Mario Jascalevich
Encyclopedia
The "Dr. X" killings were a series of suspicious deaths, by curare
poisoning, in 1966 at a Bergen County, New Jersey
hospital. A newspaper investigation during the mid-1960s led to the indictment of an Argentina
-born physician, Mario Enrique Jascalevich (August 27, 1927 — September 1984), in 1976. He was acquitted at trial in 1978.
on August 27, 1927. After completing his medical training in Argentina, he came to the United States to perform an internship at Passaic General Hospital in 1955, setting up his practice in New Jersey. He was hired as a surgeon by Riverdell Hospital
in Oradell, New Jersey
in 1962 and developed a surgical stapler that was named for him. At the time of his murder trial, he was a resident of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
.
prosecutor, including Guy W. Calissi
, launched an investigation of nine suspicious deaths at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell
. The patients had been admitted to the hospital for surgery and died of unrelated causes, before or after routine surgical procedures.
The investigation was commenced on November 1, 1966, after eighteen vials of curare – most nearly empty – were found in a locker assigned to Dr. Mario Jascalevich. When confronted, he explained that he had been experimenting with dogs. No motive could be ascertained for homicide. Ten years passed before the state charged Jascalevich with five counts of murder, in May 1976.
received a letter from a woman claiming that as many as 40 patients had been murdered at a hospital by its chief surgeon. The letter handed to reporter M. A. Farber
offered no information as to where the alleged murders had occurred or who the murderer was, if there was anything at all to the letter.
Farber pursued the case by speaking with someone in the forensic toxicology field who was able to recall a case at Riverdell Hospital, a private medical facility that has since closed. Further investigation led to the identification of Dr. Mario Jascalevich as the hospital's chief surgeon. While Jascalevich's surgical patients routinely survived, those of a new surgeon were dying at a significantly high rate. This new surgeon, together with directors of the hospital, opened Jascalevich's locker on October 31, 1966 and found 18 near empty vials of curare
, a powerful muscle relaxant that could cause death if not administered in conjunction with artificial respiration.
The hospital reported their findings to the Bergen County, New Jersey
prosecutor's office and its chief at the time, Guy W. Calissi
. Farber was given the opportunity to review the files from the 1966 investigation, and found a comment from Calissi that said that "someone is lying". Though Calissi's suspicions were strong, he and his assistant Fred C. Galda
had come to the conclusion at the time that hard evidence did not exist to move further with the case. When Farber contacted Calissi in 1975, Calissi called the claim that the circumstances of the deaths were plausible to be "horsesh-t" and remained convinced that his suspicions in the case were accurate that there had been criminal actions involved in the deaths.
Farber's investigations led him to try to contact the families of the potential victims, in some cases notifying relatives for the first time that the deaths had been deemed suspicious. His attempts to contact Jascalevich, then in private practice, were all unsuccessful despite repeated letters, phone calls and even attempts to approach him outside of his offices. Farber tried to follow up on Jascalevich's statement in his 1966 deposition that the curare had been used in experiments on dying dogs, but was unable to get any confirmation that dogs had been supplied to him as described.
The results of Farber's investigation were first published in The Times in January 1976, referring to the unidentified physician as "Dr. X", and caused a media stir. The Record
, the largest paper in the area, picked up the story, covering it with as many as 13 reporters. Other papers nationwide picked up the story as well.
Bergen County Prosecutor Woodcock opened an independent investigation, exhuming the bodies of five possible victims, none of whom had been administered curare during their surgical procedures. Using new technologies, investigators found traces of curare in three of the bodies.
The prosecution was led by Sybil Moses
, an assistant prosecutor who was four years out of law school. Jascalevich was represented by attorney Raymond A. Brown
. At trial, in 1978, two of the murder counts were dismissed for lack of evidence. Brown filed a subpoena requesting that Farber turn over all of his notes and other writings related to 193 potential witnesses in the case, what Farber would later call "the broadest subpoena ever issued to an American reporter". After 34 weeks of testimony, Jascalevich was acquitted by jurors on October 24, 1978.
. At the time that his New Jersey license was taken away, Jascalevich was practicing in the Bronx
with a valid New York State license.
In January 1982, Governor of New Jersey
Brendan Byrne
issued a pardon to reporter M.A. Farber and ordered that $101,000 in fines be returned to The Times. The paper's attorney, Floyd Abrams
, was planning efforts to file for return of the additional $185,000 that had been assessed in civil contempt fines.
In June 1984, Riverdell Hospital on Kinderkamack Road in Oradell was demolished. A former administrator of the hospital told a newspaper reporter that admissions had dropped significantly once the hospital and doctor were identified in the media, and that the hospital's ability to attract qualified physicians had been severely harmed. The 80-bed hospital changed its name to Northern Community Hospital in 1979. By 1981 the decision was made to close the hospital, as only a third of its patient beds were filled and the hospital was losing a quarter of a million dollars annually. Efforts to turn the site into an alcohol rehabilitation center were turned down and the site became a target of vandalism. A 300-bed nursing home was proposed to fill the empty site of the demolished building.
from a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 57, although the death was not reported to the public for several months, until an obituary appeared in such publications as The New York Times.
Curare
Curare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
poisoning, in 1966 at a Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...
hospital. A newspaper investigation during the mid-1960s led to the indictment of an Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
-born physician, Mario Enrique Jascalevich (August 27, 1927 — September 1984), in 1976. He was acquitted at trial in 1978.
Career
Jascalevich was born in Buenos AiresBuenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
on August 27, 1927. After completing his medical training in Argentina, he came to the United States to perform an internship at Passaic General Hospital in 1955, setting up his practice in New Jersey. He was hired as a surgeon by Riverdell Hospital
Riverdell Hospital
Riverdell Hospital was an 80-bed hospital at 576 Kinderkamack Road in Oradell, New Jersey in the United States. The hospital was established in 1959 and thrived for many years until it became associated with the "Dr. X" murder trial of former chief surgeon Dr. Mario Jascalevich...
in Oradell, New Jersey
Oradell, New Jersey
Oradell is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 7,978. The borough's territory includes a dam on the Hackensack River that forms the Oradell Reservoir...
in 1962 and developed a surgical stapler that was named for him. At the time of his murder trial, he was a resident of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Englewood Cliffs is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 5,281. The borough houses the world headquarters of CNBC and the American headquarters of Unilever, and is home to both Ferrari and Maserati North America.Englewood Cliffs...
.
Initial investigation
In 1966, authorities with the Bergen County, New JerseyBergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...
prosecutor, including Guy W. Calissi
Guy W. Calissi
Guy W. Calissi , was an American Democratic Party politician, prosecutor, lawyer and judge, who served for seven years as mayor of Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, 16 years as Bergen County, New Jersey prosecutor and was appointed in 1970 to serve as a judge on New Jersey Superior Court, a post he served...
, launched an investigation of nine suspicious deaths at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell
Oradell, New Jersey
Oradell is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 7,978. The borough's territory includes a dam on the Hackensack River that forms the Oradell Reservoir...
. The patients had been admitted to the hospital for surgery and died of unrelated causes, before or after routine surgical procedures.
The investigation was commenced on November 1, 1966, after eighteen vials of curare – most nearly empty – were found in a locker assigned to Dr. Mario Jascalevich. When confronted, he explained that he had been experimenting with dogs. No motive could be ascertained for homicide. Ten years passed before the state charged Jascalevich with five counts of murder, in May 1976.
Newspaper investigation
The case had lain dormant for a decade when The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
received a letter from a woman claiming that as many as 40 patients had been murdered at a hospital by its chief surgeon. The letter handed to reporter M. A. Farber
M. A. Farber
Myron A. Farber is an American newspaper reporter for The New York Times, whose investigations into the deaths of several patients at an Oradell, New Jersey hospital led to the murder trial of Dr. Mario Jascalevich, a physician at the hospital who was alleged to have used a powerful muscle...
offered no information as to where the alleged murders had occurred or who the murderer was, if there was anything at all to the letter.
Farber pursued the case by speaking with someone in the forensic toxicology field who was able to recall a case at Riverdell Hospital, a private medical facility that has since closed. Further investigation led to the identification of Dr. Mario Jascalevich as the hospital's chief surgeon. While Jascalevich's surgical patients routinely survived, those of a new surgeon were dying at a significantly high rate. This new surgeon, together with directors of the hospital, opened Jascalevich's locker on October 31, 1966 and found 18 near empty vials of curare
Curare
Curare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
, a powerful muscle relaxant that could cause death if not administered in conjunction with artificial respiration.
The hospital reported their findings to the Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...
prosecutor's office and its chief at the time, Guy W. Calissi
Guy W. Calissi
Guy W. Calissi , was an American Democratic Party politician, prosecutor, lawyer and judge, who served for seven years as mayor of Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, 16 years as Bergen County, New Jersey prosecutor and was appointed in 1970 to serve as a judge on New Jersey Superior Court, a post he served...
. Farber was given the opportunity to review the files from the 1966 investigation, and found a comment from Calissi that said that "someone is lying". Though Calissi's suspicions were strong, he and his assistant Fred C. Galda
Fred C. Galda
Fred C. Galda was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician from New Jersey who served as a prosecutor in the Thomas Trantino murder case, as a judge on the New Jersey Superior Court who issued the state's first ruling acquitting a woman of murder based on a battered woman defense and...
had come to the conclusion at the time that hard evidence did not exist to move further with the case. When Farber contacted Calissi in 1975, Calissi called the claim that the circumstances of the deaths were plausible to be "horsesh-t" and remained convinced that his suspicions in the case were accurate that there had been criminal actions involved in the deaths.
Farber's investigations led him to try to contact the families of the potential victims, in some cases notifying relatives for the first time that the deaths had been deemed suspicious. His attempts to contact Jascalevich, then in private practice, were all unsuccessful despite repeated letters, phone calls and even attempts to approach him outside of his offices. Farber tried to follow up on Jascalevich's statement in his 1966 deposition that the curare had been used in experiments on dying dogs, but was unable to get any confirmation that dogs had been supplied to him as described.
The results of Farber's investigation were first published in The Times in January 1976, referring to the unidentified physician as "Dr. X", and caused a media stir. The Record
The Record (Bergen County)
The Record is a newspaper in northern New Jersey. It has the second largest circulation of New Jersey's daily newspapers, behind The Star-Ledger. Owned by the Borg family since 1930, it is the flagship publication of the North Jersey Media Group. Stephen Borg is the publisher of The Record...
, the largest paper in the area, picked up the story, covering it with as many as 13 reporters. Other papers nationwide picked up the story as well.
Bergen County Prosecutor Woodcock opened an independent investigation, exhuming the bodies of five possible victims, none of whom had been administered curare during their surgical procedures. Using new technologies, investigators found traces of curare in three of the bodies.
Trial
The Bergen County grand jury issued an indictment on May 18, 1976, charging Jascalevich with the deaths of five patients – Emma Arzt (age 70), Frank Biggs (age 59), Margaret Henderson (age 26), Carl Rohrbeck (age 73) and Nancy Savino (age 4) – and having injected them with curare to kill them. Once brought to trial, two of the murder counts were dismissed.The prosecution was led by Sybil Moses
Sybil Moses
Sybil Rappaport Moses was an American lawyer and judge. She was the prosecutor for the "Dr. X" murder trial of Mario Jascalevich, only four years after she graduated from law school...
, an assistant prosecutor who was four years out of law school. Jascalevich was represented by attorney Raymond A. Brown
Raymond A. Brown
Raymond A. Brown was an American criminal defense lawyer who represented a wide variety of high-profile clients, ranging from politicians to accused spies, including New Jersey state senator Angelo Errichetti , boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and "Dr...
. At trial, in 1978, two of the murder counts were dismissed for lack of evidence. Brown filed a subpoena requesting that Farber turn over all of his notes and other writings related to 193 potential witnesses in the case, what Farber would later call "the broadest subpoena ever issued to an American reporter". After 34 weeks of testimony, Jascalevich was acquitted by jurors on October 24, 1978.
Death
Jascalevich returned to Argentina a short time later. He died there, of a cerebral hemorrhage, in September 1984. The deaths at Riverdell remain unsolved although Jascalevich is assumed by some to have been guilty.Post-acquittal
In October 1980, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners revoked Jascalevich's license to practice medicine in the State of New Jersey, finding by a vote of 11–0 that Jascalevich was guilty of "gross malpractice or gross negligence and failure of good moral character". Jascalevich had voluntarily surrendered his license in 1976 after being indicted in the criminal case for which he was later acquitted. The state found fraudulently prepared operation records in one case, and in another that he had made a diagnosis of cancer that "he knew or should have known" was false. Both patients had been admitted to Christ Hospital and had been from Jersey City, New JerseyJersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...
. At the time that his New Jersey license was taken away, Jascalevich was practicing in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
with a valid New York State license.
In January 1982, Governor of New Jersey
Governor of New Jersey
The Office of the Governor of New Jersey is the executive branch for the U.S. state of New Jersey. The office of Governor is an elected position, for which elected officials serve four year terms. While individual politicians may serve as many terms as they can be elected to, Governors cannot be...
Brendan Byrne
Brendan Byrne
Brendan Thomas Byrne is an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served as the 47th Governor of New Jersey, from 1974 to 1982.-Early life and education:...
issued a pardon to reporter M.A. Farber and ordered that $101,000 in fines be returned to The Times. The paper's attorney, Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment...
, was planning efforts to file for return of the additional $185,000 that had been assessed in civil contempt fines.
In June 1984, Riverdell Hospital on Kinderkamack Road in Oradell was demolished. A former administrator of the hospital told a newspaper reporter that admissions had dropped significantly once the hospital and doctor were identified in the media, and that the hospital's ability to attract qualified physicians had been severely harmed. The 80-bed hospital changed its name to Northern Community Hospital in 1979. By 1981 the decision was made to close the hospital, as only a third of its patient beds were filled and the hospital was losing a quarter of a million dollars annually. Efforts to turn the site into an alcohol rehabilitation center were turned down and the site became a target of vandalism. A 300-bed nursing home was proposed to fill the empty site of the demolished building.
Death
After losing his license to practice medicine, Jascalevich returned to Argentina. He died in September 1984 in Mar del PlataMar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...
from a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 57, although the death was not reported to the public for several months, until an obituary appeared in such publications as The New York Times.