The Healer: A True Story of Medicine and Murder

by Leonard Levitt

On June 18, 1975, Dr. Charles Friedgood got into bed with his wife and slept soundly by her side...after injecting her with a fatal dose of Demerol.

Handsome, charming and kindly, Friedgood was loved by his wife, his mistress, his children by both women, and his patients. But his life was one long string of lies, criminal deception -- and worse. He cheated his way through medical school, was dismissed from one hospital after another, performed surgical butchery on trusting patients, and was indicted for manslaughter.

And not once did his colleagues feel the public had a right to know.

Genres: True Crime

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 1980

About the author

Leonard Levitt was born in 1941 in New York. He attended Woodmere Academy and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1963. From there he went into the Peace Corps, serving in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). He later graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism and has since written for Newsday, the Associated Press, the Detroit News, Time Magazine, and the New York Post.

Reviews

[Dixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an older true crime (published 1981)that was well worth reading. A narcissist surgeon leads a double life. He has a mistress, a long suffering wife, countless botched surgeries but no end of loyal clients. And murder is part of the equation too. Very interesting true crime about a man who thought he was above the law.