Dr. X killings

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.

In 1966, authorities with the Bergen County, New Jersey prosecutor, including Guy W. Calissi, launched an investigation of nine suspicious deaths at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell.

[3] 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.

[citation needed] The case had lain dormant for a decade when The New York Times received a letter from a woman claiming that as many as 40 patients had been murdered at a hospital by its chief surgeon.

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.

[4] The hospital reported their findings to the Bergen County, New Jersey prosecutor's office and its chief at the time, Guy W. Calissi.

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.

[4] 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.

[4] 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.

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.

He died in September 1984 in Mar del Plata from a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 57, although the death was not reported to the public for several months, until an obituary appeared in The New York Times.