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Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
Tyson (00:00.295)
Hey, there we go. I tell you, since I think it would have been maybe six months ago that I first heard your name and you've thrown me down a very interesting rabbit hole because I think until six months ago, whenever someone mentioned anything to do with a medical professional to me, it was a universal, fairly much positive response. You always think of people doing the right thing for other people and
Bruce Sackman (00:00.974)
Okay.
Tyson (00:28.711)
You know living with some element of good nature in the role that they do and then the name Bruce Sackman got got thrown at me and I started to go down the rabbit hole and you've introduced me to a wild wild world of a small percentage thank God of a Fair amount of medical professionals who seem to have a different intent?
Bruce Sackman (00:52.142)
Oh, absolutely. And thank you very much for having me on the show, Tyson. You know, I always like to preface my remarks by saying that the overwhelming majority of health care providers are the most honest, decent, hardworking, dedicated people on the face of the earth. I mean, they have so much compassion. Many of the nurses and the doctors, not only they care for people,
But after work, they even care for the pets. I mean, it's because this universe of people are so dedicated and so professional that enables that very, very, very tiny, tiny minority of people to take advantage of being in a group like that. Look, if you're so inclined to kill somebody and if you're a member of the mafia or an outlaw motorcycle gang, well...
That's not going to come as any shock. But if you're inclined to kill somebody and choose a profession where everyone has taken an oath to save lives, that's a much better place to hide than it is in the mafia or outlaw motorcycle gang.
Tyson (02:08.135)
Yeah, you're so right. I mean, the sheer level of entry that you have to go through in order to be able to get the qualifications required to be in a position to either help or hurt a patient under your care seems like a fairly big barrier to entry. I mean, the idea of someone in the mafia doing something like this, as you say, is not that much of a surprise. But yeah, not to mention the fact that
as you've touched on majority of the medical professional, a large majority of the medical professional are doing exactly what you just said. But the fact that you have to go to college, you have to study, you have to pass the exams. It's in fact, that was something I was curious to talk to you about. Maybe I just throw it at you now. It seems as though either there's a higher level of commitment to the cause of the desire to go down this path for your malicious reasons or.
something changes psychologically when you find yourself on the inside of the institution. Maybe you get a taste of power. Maybe you get a taste of praise. Maybe you get a taste of a combination of those things. What do you think it is that's going through the mind? I mean, I know there's so many different kinds of doctors and medical professionals who have been accused and who have been charged with this kind of stuff. So I'm sure there's no one size fits all answer, but it seems like too much work.
to have to go through to being in control of someone's living or dying.
Bruce Sackman (03:39.694)
Well, of course, it is a lot of work to become a medical professional, particularly a physician or a nurse. And remember, these people take an oath. They take an oath to save lives. You know, the physicians take the Hippocratic oath, which says, I shall do no harm to my patients. Nurses often take something called the Florence Nightingale oath, which is very similar.
So not only are they highly educated, but they've taken an oath. They've raised their hand and sware to save lives, which of course the overwhelming majority of them do. But I often get asked, what's the motivation? You know, what motivates these people to commit murders? And when I say murders, I'm not talking about like a Dr. Kvorkian where a patient is near death and an assisted suicide.
I'm talking about actually murdering patients many times who were actually improving only to get a visit from this particular doctor or nurse who decided to end their lives. So the motivations are, there are several and I'm not a psychiatrist, a psychologist, just a lay person, but I can tell you what I've seen with over 25 years of doing these type of cases. I would say the number one reason,
The number one motivation that I've seen is something called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Now what that is, is Munchausen syndrome is when a person will intentionally harm themselves, and let's say go into a hospital because they're looking for care and attention and they're not getting it anywhere else. Munchausen syndrome by proxy, sometimes we see, when a mother will intentionally harm their child,
bring that child into the hospital to show the staff what a caring, loving parent they are and bring attention to themselves even though they actually harm the child to begin with. Okay, so Munchausen syndrome by proxy and I'll give you a good example of how this plays for doctors and particularly nurses. When you look in the evaluations of many of these nurses and doctors who commit these murders,
Bruce Sackman (05:59.662)
You see, they're like, OK, doctors, OK, nurses, except when it comes to something called a code. A code is when a patient goes into a cardiac event and the crash card comes in and the doctors and the nurses and sometimes security comes in. It's very exciting. It's the most exciting part of a nurses or doctors day for the most part. All right. And this gives these doctors and nurses this opportunity to shine.
this opportunity to show how talented, how wonderful, how skilled they are, how the hospital is so dependent on them and their skills. This is their opportunity to show off to everybody. Of course, they put the patient in the code to begin with, so they're prepared for this. And if the patient dies, well, the patient dies. But you know what? Just look at how that Nurse Bruce performed.
during that code. I mean, he was barking orders at the young interns that were scared out of their mind, and he's just a nurse. He's incredible. And you know what the doctors would say? They'd say, if I ever coded, I would want Nurse Bruce there. He's so outstanding, not knowing that I would actually put these people in the code to begin with, just so I could have this attention brought on to me. So that is like,
Tyson (07:22.023)
Yeah.
Bruce Sackman (07:23.694)
I would say throughout the world, maybe the number one reason, but certainly not an exclusive reason. Number two, I would say is having the power of life and death over someone. Hey, you know what, Tyson? People controlled me my whole life. My parents controlled me. My wife controlled me. My neighbors controlled me. The school teachers control me. I never had any control. Now for the first time in my life.
I have control. I have the power of life and death over someone. I never had any power whatsoever. Now I realize that I'm in this position. I have the power of life and death. And it's intoxicating. It's the best feeling I ever had because now I have this power and my whole life I had no power whatsoever.
And I find that to be maybe number two reason on the list. Then we have a couple of other reasons. For instance, like this. There was a case recently, the doctor was just convicted in Texas, not poisoning his own patients, but poisoning the patients of other doctors, including one doctor himself. Why? Because of this. Hey, you know what, Tyson? I'm the
best doctor in this hospital, but they don't appreciate me. They treat me like crap. You know what? They actually even suspended me. Could you believe suspending me, the best doctor in the hospital? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to show them, Tyson, I'm going to show them why they needed me. And once they got rid of me, the chaos.
the chaos that's going to happen in this hospital because I'm not there anymore. And that's an actual case, an actual case that came out. So those are some of the main reasons that I have seen in my career why these doctors and nurses will intentionally harm patients.
Tyson (09:37.927)
Yeah, it seems to be a real obsession with all of those reasons around self, around the attention wanting to be on you, whether it's praise. In fact, all of those seem to be around praise or lack thereof, maybe a lot of its power as well.
Bruce Sackman (09:44.942)
Yes.
Bruce Sackman (09:53.422)
Oh, well, listen, the power of life and death, the ultimate power, you know? And if you think about it, what professions have the power of life and death over someone? Well, certainly police officers do, and there have been serial killers who masqueraded themselves as police officers. But what other profession do we know that has the power of life and death over someone? Well, certainly in the medical profession, right? You know, and if you think about it, um,
What profession do we trust the most? Well, we trust, for the most part, police officers and doctors and nurses, and we should trust doctors and nurses. And not only that, but when we go in the hospital, how many people actually ask questions? I mean, you're not feeling well, you just want to get better. You just accept the care you get, you know, and unless you have somebody with you to ask questions and be with you, and if you're by yourself,
We just kind of sit back. You know, I remember one time being in an emergency room and seeing this really big, tough construction worker, terrified of this little nurse coming over with this big needle to give him an injection. This guy was crapping in his pants. Otherwise, the guy could pick me up with one hand and throw me out of the hospital. All right? But once you get in the hospital, we see sometimes the strong and assertive become the meek and mild.
All right? So now you're starting to see how easy it is to do this and how a hospital setting can be the perfect setting for murder. Okay? Now, if you've ever been on a hospital ward around three o 'clock in the morning, unless it's an ICU, I mean, there's not that much activity going on. Maybe there's a nurse and a nurse's aide. So you could take that curtain and put that curtain behind.
around you and the patient, and nobody's going to really see what's going on. You know, there are no cameras in the room. You know, in the US, we have something called HIPAA, which is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. And one of the things it prohibits, unless there's a special need and special permission, are cameras in the room. So there's no cameras, there's no witnesses, and...
Bruce Sackman (12:21.838)
Sometimes there's no family, so there's nobody there. And not only that, but these patients are very sick. You know, the first time I looked at a patient's medical records from the VA, the file was this thick. You know, I didn't know you could be alive and have this much wrong with you. And now I have to prove the guy was murdered? I didn't think about it. And also think about this.
Tyson (12:30.247)
Hmm.
Tyson (12:42.343)
You
Bruce Sackman (12:49.518)
The last place police ever want to do an investigation is in a hospital. The absolute last place. Why? For one, they don't really understand the law. What records can I get? Do I need a subpoena? Do I need a court order? Do I need a subpoena by the judge? Are there some records that I can't get? I mean, and what about the science? You know, Tyson, most cops don't become cops.
because we're good in chemistry and biology. Okay? So we're very, very dependent on the doctors to tell us what the heck's going on. And if the doctor's telling you that the patient died from their natural disease processes and their medical record is this thick, how many cops are just going to say, oh, thank you very much? I think I'll close out this case and go on to the next case. And this is why my medical serial killers are able to kill so many patients.
Tyson (13:41.287)
Yeah.
Bruce Sackman (13:47.31)
before they get caught.
Tyson (13:49.351)
Well, that's what I was going to say. I've heard you speak about this as well. Often it's even measure difficult to measure exactly how many patients have been killed because hey, where do you draw the line between this guy had a medical file that thick and okay, it was just his, his time was up or there was something a little bit malaligned taking place in this particular case. Like that's a very blurry line to try and investigate. I imagine.
Bruce Sackman (14:13.87)
It's very difficult. And I'll tell you this, first of all, I don't care if you're the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, one detective cannot do this case by himself. Okay? It actually takes a team of people. And this is who has to be on the team. Well, obviously the police investigators, right? But you have to have a toxicologist, somebody that's going to do the science and the tox work.
to see if there are any poisons in the body. You have to have a physician who's an expert on chart reviews, who could look at a particular patient's chart and make a determination whether that patient should have expired when he did or if he didn't. Then what we used is this, at that time it was a new profession, that was pretty common, something called forensic nurses.
These are nurses that are trained in both forensic science and nursing science, and they were phenomenal. They could actually dumb down the science for somebody like me. When the doctors start throwing out all these words, I have no idea what the heck they're talking about. Okay? So they were really fantastic. And then of course you need a forensic pathologist, because more often than that, we have to exhume the bodies and take samples and...
It's a very long involved and by the way expensive, which turns off a number of small police departments, very expensive process as well. So all the ducks lined up in favor of the medical serial killer and one in particular is really outrageous and that's the role of management in supporting the accused.
So let's say that you're a whistleblower and you go to me on the manager and say, you know, I think this nurse over here may be intentionally harming people. Oh yeah, well, let me ask you a question, Tyson, nurse Tyson. Did you actually see this nurse or doctor harm anybody? Well, I didn't actually see him harm anybody, but you know what? Every time we'll say nurse Bruce is on duty, the death rate goes up. Nurse Bruce takes a vacation.
Bruce Sackman (16:32.142)
the death rate goes down. Well, that doesn't mean Nurse Bruce is a serial killer. Maybe Nurse Bruce has the best cases, the most complex cases, and maybe that's why it's happening, because you didn't actually see Nurse Bruce kill anybody, no. Well, I tell you what now, but you know something else, Mr. Manager, we noticed that these patients were not expected to expire when they did. They were actually improving.
only to get a visit from this nurse Bruce and then they died unexpectedly. And that's how these cases almost all begin throughout the world. But the problem is Tyson, how many people have to expire before somebody wakes up and brings this to management or starts an investigation? What's the number? One, two, 10, 50, 100? What's the number?
Tyson (17:28.295)
Yeah. Well, that was the case with Lucy Ledby, wasn't it? I mean, I saw a fairly brief description of what it was.
Bruce Sackman (17:35.662)
Oh, Lucy Ledby, that was quite a case. You know what? The doctors complained about her and you know what management said? Go to Lucy Ledby and apologize to her for even accusing her of killing people. And the management protected her and they protect their employee throughout the world. And not that they care so much about the employee, they care about the reputation of the hospital.
In my book, I have a case where a nurse murdered about 30 patients and the two whistleblowers, they testified in court and after they returned to the hospital, you think they were greeted as heroes? You know what the staff said? What the heck were you trying to do? You know, we had the best reputation here in this hospital until you blew the whistle. And now, you know what?
People drive by our hospital and they don't want to go here. They say, that's where that nurse serial killer worked. Now we might all lose our jobs. Why didn't you keep your mouth shut? Why did you have to say something?
So you have no whistleblower protection. You have management protecting the killer. And the police aren't even interested. I mean, what better scenario could anybody come up with to commit murder? And not that I'm encouraging anybody, oh my God, to do such a terrible thing. But I'm just showing you, you know what, Tyson, when you talk about your traditional serial killers,
Tyson (19:05.895)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Bruce Sackman (19:16.398)
Maybe they kill six, seven people. They're amateurs. Amateurs compared to my medical serial killer. Many of them kill 30, 60, a couple of cases over 100. Harold Shipman in England, close to 300. I mean, their numbers are horrific. And why are they horrific? A lot has to do with management and all those other red flags that I had mentioned to you. All those other things that set it up.
to enable somebody to kill, which is so heartbreaking because they're working, like I say, with a group of people who are the most dedicated people in the world to saving lives, and they're taking advantage of that situation for their own pleasure.
Tyson (20:04.455)
Man, the thing that trips me out, and I touched on this briefly at the outset of this conversation is with the mafia example that you gave. Sure, that stereotype we understand. Maybe you fit in there. I mentioned her a moment ago. I first heard you speak about Lucy Lettby as a soccer mom. She looks as though she's just like anyone else. She fits in. You put her next to the average woman in a room and there's nothing that stands out.
In fact, she's quite pretty in so many of her photos. You look at her, she's relatively attractive. She's got a kind smile. She looks as though she'd be a person you'd trust to leave your kids with. And that's one thing I think that surprises me that the idea of what a serial killer looks like in my mind certainly doesn't look like Lucy Letbe. Like it's a, there's so many factors seemingly that come into being able to prosecute, namely the things you just spoke about then.
I was really keen to hear a little more about Lucy from your perspective, because she was one that just intrigued me because of the reasons that I just mentioned. But I mean, anyone who hasn't seen her, just type her name into YouTube and especially pre -prison when she was in a family photos or when she was getting photos around the Christmas tree. That's where I'm talking about. She looks like your average soccer mom. But man, what an insane case that was. What a...
I think that's what makes it more terrifying to me is the fact that she seemingly appears so normal and yet something is so clearly wrong internally to lead her to, you know, I can't remember the amount of infants she ended up killing, but I mean, it was double figures, wasn't it?
Bruce Sackman (21:44.078)
Yeah, yeah, I'd have to look at my notes because I forget because they kill so many people. But let me give you a comparison with Lucy Ledby and Kristen Gilbert in the United States.
these two women even look alike. It's kind of incredible. Kristen Gilbert, she killed about 30 of our nation's heroes in Massachusetts in the Veterans Hospital. She used something called epinephrine, which is adrenaline. She sped up their hearts. All right. And she had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. You see, what she would do is she would put people in a code.
and then show off at the code. But you know who would also respond to the code? Her boyfriend, who happened to be a security or police officer and part of the team that responded to codes was her boyfriend. So it was almost, and people, witnesses said they were like doing grab ass during the code with the patient down there at all. So it was almost like a sexual event for her.
Fast forward to Lucy Ledby in England. If you recall with Lucy Ledby, her boyfriend also showed up at the code, who was a physician, all right? Somebody that she also wanted to show off to when these children coded. It's horrific at any age, but when it comes to the victims being children,
It's even more, it's even more terrible. And we've had, in the United States, we've had serial killers killing children as well. So, you don't have it, they don't have an exclusive on that. But you know what's also interesting that's somewhat similar? Many of these serial killers, like Lucy Ledby, it's not just enough excitement to have the code.
Bruce Sackman (23:52.43)
How about getting a second bite of the apple? The second bite of the apple is contacting the families. Talking to the families, trying to show the families how compassionate you were, how concerned you were, you know, and just seeing their reaction and seeing how they're suffering and buying into her story, which many of them did it first.
that Lucy was such so compassionate, such a wonderful nurse. This is her second bite of excitement. The first bite is the actual murder. It's not enough. Time for a second bite. The second bite is actually contacting the family. We had a, in the book, there's a story of a medical serial killer. His name is Michael Swango. After Michael Swango murdered patients,
He would love to call up the families and in great detail, in great detail, go over dad's last 30 minutes on earth. How he was in pain, how he suffered, oh how I tried to save him, which was bull, all right. It wasn't even enough excitement to murder had to have that second bite of that apple.
whether it be Swango or Gilbert or Lucy Ledby or other serial killers throughout the world. And that it's like pouring water on a drowning man. It is unbelievable, but it's very, very true. And this happens more often than we like to even admit.
Tyson (25:32.839)
Yeah. Over what period of years was swango killing? Because I can't remember off the top of my head, but I know -
Bruce Sackman (25:37.902)
Well, Swango was in the 90s and he was actually convicted in 2000. And if you'd like, I could tell you a little bit about Swango and his background. My personal favorite of all my medical serial killers is Michael Swango. You know, when Michael Swango was in medical school, his fellow students referred to him as 00 Swango, licensed to kill, because they actually...
Tyson (25:46.855)
place.
Bruce Sackman (26:07.79)
thought that he was harming patients as a student, as a student. And they went to the dean of the medical school with their concerns and the dean said, what the hell do you know? You're only students. I'm the dean. He's not harming anybody intentionally. You know what? He needs some more training. That's all. He needs some more training. So we'll keep him for about six months. And he graduated and became a doctor.
And he went to Ohio State Medical Center in the state of Ohio, in the United States, through the excellent medical center. And of course, some patients started to expire unexpectedly, including this one young girl who was a gymnast. Her name was Cynthia McGee. She got in a car accident with another student and was improving until she got a visit from Dr. Swango. Then she died unexpectedly.
But Swango didn't get charged with that. You see, the student who hit her with his car, he got charged with vehicular homicide, but he didn't kill Cynthia McGee. Swango killed Cynthia McGee. Well, they did an investigation, but they couldn't prove anything. Very hard to prove. Very, very hard to prove. I know they tried. Very hard to prove. But they wouldn't renew his contract there. So he went back home and he became an EMT, Emergency Medical Technician.
because he loved accidents and multiple deaths and pulling up on scenes and all that excitement. And he did really well. The EMTs were actually happy to have a doctor, you know, as an EMT. And one day he invites his coworkers and he says, hey, come on in, guys. You know, you work so hard. I went out and I bought some donuts for you. Have a donut. So it's the end of the shift. They have some donuts. They go home and they're all deathly ill.
Death reel. And Swango's calling him up. Remember that second bite of the apple? He's calling him up. And he's saying, tell me all your symptoms. Tell me what you were throwing up. Do you have fever? Did you turn colors? He wants to hear all about his work. He wants that second bite of the apple. Well, about two weeks later, and these EMTs weren't stupid, about two weeks later, he comes in with some iced tea. And he says, hi, fellas. You know, I got some iced tea for you. So they...
Bruce Sackman (28:30.382)
So we'll just leave it over there, Mike. We'll take it later. And they have it tested and it's loaded with arsenic, just as the donuts were sprinkled with arsenic. And they call the cops. The cops do an excellent investigation and he gets three years in jail for poisoning his coworkers. Now I didn't think in the United States of America you could get three years in jail, come out and be a physician again. But boy, I was wrong. You know, being a sociopath,
He was a very charming guy, handsome guy, kind of looked like a movie star. A handsome guy, very charming. And he started fabricating documents and saying that he was in a barroom brawl and his civil rights were restored by the governor of the state or baloney. And he gets a job as a physician on the West Coast of the United States and everything's going well. He's doing a good job and he meets this nurse and they get engaged.
Her name was Kristin Kinney, just a beautiful, lovely, lovely girl. And all of a sudden he applies for a membership in the American Medical Association, which was his big mistake because they did a background investigation, found out that he had spent time in prison for poisoning his coworkers. So he lost his job and his fiance is just beside herself. She can't really handle it.
She goes home across country back to Virginia and she sees mom and dad and she says, you know, I really love this guy, Michael Swango. And I thought we were going to have a great future together, but I can't be with him now after what I heard. But you know, mom, when I was living with him, I was getting these headaches. But now that I'm home, I seem to be better. And she is better until all of a sudden one day the doorbell rings and it's Mr. Handsome and Charming and he charms his way back into her life.
and the headaches start again. And then one day she goes to the park, she says, I can't take this anymore. Takes out a gun and kills herself. Blows her brains out. Well, you can't blame Swango for that one, can you? Well, actually you can because even though the family had the body cremated, we tested a lock of her hair and it was loaded with arsenic. Yeah, Swango was actually poisoning even his own fiance.
Bruce Sackman (30:52.622)
Well, to make a long story short, he winds up eventually in my neighborhood in Long Island. And he got a residency in Stony Brook Medical Center on Long Island, which has a teaching arrangement with the VA hospital. And he gets a residency in psychiatry. That meant he had to go in front of a board of trained psychiatrists.
and convince them that he should be in the program. So if he could fool a board of trained psychiatrists, who the hell can he fool?
Oh, one day I'm sitting at my desk in the Inspector General's office and I get a phone call from the Chief of Psychiatry at the Northport VA and she says, hey, Bruce, you're not going to believe this. We have a doctor working here who spent time in prison for poisoning people. I couldn't believe it. I thought maybe it was an April Fool's joke. Maybe she's playing games with me or something. She said, no, I'm serious. And I did some research and I found out. So I got to meet this guy.
So I get in the car, I grab one of my special agents and we go out to the North Port Long Island VA Medical Center and there he is, he's in the dorm. Look like he just came out off the golf course. Well tanned, so smooth, so charming. You know what, Tyson, if I didn't know better, if my daughter brought him home, I'd say, wow, this guy's a doctor at the veterans hospital. Welcome to the family. When's the wedding?
Tyson (32:30.375)
Hahaha.
Bruce Sackman (32:30.574)
He would fool anybody. So he starts giving me this Baldwin brawl story again, and I said, oh, thank you very much, doctor. I really appreciate it. While I'm here in your room, can I look around a little bit? And he wouldn't let me, and he made me leave. And the next thing you know, he winds up in Zimbabwe, Africa because shortage of doctors. And when he's in Zimbabwe, Africa,
He kills women and children and pregnant women. And he had to return to the United States because it was time for him to renew his passport. And that's when we arrested him, but not for murder. We didn't have any evidence that he murdered anybody. All right? We arrested him for every federal agent's favorite crime, lying to the government. If you lie to a federal agent, if you lie to the government,
That's a felony. And he got three years in jail for lying to me, which I felt really good about at the time, but I knew that it wasn't enough. So what the hell do we do now? And this is how I learned, because I had never done a case like this before, to do these kind of investigations. So we put together that team that I had spoken about.
And the next thing we had to do is we had to go to the cemetery and exhume bodies. Now, I had never done anything like this before. And we had to go to the families and ask the families for permission to exhume the bodies. And the families were great. Sometimes they wanted to be there. They actually wanted to be there at the cemetery when we exhume the bodies. And then I find myself at the morgue. This is a real cultural experience for somebody who has never done this.
Tyson (34:21.831)
Ha ha.
Bruce Sackman (34:23.566)
and the bodies are open and the organs are out there. Didn't bother me, but it bothered us. Not everybody can handle it. And the pathologist says to me, Bruce, you see this heart over here? I said, yeah. He says, there's nothing wrong with this heart. This person didn't die from heart disease. This person died from something else. And that's when the forensic toxicology came in and they made the determination.
Tyson (34:24.807)
Thank you.
Bruce Sackman (34:52.59)
that these patients, and we had selected six of the best cases we could find, they made a determination that these patients were poisoned with either epinephrine, just like what Kristen Gilbert used, or something called succinylcholine in the hospital they call it SUX, where they put a tube down you. These are two of the very common murder weapons my medical serial killers use.
Well, now Swango thinks he's about to get out of prison, hop on a plane and go back to Africa. Well, not so fast, buddy. Because at the same time, fortunately, the United States entered into an extradition treaty with the government of Zimbabwe and they were dying to get this guy back. Oh, were they dying to get him back. So we said to Swango, hey, look, Doc, you know, if we go to trial and even if we lose,
We're just going to put you on the plane and drop you off on the tarmac in Zimbabwe. Good luck, buddy. So he decided to plead guilty. And he pled guilty. And he admitted to using a paralytic. He didn't actually identify what the drug was. He admitted to using a paralytic to kill people. And he got sentenced to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
Then later, he actually pled guilty to killing that Cynthia McGee, that student in Ohio State, and all the charges were dropped against the other student. But how many people did he kill? You know, these killers kill so many people, they can't even remember themselves. They can't even remember who all their victims were. Look, if you kill 60, 100 people, are you going to remember all of them? Bad chances are you don't.
And chances are we didn't uncover every single murder because look, we have to narrow down to the very best cases that we could prove. Well, about 20 years later, I get a phone call and this woman says, uh, Mr. Sackman, I think you missed one. Probably did.
Tyson (36:51.143)
you
Bruce Sackman (37:10.51)
She says, my father was there and she goes through the whole thing. I said, well, how come you never said anything? She says, oh, we were debating, is it going to make a difference? The guy's going to never get out of jail anyway. You know, I can't really do much now. You know, I mean, the guy is never getting out. But yeah, we don't get them all. We do the best we can, but we really have to narrow down on the best cases we have.
So Swango was incredible. He was an international serial killer, you know, and if we didn't stop him, he'd still be killing today.
Tyson (37:43.975)
Wow.
Tyson (37:48.263)
That is wild. That is, that's so much to take on, isn't it? I mean, um, to rewind back to something you said earlier, your first impression of him, when you got called down, you found out that someone had served three years in federal prison. Did you go there like, what were your levels of suspicion? Like at that stage, were you already well aware of the fact that something quite serious had taken place or were you just sort of starting to feel it out a little bit? Cause it sounds like you left.
some form of a trail even going back to his college days.
Bruce Sackman (38:22.606)
Yeah, well, you know what? I knew he was... Remember, by this time I had been an investigator for 20 plus years. So I got pretty good at reading faces and reading people. And as he giving me this story, and of course we had done some homework, we knew about his jail time, and we knew it wasn't for a bar and brawl, but I just love to let people talk and go on and on and tell me their story.
You know, I'm so appre... Oh, thank you very much, doctor. You know, I... Oh, I really appreciate that. And just let them keep going and going and going. But once you start upping the temperature a little bit, then their true selves come out. You know? But if you didn't know better, boy, you'd say this guy is just a... And Kristin Gilbert, too. You know, typical soccer mom. When I went to talk to her, she goes, Oh, hi, Bruce.
I'll be happy to talk to you. You know, I just have to take my kids to the game and then I'll come back and we'll chat. You know, because these people are sociopaths, psychopaths, whatever path the psychiatrist wants to give them. But these people could charm you. But then there's a little something happens and all of a sudden they're not so charming anymore. Like I juggle and hide.
You know, they could put off that front and be really charming. But if pushed, if you push the right button, then their real self comes out. But this is another reason why they're so successful, because their coworkers refuse to believe. The coworker said, Kristen Gilbert, I've seen her save lives. I've seen her save lives. And you're telling me now that she actually is killing people? I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
You know, and I've seen this in fraud cases where I would prove that an employee, a treasured employee that everybody loved, everybody thought the most of was stealing money from the company, and they wouldn't even believe it until that person actually admitted it. You know, so sometimes it's so hard to believe that someone that you've seen save lives. You know,
Bruce Sackman (40:44.91)
It's like the fireman who burns down the firehouse, you know, and say, how could he burn down the firehouse? I've seen him run in and save people all the time. You know, that's another thing that helps protect these people. And also, oh, by the way, I should, I should mention this. You know, sometimes our medical serial killers try to kill somebody and it doesn't work. They survive. The staff actually saves them. So...
Do you think that the staff then believes that the doctor or nurse was actually trying to kill them? Of course not. You see, what's happening patient is that you're suffering, you're like hallucinating from all the different medications that you're taking. It's a real condition, you see, it's called hospital delirium. It's a real condition. You know, 80 % of patients on the ICU,
have some form of hospital delirium. So when you tell me that this doctor actually tried to kill you, now they did it, it's hospital delirium. And if you keep saying that, we're just gonna make a little note in your chart that you're suffering from hospital delirium. Now, when I make these presentations, particularly to police officers, I show two videos. The first video is a patient,
who survived in Ohio State University. And he says, this blonde -haired blue -eyed doctor came in my room, injected me with something, and waved bye -bye. And I was out of it, thank God that the staff saved my life. Then I show a video from Zimbabwe, and this patient says, this blonde -haired blue -eyed doctor came in my room, injected me with something, waved bye -bye.
And then I was out of it and thank God that I'm saved.
Bruce Sackman (42:44.078)
across the world, all right? Both times, would these patients believe hospital delirium, but it wasn't hospital delirium. This doctor was actually trying to kill them. It's another thing that makes my serial killers life so easy. Not only does management defend you because they don't want the hospital to have a bad reputation, the science can defend you.
Tyson (42:52.903)
you
Tyson (43:00.391)
And.
Bruce Sackman (43:13.582)
by saying you have hospital delirium.
What a recipe this is to commit mass murder.
Tyson (43:19.655)
What's the hospital's response to you once you get involved? Because obviously when it's a coworker that you've developed some form of a relationship with, you've seen them save lives. Naturally, so many coworkers take the angle of, no, we're going to stand up for this person and vouch for them. So I can imagine you come in as an investigator and you say, well, okay, things don't quite stack up here. There'd be a lot of pushback towards you and your work as well from hospital staff, wouldn't there?
Bruce Sackman (43:49.678)
Oh, pushback, with a capital pushback. This is exactly the way it works. You'll hear, police will hear something like this. Thank you very much officer for your concern. You know, we were just as concerned as you were, Officer Tyson. So this is what we did. We appointed a board of our very best doctors and nurses to look at these cases. We looked at all the medical charts.
Tyson (43:53.159)
Ha ha ha!
Bruce Sackman (44:18.35)
There were one or two even autopsies that we did. And our team of experts, our team of doctors and nurses who were all employees of the hospital, by the way, no one from the outside and no one trained in forensics. So we made the determination that all these patients deaths were the result of their natural disease processes. You know, they're very sick officer.
That's why they're in the hospital. So we have this report here and this report here says that they all died as a result of their natural disease processes. Now, if you want to continue that investigation, knock yourself out. But this is the result of our internal investigation. And how many police officers who were overworked and underpaid to begin with are going to say, oh, thank you very much, Mr. Hospital President.
I'll take this and I'll put this in our file and we'll close it.
And any law enforcement agency in the world can be fooled. In fact, I don't know if you're familiar with this case of a physician who sexually assaulted a number of patients. His name is Larry Nassar. Larry Nassar fooled the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the world's greatest investigative agency. Just ask them. They'll tell you. All right. And...
the FBI and the Justice Department had to pay out millions of dollars because they were fooled by the doctor in the hospital into thinking there was no sexual assault when there were hundreds of sexual assaults. So if the FBI could be fooled and there are hundreds of victims, you see how difficult it is to make these cases. Very, very difficult. Very difficult.
Tyson (46:18.823)
And so what was the story there? What was going on with that particular case? So he was drugging them, taking advantage of them. What some people.
Bruce Sackman (46:24.75)
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they, and many of them complained. They complained to the FBI, which kind of poo -pooed it. All right. They complained to the hospital management that poo -pooed it. But you know what? This isn't the only case. Oh my God. I don't know if you all listeners are familiar with this case in New York City, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where a Dr. Hadid sexually assaulted
about 250 patients, including the wife of one of our presidential candidates. And the hospital kept defending him and defending him. And one of these victims went to the police. The police arrested him. He was released the next day and went back in the office to keep treating patients.
I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. So you see, hospital management, it's not like every hospital management is like this, but too many of them are, all right? If hospital management is gonna defend the victim, you know what they do? They turn it around and the perpetrator becomes the victim and the victim becomes the perpetrator.
all to save the reputation of the hospital, especially if the doctor's making a lot of money for them. If he's bringing in a load of patients and bringing a lot of money, we don't want to get rid of him. We don't want this to hit the newspapers. So we're going to defend this doctor. These women don't know what the hell they're talking about. Well, they knew exactly what they were talking about. And there are other cases like this throughout the United States. I mean, it's just terrible. And until...
Tyson (48:06.183)
Thank you.
Bruce Sackman (48:14.126)
And you know, so why is this? So why is management like this? Well, not only to defend the reputation of the hospital, which they're most concerned about, but in my entire career, I am unaware of any manager that was ever criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting any of these murders, who lost their job, who lost their pension, who lost anything.
So where the hell is the incentive? The incentive is for you to cover up and hopefully, hopefully that nurse or doctor will move on to another hospital and they won't be our problem anymore. Please let that happen. Let them just move on to another hospital. In Germany, the German police, there's a medical serial killer, his name is Niles Hoegl. The German police, they're very thorough as you can imagine.
Tyson (49:14.311)
Yeah.
Bruce Sackman (49:14.414)
They did a really, really good job. This guy, this nurse, Munchausen syndrome by Proxy, this nurse admitted to killing 150 patients in three different hospitals. The German police had to exhume bodies in three different countries, okay? And the managers in hospital one suspected something, never called the police.
Tyson (49:22.375)
Mm -hmm.
Bruce Sackman (49:43.406)
They were happy he moved on to hospital two, who suspected something and never called the police. And he moved on to hospital three, who suspected something. And then finally, some brave whistleblower came forward and contacted the police and they did a hell of a job. But that case, that case pales in comparison, pales in comparison to the case of Nurse Cullen.
There's a TV show called The Good Nurse. Nurse Cullen worked in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Nurse Cullen, by his own admission, killed about 60 patients. Started in Hospital 1. Hospital 1 suspected something, but they never said anything to Hospital 2. Hospital 2 did a pretty good investigation, expected something, but he moved on to Hospital 3.
They never said anything to call the police. Then he moved on to hospital four. He's killing people at all these places. Then he moved on to hospital five, hospital six, hospital seven, hospital eight, hospital nine, hospital 10. Finally, hospital 11. Somebody called the police and they did a really good job. And the police went back to hospital 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And they asked them.
for assistance and the hospital fought them every way they could. They fought their subpoenas, they fought them turning over their reports, their information, they fought the police. This is why my medical serial killers kill so many people. All the odds are in their favor, as you could see.
Tyson (51:39.015)
It sounds like there's too much at stake for the institution as a whole for any real honesty. And I mean, even when you come in and you have to face the pushback and you have to face the, Hey, we were concerned and don't worry about it. We're internally handling it. It seems like what a way better option would be for, uh, I mean, at least for people in your situation would be to have some independent organization outside of the financial interests or the relationship interests.
of those working in the hospitals to actually run the investigations. Because the idea that Cullen can go to 10 hospitals and none of them can say anything until hospital 11 seems, it just seems wild that that can even happen.
Bruce Sackman (52:20.686)
Well, that certainly would be better, but you have to remember this. Oh yeah, and that would certainly be better than doing the investigation yourself and having your own employees with jobs are on the line to do the investigation. But one might argue that if you hire someone, their contract and their payment maybe is on the line. So maybe they may be inclined to be not as independent as they should be. It really takes an independent.
in my view, an independent government investigative agency, all right, with the proper protections for the whistleblowers, with the proper training for the staff on how to identify these people, and if we have to change the law, let's change the law, serious criminal penalties for managers who aid and abed these murders from happening. That's my personal view.
Tyson (53:18.823)
I was interested to pick your brain around something you said earlier. You spoke about with reference to Gilbert and with reference to who was it? Swango, their original investigations. You let them talk, you let them just go on and on and on. And you said then you would start to gradually turn up that pressure until you'd see something snap. What did that gradual increase of pressure look like? Because I mean, you don't have to...
be genius to see that you're fairly charismatic, like you're an easy guy to talk to. I can see how they fall into the trap of God. I can trust Bruce. I can tell Bruce everything, despite the fact he's got a badge on. He won't, you know, this is just me and him. But that's one thing that fascinates me.
Bruce Sackman (53:57.518)
Well, you know, every investigator has their own technique. Some investigators are really good with this tough guy, dirty Harry thing. That would never work for me. People would laugh at me if I actually tried. That would never work for me. Okay. So I have to show empathy. Empathy is like an important skill in the world of investigations. So I have to show empathy and I've been very successful.
Tyson (54:10.535)
Me either.
Bruce Sackman (54:26.67)
showing empathy. Not only with the murders, but with the fraud cases and drug diversion cases. You have to remember, I've done every possible investigation you could do in a hospital. I mean, I've done them all in, you know, like 40 plus years of doing hospital investigations. So my unique little part of the world, and I had nurses who steal drugs and I had contract fraud and I've had...
sexual assaults and I've had, you name it, I've had every case. And for me personally, and I'm not saying it'll work for everybody, I find that if I show empathy, if I show people that I understand why they did that or what motivated to that, what's the story that might, you know, I love to get people to start talking about their lives. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your background. Tell me about your life.
Get people talking. That's very important. It's very important to get people talking. You know, you have some people that just want to say, yes, no, yes, no, no, no, no. So I don't start off there. I say, yeah, tell me a little bit about, oh yeah, you grew up there. You know, I didn't grow up that far from there. Tell me, did you know this teacher? Did you know that? Did you know? Start like, that works for me. Me personally, that works for me. And I've been pretty...
pretty successful with it. I mean, I've had managers in the hospital say, I can't believe you got them to admit to that. I can't believe you got them to say that. And you know what? Many of them actually want to say it. They just need a little help opening up the door so they feel comfortable saying it. Not all of them, some of them, you know, but eventually many of them will come around and start
telling you what happened. Sometimes not truthful. Maybe they give you about 70 % of the story. So you have to do some oral surgery to kind of pull out the other 30%. You know, but, um, and it's also very, very important to do your homework, you know, to do your homework. I remember when I first started an investigator, I worked for this guy and he would read everything about the particular program with a particular war.
Bruce Sackman (56:51.31)
He would do homework. He was meticulous in his homework. And then when he sat down with the subject of the interview, that guy couldn't bull him because he knew the program. He knew everything. And he would spend days just studying before the interview was incredible. It was incredible. So I learned a lot by watching him. And I find that for me personally, it works very well.
Tyson (57:11.175)
Yeah.
Tyson (57:20.327)
It's interesting to hear you say that some of them would actually want to speak about it because I often think, or from what I've heard, sometimes the thrill sounds as though they think they're above and beyond the intelligence of not only hospital staff, but people like yourself. So the idea that they'd actually even want to vent or release any of the information is really interesting. I've been recently watching the Jeffrey Dahmer TV show. I don't know if you've seen it. It's like a 10 episode series. And...
Bruce Sackman (57:48.622)
No, no, I haven't, but yeah.
Tyson (57:50.407)
Yeah. So I don't know if you're familiar with, with the case, but essentially he was a guy who would go around. He was like a, for lack of a better word, he was a sexual deviant. He would, a man he would target other men. Um, like he would just, uh, spoiler alert. He would, it would break their bodies apart. Um, you know, take advantage of that, like once it had been decapitated and once had been dismembered and it was just, it's pretty horrific.
And I've only seen the series, not the documentary. So I'm sure there's a little bit of Hollywood sprinkled on top. But the vibe that I'm getting throughout the documentary series is he's an incredibly lonely kid growing up. He struggles to connect. He struggles to have relationships. The only bonding that ever really happened was through him and his dad through taxidermy, a mutual interest that they both had. And it shows the trajectory of his life.
And in the investigations, when he's sitting in there with the agents, they start to ask him, like, what are you, what's going on? And the key theme and the thing that he seems to be more open about is the fact that he so often just wanted to feel as though he was a part of a relationship and didn't want people to keep leaving him. And it was interesting because in a weird way, you'd see the crimes he was committing and you'd go, it's clearly a sick man and this is horrific. But at the same time,
You felt this mutual sympathy in some strange way for him. Cause you're like, obviously psychologically something's wrong. Um, uh, like whether it's, what do they say? Is it, uh, like, is this, is he born into this or is this purely environment? Um, it seemed in his instance to be a strong combination of both. And then you go, okay, well, it took really tough life situations to find him here. And it surprised me that knowing what he had done, I could feel any empathy or sympathy.
for his situation, but it sounds as though for an investigator that can sometimes, maybe not in the way that I've just explained it, be a helpful tool in at least relating to the person that you're trying to extract information from.
Bruce Sackman (59:50.254)
Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, look, I think that some of the doctors and nurses I rested are a lot smarter than I am. You know, I couldn't get into medical school if I tried. I mean, I'm lucky I graduated high school and college. I considered that a great achievement, you know, but at least I'm smart enough to put together a team of people that are a lot smarter than I am and help me with this thing.
Tyson (01:00:09.191)
you
Bruce Sackman (01:00:20.174)
There was a famous medical serial killer named Donald Harvey. And they asked Donald Harvey some of these questions. And Donald Harvey said, well, you know, after I murdered the first 15, excuse me, yeah, after I murdered the first 15 patients and nobody questioned me, I thought I was ordained by the almighty himself to do this, you know?
Nobody questioned me. I murdered 15 patients. Nobody questioned me. And eventually he murdered a lot more until he got caught. So, look, if you murder 15 people and nobody even questions you, it's not that bizarre to think that there's some, you know, if you believe this stuff, some kind of divine guidance here, as crazy as that may sound, you know, or that you're smarter than the police because...
Look how many people you're killing now. Now it's hard to go in Germany. The German police think he killed 300. He admitted to killing 150. What would you think if you killed 150 people and nobody even questioned you? You'd think you were a lot smarter than they are. Harold Shipman in England killed about 300 patients, Dr. Harold Shipman. He really thought he was smarter than the police.
And many times they are smarter than the police. We just have to work harder and put all our heads together to catch them. But they are, many of them are very smart. They are very smart.
Tyson (01:01:58.055)
What's the thrill for them now? Obviously with the ones that have been convicted, they're serving multiple life sentences, they're never going to see the outside of a prison. What's the thrill for them now? Is it the fact that they can live with the knowing of the pain that they've caused? Or is there ever any situations where you actually see remorse?
Bruce Sackman (01:02:19.534)
Now, you see, there's never any remorse because it's not about the patient. It's what the episode does for them, what the murder does for them. They couldn't care about the patient. The patient is just an end to the means, a means to the end. Now, let me give you a... Many of these people, Swango and Gilbert, and I'm sure Lucy Ledby as well, crave the notoriety. Look, she's in the newspaper every day. Right?
Even after she's convicted, she's talking about appeal. She's still in the newspaper. Kristen Gilbert, after she gets convicted and sentenced to jail, I'm sitting in my office and somebody says, hey, boss, you see today's New York Post? No. And it says, Kristen Gilbert engaged in, they call it a caged heat affair with another female prisoner.
named Squeaky Fromm, who was one of Charles Manson's groupies. So it wasn't enough for her to be in the newspaper every day when she's on trial. Even when she's in prison, she hooks up with the one prisoner that's going to get her back in the newspaper, that's still going to get her attention even while she's in prison. And many of them want you to write them, you know? Write me, you know, talk to me. It's...
It's really an interesting psychology. It really is.
Tyson (01:03:50.983)
Yeah, it's a world that it seems as though it'd be hard to switch off from. I mean, every conversation after years of being an investigator would potentially have the opportunity to be some form of investigation. I find even the, I guess the focus that you get to have just through recording these podcasts, if you're not careful, like every conversation can become all of a sudden surface level talk begins to disappear. I mean, in your instance, maybe that's an important part of building that chemistry, but...
I mean, outside of the world of investigation, when you're not writing now, when you're not investigating anymore, what does your world look like? Is there a lot of training and education taking place?
Bruce Sackman (01:04:29.774)
Yeah, that's what my sort of my mission is to train hospital staff and police on how to do these investigations and what to look for. And I can tell you the hospitals really enjoy the presentation. I mean, I just hope I hope that they do the right thing when the right time comes. And I'll tell you something, Tyson, almost inevitably at these presentations after the presentation.
somebody will come up to me and they go, hey, you know, Bruce, a couple of years ago, we had this nurse or we had this doctor, but we were so happy he moved on to the next place. We never said anything. That's a little scary. That to me is really a little scary, but I get that a lot. I get that a lot. Now look, I've lectured in Europe, in Dubai, all through the United States.
And the one thing I've noticed that the police and the managers are becoming more aware of this particular problem, okay, because I noticed more and more cases starting to surface. Particularly, and in the few remaining minutes, if we could talk a little bit about COVID, okay? So COVID happened. What was the first thing they said? Families can't come in the hospital.
Families can't come in the hospital. So now all of a sudden there's no families to watch over the patients, right? To be the patient advocate. There are no advocates. What's the next thing? We're inundated. We have all these patients coming in we never had before. We have to recruit nurses and doctors at least on a temporary basis, right? To come in and help us. All understandable. And you know what?
If we didn't do such a great background investigation, well, excuse me, we're lucky we even found people to treat these patients. So look at that recipe. There's two ongoing cases now, one in Canada, a fellow by the name of Nadler, Dr. Nadler. He's on trial for killing, his trial starts in August for killing COVID patients. And there's a case in Germany involving a doctor who allegedly murdered his COVID patients.
Bruce Sackman (01:06:56.11)
So, as if it wasn't easy before, when COVID came, it was a big opportunity. And not only for murders, because when I was working during COVID, there were the majority, again, the nurses and doctors were just fantastic. But there were some like drug seeking nurses that took the jobs because they wanted to steal narcotics.
There were some problems with some of the travel, a small, small number. Most of the travelers were really fine and really excited. I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that hospitals generally aren't safe, that the medical profession is, it's not. They were talking about a very, very small number, but it does exist. So we can't put our heads in the sand. We have to admit that it does exist.
Tyson (01:07:49.063)
That's wild. I think that's what's so fascinating. I definitely don't think you give that vibe that you're painting them in a bad light. I think what stands out is it seems so rare in a realm that's so well trusted that that's kind of what makes it so engaging. It's just a wild, wild world out there, Bruce. But mate, I'm so grateful for you to make the time to come on. As I said, I was really excited to talk to you. It's a world that I'm relatively new to, but I can certainly see the appeal of delving into because it's a...
There's no shortage of entertainment at the very least as you go down the rabbit hole of this world. So, hey, once again, thanks so much for making the time to come on and I'll make sure I have your books and any other information related to you and what you're doing linked in the description below. Is there anything particularly that you'd like me to link in there or is there any way that people listening can connect with you or find out more about you?
Bruce Sackman (01:08:45.07)
Yeah, well, you know, I have a website. It's behindthemurdercurtain .com and they could go to there. And I'm always interested in speaking and addressing groups or organizations or because I have this PowerPoint where I actually show what I'm talking about, show the real examples and the slides and the news stories and all that, because it's just a matter of awareness. I just want...
people in the profession and law enforcement and the general public as well to, you know, again, the medical profession as a whole. Fantastic. You know what? Nobody has more respect for nurses than I do, and I've arrested more nurses than any detective I know. But the way I found out about the bad nurses was from the good nurses who came forward and told me about it. How the heck am I going to know?
what's going on unless some good employee, you know, gives me a hint and guides me and helps me. And that's how I was able to be so successful because of the brave, honest medical professionals. God bless them all, really. God bless them.
Tyson (01:10:02.215)
your legend. Thanks again.
Bruce Sackman (01:10:04.59)
Thank you for having me.
Tyson (01:10:06.919)
I'll cut that off there, man. That was an awesome podcast.