Swango Pleads Guilty To Ohio Slaying

C O L U M B U S, Ohio, Oct. 18 -- A former doctor who prosecutors sayenjoyed killing people, today admitted to fatally poisoning awoman at Ohio State University’s hospital in 1984 while she wasrecovering from an auto accident.

Investigators believe the death of Cynthia Ann McGee, 19, begana string of poisonings in the United States and Zimbabwe by MichaelSwango, who pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court toaggravated murder. He admitted injecting McGee with a deadly doseof potassium when he was an intern at Ohio State.

Judge Lisa Sadler gave Swango the maximum penalty — life inprison with a chance of parole after 20 years. That was the mostsevere penalty for the crime in 1984, when McGee died.

Old Wounds ReopenedSwango, 45, made no statement and stood looking at the judgewith his chin slightly raised when she imposed sentence.

Earlier, Swango sat with his hands folded in his lap,occasionally fidgeting and licking his lips as prosecutorsdescribed how he killed McGee.

Her parents, William and Janis, did not attend the hearing.

“While we are happy to see justice having been pursued andachieved in criminal courts, we are saddened by the reopening againof old wounds,” they said in a statement read by their attorney,Brian Miller of Columbus.

“We think of all the events which Cynthia has missed and thetime which we could have shared with her, but which was taken fromus. ‘Time heals all wounds’ is just a slogan.”

Killed For Pleasure?Swango pleaded guilty last month in U.S. District Court tokilling three patients at a veterans hospital in New York in 1993and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutorsthere read from Swango’s handwritten journal, citing it as evidencethat he killed for pleasure.

In one journal entry, Swango mused about “the sweet, husky,close smell of indoor homicide.” Another suggested that murder was“the only way I have of reminding myself that I’m still alive.”