When Physicians Go Bad: Doctors Who Killed Their Patients

Dr. William Palmer

He was a 19th Century doctor in England. He was convicted of murder and is known as “The Prince of Poisoners”. Charles Dickens called Palmer “the greatest villain that ever stood.” Palmer murdered his landlord to pay for gambling debts. He is suspected of killing by poison his brother, motherin-law and four of his own children to collect their life insurance of which he was trustee. 30,000 people are said to have witnessed Palmer’s hanging on June 14, 1856.

Herman Mudget, alias Dr. H.H. Holmes

One of American’s first serial killers. As a medical student at U of Michigan he stole corpses and used them to make fraudulent insurance claims. In 1885, he moved to Chicago, got a job at a pharmacy, took up the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes and took over the pharmacy by murdering the owner and his wife. He built a house especially designed for murder. It had secret passages, soundproof rooms, locked doors, gas jets to suffocate victims and a kiln to incinerate their bodies. He seduced young women with promised of marriage, stole their savings and killed them in his horror house. He was caught and sentenced to death in 1984, confessing to 27 murders but suspected in as many as 200.

Joseph Michael Swango, MD

Dr. Swango was convicted of poisoning as many as 60 patients between 1981 and 1997. He is incarcerated in a supermax prison, serving three life terms with possibility of parole. Swango was valedictorian of his high school class, an honors student in college and got a MD from Southern Illinois University. Staff noted that patients seemed to die suddenly and unexpectedly on his shift. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for non-fatally poisoning several co-workers. After his release, he was able to secure a job with a NY VA hospital where his patient also died. Rather than be arrested he fled to Zimbabwe, worked in healthcare and killed patients. During a trip to the United States, he was arrested by the FBI. In order to avoid a death sentence, he pleaded guilty and is serving life sentence without parole. Swango’s journals, read at his trial, described the intense joy he took in killing people. Me may have killed as many as 60 patients.

Harold Shipman, MD

One of Britain’s most infamous serial killers. Between 1975 and 1998, Shipman a General Practitioner murdered as least 215 patients, most older women. He used lethal injections of pain-fillers. His motive was to steal their property, money, and other valuable estate items which he had them sign over to him before killing them. Shipman was sentenced to life in prison; in 2004 he hanged himself in his prison cell.

Dr. Josef Mengele

Also known as “The Angel of Death”, he is likely the most evil and corrupt physician of all time. He was an avid member of the Nazi Party and a fanatic officer in the German SS. During World War II, under the guise of ‘medical experiments’ he killed and tortured hundreds of mostly Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp. Mengele’s crimes are almost unspeakable: he starved people to see how long before they died of starvation, put people in icy lakes and time them before they could not move and drowned. He injected chemicals into eyes to try and change the color; he performed vivisections on conscious people, he killed with knife and gun for the evil pleasure he derived. In the opinion of many scholars, historians and physicians Josef Mengele was the most evil, corrupt physician of any era.