Was Dr. Michael Swango Involved in the Tylenol scare?

Some 32 years ago on this date, seven people in the Chicago area died mysteriously. The only common denominator in their deaths was that they all used Extra Strength Tylenol. Shortly thereafter, it was determined that they all took Tylenol capsules that were laced with cyanide. The year was 1982. That was two years before the name Dr. Michael Swango became newsworthy.

Swango is a convicted killer and possibly has killed up to 60 people both domestically and internationally, has had a book written about him (Quincy native James Stewart’s “Blind Eye”) and is currently serving a life sentence in Colorado. Billy Meyer was the chief investigator for the Quincy Police Department in the 1980s when this case presented itself.

According to Meyer, the case began in September of 1984 and went to trial on April 25, 1985. Swango came onto the police radar after paramedics at Blessing Hospital were becoming ill after eating donuts and drinking iced tea that Swango gave them. The donuts and tea were later found to have ant killer in them. Swango also helped out at Quincy Notre Dame athletic events and dispersed drinking water during a game which made several players to become ill some 30 or so minutes after they consumed the drink.

Police investigated the incidents and after Blessing Hospital officials opened Swango’s locker they saw the ant killer. They tested the poison in Swango’s locker with what was on the donuts and found a match. A later search warrant found ant killer and other poison’s and poison recipes in Swango’s apartment. Meyer believes that after they found the poisons in Swango’s apartment, he transplanted ant hills in his yard as a defense.

With no one actually dying from those incidents, Swango was tried and convicted of aggravated battery. After serving time, the craziness of Dr. Swango got even more bizarre as he ended up getting several jobs as a doctor at Ohio State University, on Long Island and also in South Africa. In all three locations, many of Dr. Swango’s patients died leading to plenty of speculation not only on the deaths but also on just how this man could get hired again. In South Africa, Swango is wanted and would be executed if he would ever return there.

Investigator Meyer has recently revealed that he and other people feel that Swango may have been involved in the Tylenol scare that killed those seven people in the Chicago area in 1982 as well.

With Swango incarcerated, look for more coming from him in the near future, perhaps an admission of guilt for other murders that are currently unsolved, perhaps even his involvement in the Tylenol scare. More books are waiting to be written including one from Billy Meyer as well. That one should be interesting. To this day, however, the perpetrators of the Tylenol murders have never been found.