(Montana Free Press) – Hailed as a savior upon his arrival in Helena, Dr. Thomas C. Weiner became a favorite of patients and his hospital’s highest earner. As the myth surrounding the high-profile oncologist grew, so did the trail of patient harm and suspicious deaths.

While reporting on COVID-19’s toll in early 2022, I found myself in Helena, chatting over drinks with a handful of St. Peter’s medical staff. They wondered why I wasn’t asking about Tom Weiner. There was a deeper, haunting story, they told me, about the oncologist many inside the hospital suspected of hurting his patients. Despite those whispers, he was beloved by countless patients — “followers,” they called them. His nurses were wildly devoted to him — “a cult,” they said. The hospital administration feared him.

The rumors they shared, though vague, were disturbing and impossible to ignore. They portrayed a man whose ability to both inspire and intimidate had divided the town of Helena. It would take two years to unravel one doctor’s myth, a hospital’s complicity in creating it and the attempt to conceal a trail of suspicious deaths. One of them, I’d later learn, was of a 16-year-old girl. (Read More)