Narcissist, fantasist, and a sociopathic liar: Inside the twisted mind of a ... trends now
Paul Volkman is a criminal with an impressive resume.
The 77-year-old is currently serving four life sentences in an Arizona federal prison for the overdose deaths of four patients, and his connection to the deaths of numerous others. But he was once a high school valedictorian and respected family doctor.
A friend who knew him in med school said: ‘I honestly thought that one day I would pick up the newspaper and see that Paul had been given the Nobel Prize in Medicine.’
Instead, in 2012, Volkman received one of the longest sentences given to a doctor during the opiate epidemic. A DEA agent who worked on his case described him as a ‘murderous drug dealer.’
Between 2003 and 2006, while working out of cash-only pain clinics in Southern Ohio, he prescribed a torrent of controlled substances – painkillers, sedatives, muscle relaxers – in a region that was dubbed the ‘OxyContin capital of the world.’
Paul Volkman, 77, is currently serving four life sentences in an Arizona federal prison for the overdose deaths of four patients , and his connection to the deaths of numerous others
Volkman and Philip Eil's father went to University of Rochester together - photos from the time show an uncanny physical resemblance
Volkman and Eil fell out of touch after medical school in Chicago - and by 2004 Volkman was the leading purchaser of oxycodone in the country
His prescriptions - according to a search warrant, one patient received 270 oxycodone pills, 270 Percocet, 120 Somas (a muscle relaxant), and 60 Xanax in a single visit - were so large that local pharmacies refused to fill them. In response, he and the clinic’s owner opened an on-site pharmacy.
Volkman maintained then, and continues to claim, that all of his prescriptions were legal and appropriate.
In 2004, he was the leading purchaser of oxycodone in the country.
By now, nearly 30 years since OxyContin’s launch and subsequent downfall, tales of doctors who ‘broke bad’ are nothing new. It has been the subject of documentaries, and scripted shows (based on real events) including Dopesick and Painkiller.
And one study identified more than 350 criminal cases involving physicians and opiates between 1995 and 2019. The CDC reports that hundreds of thousands of people died from opiate-related overdoses during a similar timeframe, and that prescription opiates account for the ‘first wave’ of those deaths.
But Volkman was different, because I know him personally.
He went to college and medical school with my father. Both men were brainy, Jewish guys from the East Coast. They played bridge together and both sang in the University of Rochester Glee Club. Photos from their time at the University of Rochester even show an uncanny physical resemblance.
In a letter from jail after his conviction, Volkman wrote: ‘My best days are those in which I am the most angry. In my position, anger and fury is the energy which keeps me going’
Volkman patient Scottie Lin James (left) died in September 2005 at age 30. 'Everybody loved her,' said her sister Jakkie. Ernest Ratcliff (right) died the following month, at age 38
High school athlete James Estep (left) died in February 2004 at age 32 - his death by overdose was linked to Volkman's prescriptions. Father of three Danny Coffee (right) died in November 2003 at age 47
They fell out of touch after medical school. But when I learned about Volkman’s case, I was fascinated. What on earth had happened to this guy?
This was in 2009, two years after he was indicted. And I’ve spent the years since answering this question. It was a quest that began by reaching out to Volkman, who, as it turned out, was eager to talk.
There were at least two defining character traits that I noticed during my 12 years of conversations with Volkman. Foremost was his anger.
The targets of his fury were almost too numerous to count. He spoke disparagingly about his mother, his father, his late wife, and his two grown children. During one conversation, he said, of his older brother – and lone sibling: ‘I can’t stand the son of a bitch… Hopefully, he’s dead.’
When narrating the early years of his career, he lashed out at a former supervisor who he felt had stifled his research career and, at other times, described lawyers who had helped patients sue him for malpractice as ‘ethically-challenged, financially struggling barristers’ who were seeking ‘an easy payout of Other People's Money.’
His most fiery comments were saved for his criminal case. The federal agency that investigated him was ‘a vicious, criminal organization, corrupt from top to bottom.’ The expert witnesses who testified against him at trial were ‘whores.’
A former employee who testified against him was – as he told her in a Facebook message that he sent while he awaited the jury’s verdict – ‘truly disgusting.’ At his sentencing hearing, he called the judge a ‘heinous criminal.’
A prescription signed by Volkman for 240 oxycodone tablets
In 2004, Paul Volkman was the leading purchaser of oxycodone in the country
The graves of two of Volkman's patients, Mark Glenn Reeder and Jeff A Reed
In a letter from jail after his conviction, he wrote: ‘My best days are those in which I am the most angry. In my position, anger and fury is the energy which keeps me going.’
The other pillar of Volkman’s personality was grandiosity. Even as his circumstances became more diminished – indicted, convicted, and, eventually, imprisoned for life – his sense of himself seemed to only grow.
At one point, he said the chair of the department where he studied for his PhD had called him ‘the best grad student he had had in 30 years.’
Elsewhere, he described his skills as an ER physician as almost superhuman. ‘The only time I have made mistakes is when subsequent events provide additional information which changes the results of analysis,’ he wrote. ‘Those mistakes are not really mistakes, but failure to predict the future.’
From prison, he boasted that, after his years of legal research
