Riverdell Hospital Murder Essay

The shot that killed! Often used in health facilities, curare was known to be a muscle relaxant, but it soon took on a new role. Although medical personnel are supposed to be helpful to society, in the case of the Riverdell Hospital Murders, the opposite is true. All of the evidence found in the Riverdell Hospital Murders all goes back to one man, Dr. Mario Jascalevich. Famously known as Dr. X, he was believed to be the killer of five different victims. A combination of suspicious deaths within Riverdell Hospital along with numerous vials of curare found in Dr. X’s hospital locker leads the town of Riverdell to believe that he was the murderer. Nancy Savino died at age four following appendicitis surgery. She was believed to have been poisoned

People were clueless as to what could be the cause of all these peculiar deaths. According to lifedeathprizes.com, “Police didn’t even have a possible motive. Except for Dr. Harris’s belief that Mario was killing his colleague’s patients to make the other doctors look incompetent” (Noone). Nobody in the hospital had any idea to what could be the cause of all of this madness, except for Dr. Harris who suspected Dr. Mario Jascalevich as the murderer. New York Times states, “Eighteen vials of curare, most of them empty or nearly so, were found in Dr. X's locker at Riverdell on Nov. 1, 1966” (Farber). Nobody would've ever suspected Dr. Mario Jascalevich if it wasn’t for Dr. Harris. This is very strong evidence that leads to the accusations that he was the alleged killer. Curare was the cause of death in all of these victims, and it just so happens that empty vials of this drug were found in his locker. This was not necessarily the end for Dr. Mario jascalevich, he had an alibi. In the article by Washington Post it states that, “Vials of curare were found in Jascalevich’s locker, but he said he had been using the drug, which leads to death by asphyxiation, in experiments on dogs” (Lescave). Dr. X was not a dumb man, he had prepared a nice cover up story as to why he had several empty vials of curare in his locker. Just because he claims that he used the drug on dogs does not mean that

X was never charged with murder. According to Washington Post, “Dr. Mario Jascalevich was acquitted yesterday of murder in a case that brought a confrontation between a defendant's right to a fair trial and a reporter's right to protect confidential sources” (Lescave). The court had made a huge mistake in Dr. Mario Jascalevich’s murder case. They violated the right to a fair trial, meaning that the charges are dropped. The case was again brought up years later, New York Daily News states, “Nine years later, a Long Island woman who dabbled in writing got the tip of a lifetime. A source told her that a New Jersey doctor in the mid-1960s had gone on a murder spree that was never disclosed” (Krajicek). This tip to a disclosed murder investigation could be a gold mine to writer trying to find a story to write. With the knowledge that the case was last held about nine years ago the chances of her solving the murder or even getting in brought back to attention are not very high. Also, according to Time Wire, The case was to old and there was not enough concrete evidence of the event to prosecute Dr. Jascalevich (Time Wire). This just adds to the point that the case was way to old to bring back into perspective. Nobody wants to continue a case nine whole years later, especially knowing that it was one of the longest criminal trials in New Jersey history, according to Times