speaker 4: anti diabetic drug to lower their blood sugar and then
40:37
Speaker 4: she would cover them in wet, cold cloths and call
40:41
Speaker 4: for emergency help, but they would die soon after arriving
40:46
Speaker 4: at hospital.
40:48
Speaker 1: The interrogation begins. It becomes a game between police and
40:53
Speaker 1: the culprit russ money, and the officers quickly understand how
40:57
Speaker 1: to break the woman.
41:01
Speaker 5: Clearly, she had a very big ego. She thought she
41:04
Speaker 5: was very smart. So you played it that strength. You
41:08
Speaker 5: basically compliment her on how man you did this so well?
41:13
Speaker 5: You got away with it for so long. You know,
41:15
Speaker 5: I'm really amazed. I don't think anybody else could have
41:17
Speaker 5: done this. You know, how did you do it?
41:21
Speaker 1: The strategy works. Elfrida Blauensteiner is a proud woman, proud
41:26
Speaker 1: even of such deeds. She confesses to murdering Alois Pischla,
41:32
Speaker 1: and it comes out Pischla is not the first man
41:35
Speaker 1: she met through an advertisement. The case seems to take
41:39
Speaker 1: on proportions no one reckons with. From now on, the
41:43
Speaker 1: press only calls Blaensteiner the black widow. She takes the
41:48
Speaker 1: stand right at the beginning of the trial, and then
41:51
Speaker 1: something inconceivable happens. She denies all guilt before the court
41:56
Speaker 1: revises her.
41:57
Speaker 11: Confession, you might never kill anyone.
42:01
Speaker 1: Blawensteiner portrays herself as having helped liberated the aged Alloys Pischler.
42:08
Speaker 4: It's done to help, It's done for kindness. It's not
42:11
Speaker 4: a murder.
42:12
Speaker 6: It's possible that she came to believe her own lives.
42:16
Speaker 1: The accused speaks willingly and at length, but only with
42:20
Speaker 1: the press.
42:22
Speaker 11: I can't help.
42:23
Speaker 1: It, but all indications are against you.
42:26
Speaker 11: Indications, my dear indications.
42:30
Speaker 1: Here is the incontrovertible evidence. Five short days after meeting
42:35
Speaker 1: Alloys Pischler, the accused already has his checkbook in her possession.
42:41
Speaker 1: Investigators also know Pischler's real will was burned, a new
42:46
Speaker 1: one favoring Bloensteiner was forged. The result, about one hundred
42:52
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand euros find their way into the homicidal
42:55
Speaker 1: widow's hands. The sentence life in prison. But investigators believe
43:03
Speaker 1: that Blauensteiner might have killed even more people, not only
43:07
Speaker 1: in Rossat's Hansbach, in her hometown Vienna. They start looking
43:11
Speaker 1: for evidence for more victims. In Vienna, they discover two
43:19
Speaker 1: more mysterious deaths, former boyfriends of the evil angel of
43:24
Speaker 1: Death and a dead woman her neighbor Francisca Kurbell Zigrun Rossmann.
43:30
Speaker 1: It is sure the convicted widow is wholly of sound mind.
43:34
Speaker 1: The choice of the neighbor is no coincidence.
43:40
Speaker 11: Blauensteiner noticed that the neighbor had something valuable checkbooks, so
43:45
Speaker 11: she started taking care of her, nourishing her, feeding her,
43:50
Speaker 11: pepping her up so that people took notice how well
43:53
Speaker 11: she was doing. And then she started killing her, just
43:57
Speaker 11: like with all her other victims.
44:00
Speaker 1: Iron Rosmonitt helps investigators, giving them insight into the Black Widow.
44:10
Speaker 1: The police decide to open the graves and exhume the bodies,
44:15
Speaker 1: and they find the missing evidence. All the bodies contain
44:19
Speaker 1: the same poison as Alois Pischle. Clearly, the Black Widow
44:28
Speaker 1: has been playing foul with men for decades. She never
44:33
Speaker 1: buys the drugs at the same pharmacy. None of her
44:36
Speaker 1: victims suspects what the dapper woman is really up to.
44:46
Speaker 5: But really this is all for show. This is all
44:50
Speaker 5: theatrics because she is a stone cold killer. She had
44:55
Speaker 5: no remorse for these victims. All she was interested in
44:59
Speaker 5: was the money.
45:00
Speaker 6: She kept getting away with it. And what we found
45:02
Speaker 6: ourselves with was a serial killer by the time she
45:05
Speaker 6: got caught.
45:06
Speaker 1: Once again, the evidence is overwhelming. Segoon Rosmanite serves as
45:12
Speaker 1: an expert witness when investigators once again put the now
45:16
Speaker 1: seventy year old woman on trial. She understands the reasons she.
45:23
Speaker 11: Was indicted for two murders. Many people assumed that this
45:26
Speaker 11: was only the tip of the iceberg, as she publicly
45:31
Speaker 11: said she wanted to get married again after her release
45:36
Speaker 11: and hoped that she would meet another sweet person like
45:39
Speaker 11: her fritzl. So we feared that a new killing spree
45:44
Speaker 11: might start.
45:45
Speaker 1: Loyally for ross Manitt and investigators, this is an important trial,
45:54
Speaker 1: the last chance to put the black widow behind bars forever.
45:58
Speaker 1: Ross Manitt has no doubt they're they're dealing with an
46:01
Speaker 1: angel of death.
46:03
Speaker 11: It was fascinating to see how she presented herself, what
46:07
Speaker 11: she said and how she said it with such conviction
46:13
Speaker 11: a layman never would have guessed, and how she tortured
46:16
Speaker 11: her victims, what she did to them and Angana.
46:21
Speaker 1: But the judges do see through the facade. They find
46:25
Speaker 1: Blowensteiner guilty and sentence her to life in prison. About
46:30
Speaker 1: two years later, Elfrida Blaensteiner dies of a brain tumor
46:34
Speaker 1: in prison at the age of seventy two. She's buried
46:41
Speaker 1: in Vienna Central Cemetery in an unmarked grave. For Zigrun Rosmanit,
46:48
Speaker 1: it was a strange case. Women rarely kill and rarer
46:52
Speaker 1: still old women. But Rosmannitt knows everyone has his own style.
47:00
Speaker 11: Women are different from men when they plan crimes. They
47:04
Speaker 11: are more creative, refined, They speak less about it and
47:08
Speaker 11: act more decisively, and they are more patient. They can
47:13
Speaker 11: wait longer, so could Elfride Blauensteiner.
47:22
Speaker 1: Four innocent people die at the Black Widow's hand. After
47:26
Speaker 1: a six year investigation, one thing is clear. This angel
47:30
Speaker 1: of death is history forever for ros Monit and all
47:34
Speaker 1: of Austria. The case is closed. Angels of death. For
47:42
Speaker 1: years they kill unnoticed and in secret, driven by lust
47:46
Speaker 1: for power, sympathy and greed. But in the end they
47:51
Speaker 1: all pay for it. Two are serving life sentences and
47:55
Speaker 1: two are forevermore history.