Episode 8: The Eternal Chameleon
Gary Davis wanted to leave England and all of his troubles there behind. Eventually, he reconnected with an American investor, somebody he thought could reclaim the serum, gain legitimacy for it in the US — and perhaps keep the circling sharks at bay. The new effort to bring the serum to market would end up being his last.
Grant checks into this American investor, who turns out to be a wealthy and powerful man from Texas. His business ventures have attracted legal scrutiny yet appear to have left him relatively unscathed. We find financial fraud, a suspicious suicide, ties to a fervent religious cult, and perhaps connections to federal intelligence agencies. Is this man still actively pushing a drug treatment based on the goat serum long after the doctor’s death? And how will he react to new questions about Gary Davis all these years later?
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Episode Transcript
SERUM Episode 8 – The Eternal Chameleon
Grant Hill: Just a note, today’s episode contains descriptions of suicide.
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GH: Gary Davis’ British investor, David Shotton, had told me that he was not the reason the doctor was constantly looking over his shoulder – in fact, he said if anybody was willing to kill for the serum – and if anyone could get away with it – it was one of Davis’ American partners…
David Shotton: And they used to call him Mr. Teflon…
GH: The most amazing con man David Shotton had ever seen…
DS: He’s anything you want him to be…he’s the eternal chameleon
GH: His real name?
DS: McClain, Yup, McClain.
GH: Douglas Arthur McClain Sr.
And honestly… That name? It rung a bell.
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GH: From WHYY’s The Pulse in Philadelphia, and Local Trance Media, this is SERUM. I’m Grant Hill.
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GH: David Shotton had told me that this American guy was once out to kill him.
DS: I employed a ex-marine who’s a sniper…one of the best snipers in the country… to take, what they call slot, me out.
GH: Something journalist Michael Gillard had heard too. He thought it was … ridiculous. He said Shotton took evidence of this plot to the police and…
Michael Gillard: They found it to be, like him, wholly unconvincing.
GH: I wasn’t exactly convinced either….given Shotton’s history…but it wasn’t the first time I’d heard the name Doug McClain…and danger…in the same sentence. Clyde Ashley Sherman brought him up the very first night he had told me about Gary Davis.
Clyde Ashley Sherman: It’s a poison… World renowned scientist… FADE OUT
GH: I took yet another listen back to my semi-drunk conversation with Sherman…very little of what he had told me that night had made sense to me then – especially this part:
CAS: And the only reason why I think God let it happen that he died is because he got… FADE OUT
GH: Sherman’s explanation for why he believed God let Gary Davis die – why the doctor’s fate turned…He described it like karma…that toward the end of the doctor’s life, Gary Davis and his quest to cure Aids had been tainted.
All thanks to his involvement with something called The Argyll Group – headed by a man named Doug McClain and his son…Doug McClain Jr.
CAS: They knew about the scientist and the side effects and they knew how passionate he was about giving it away to humanity.
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GH: Sherman laid out this scene for me…it was the night before Gary Davis died – April 2nd, 2007.
By then, the doctor had made plenty of deals with a variety of investors all over the world…investors like David Shotton. Things had gone awry with each of them.
But now the doctor had a promising venture going with The Argyll Group, Sherman said.
They seemed legit…even built a company around the serum right here in the US…and they wanted to take it public…sell shares of this new company on the stock market.
Once they did, Sherman said, Gary Davis, this Doug McClain, and everyone else involved were in for a windfall. Potentially millions of dollars – that all on top of Davis finally gaining legitimacy for his serum. It seemed like his dreams were about to come true.
But at the last minute…the doctor was having second thoughts. Didn’t like the direction Argyll was taking with the serum. Now, Davis wanted to jump ship, dump Argyll, dump Doug McClain…and give things one last go back in Ghana.
It wouldn’t have been the first time he ran from a deal…but this time the doctor wanted Sherman to run with him.
CAS: He said “Sherman, listen. I’m going to come to uh LA, I’m going to pick you up, we’re going to go to uh Ghana. To the Noguchi Medical Center…”
GH: So on the night before Gary Davis’ death, the doctor was at his first wife’s house in Tulsa and Sherman was in a pitch meeting trying to raise money for the serum…
CAS: I was at the L’Ermitage hotel, the only five star hotel in Beverly Hills.
GH: …at a really fancy hotel in Beverly Hills.
The person he was pitching? A wealthy philanthropist named Ray Bailey.
Sherman wanted Bailey’s support for the doctor’s newest plan – to help set up facilities for the two in West Africa.
Gary Davis called in…and Sherman handed his phone over to Bailey.
CAS: He goes out on the patio and talks to the scientist, like 20 minutes. He comes back he says “Sherman, I’m gonna let you- I’m gonna help you, I’m going to let you use my facilities.”
GH: After chatting with the doctor, Bailey agreed to help. Once again, it seemed like all the pieces were coming together for the doctor and his faithful assistant. But then about 90 minutes after Bailey spoke with Davis, Sherman said he got a call with terrible news.
CAS: …I get a phone call from the scientist’s niece that the scientist is dead.
GH: Gary Davis was dead.
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CAS: And I’m devastated. I’m like “wait a minute, I just talked to him, there was nothing wrong?” And I’m, like, all emotional and I’m like, “yo, the scientist just died!”
GH: Sherman was in shock. He had just been on the phone with him! He shared the news with Ray Bailey, who eventually left…Bailey got into his 2007 Mercedes 500 convertible – pulled out onto the street when…
CAS: CLAPS Boom, someone t-bones the car, the airbag deploys.
GH: Ray Bailey’s car got t-boned. Sherman witnessed the crash and was worried.
First the news about the doctor, now this big car wreck with a potential investor just moments after. It was a lot of chaos in a very short period of time.
CAS: And I’m watching all this in real-time just waiting for the bullet.
GH: Sherman told me he watched the whole thing in real-time quote “just waiting for a bullet.” A bullet with his name on it.
He was convinced someone was behind all this mayhem, and that he might be next. Then, his phone rang again.
CAS: It’s the Argyll Group. “Sherman, did you hear what happened to Gary?” Like “Yeah!”
GH: He said it was someone from the Argyll Group. “Did you hear what happened to Gary?” Sherman believed they were fishing for information. To see what he knew.
CAS: So they were trying to fish and find out what I knew. No one knows I knew the formula…for a long time I didn’t talk about it. I just said you know what… FADE OUT
GH: The story was classic Clyde Ashley Sherman. Straight out of Hollywood. Provocative, over the top, and a little paranoid.
It also added even more complexity to the story of Gary Davis’ death – how late was the doctor up that night? How late did that meeting in LA run?
But Sherman hadn’t steered me wrong thus far – so I set out to find this Ray Bailey. According to his LinkedIn, he specializes in “global financial forensics and logistics.”
Eventually, we connected…and I told him why I was calling…
He sounded surprised….said he hadn’t spoken to Sherman in a long time, and that he didn’t want to be interviewed about Gary Davis until he “moved some money around”…
Though he did mention one thing off-hand…he said, quote, “The night he passed, did Clyde tell you? I was the last person to speak with him. And this group that had his shit? They almost killed me.”
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GH: Bailey stopped responding to my texts and calls shortly after I spoke with him. He never specifically mentioned the Argyll Group…and never mentioned the name Doug McClain either…but Sherman had.
So I asked others who worked with the doctor… about Argyll…about Doug McClain…this person who Dr. Davis had apparently gotten involved with in the last years of his life.
They didn’t know much…but one person believed Argyll may still have a presence in Tulsa all these years later…I checked it out and found multiple companies bearing the name Argyll still in existence there but none had an obvious connection to McClain.
Instead, all listed the same Tulsa lawyer as their director. This lawyer never responded to my inquiries.
I searched around online to see if I could find more info on Doug McClain Sr. And… I did.
I ended up spending weeks trying to get a better sense of who this guy was. A man who appeared to have packed several lifetimes worth of plot twists into his seven decades on this earth. The more I found out, the more I felt like I had to trace his past – his many business ventures – because it seemed to be key to truly understanding what happened with Gary Davis – and his serum.
One of the first things I came across when I started searching was an entire website dedicated to McClain…but, not in a positive way…
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Deborah Layne: It is lunacy and insanity…It’s stupid. It’s just beyond ridiculous. It’s just such a hoax. He is evil. He is evil.
GH: The woman running that website – is Deborah Layne
DL: A little bit about me. I’m ballsy. I’m on my own. I’m forward. I’m tough.
GH: Deborah is a mom and licensed minister from San Antonio.
At the top of her webpage…an image of a wolf wrapped in sheepskin.
Then…just dozens of posts about people who say they’ve been wronged or scammed by Doug McClain over the years. And the reason she tracks all this is personal.
DL: Doug McClain came into our lives telling my father, “Oh who knows, oh my gosh, who knows!” You just can’t find the beginning or end of his lies.
GH: She says her dad, a doctor who had been paralyzed after a motorcycle accident, was one of McClain’s victims. That McClain scammed him out of $200,000…
DL: Now at this point in my dad’s life, my dad had been permanently, physically disabled. And I quit a job and moved into his house to take care of him…
GH: According to an arrest warrant affidavit, McClain had presented himself as a “devout Christian and successful businessman.” He helped bridge a strained family relationship, earned her dad’s trust.
But that was all part of his shtick…Deborah said…
It wasn’t long before he asked for some money…loans really…funds for legal fees and surveys to finalize the sale of a coal mine in Kentucky worth $41 million…Deborah’s dad was happy to help out.
When he went to withdraw the money, her dad’s bank said the deal smelled fishy.
DL: USAA contacted my dad several times to say, “Look this guy is screwing you.” He just was loath to believe it.
GH: He kept sending money to Doug McClain. Who then, allegedly, started to hedge on repaying it.
It took a long time for her dad to believe he was being scammed…but, eventually, he contacted the police…
According to the affidavit, a detective at the San Antonio Police Department discovered that instead of funding this coal mine sale, McClain allegedly wired her dad’s money to various bank accounts across the country.
McClain was arrested on August 10, 2012 in front of a UPS store in Boerne, Texas, a town neighboring San Antonio.
Soon, a local newspaper reported that close to 8 million dollars worth of civil court judgments had already been filed at the Bexar County Courthouse against McClain at the time of his arrest.
DL: Just a lifetime of civil lawsuits.
GH: Judgments dating all the way back to the 90s…
And in many of those cases…two other people had been caught up with him…his son…Doug McClain Jr. and a man named Jim Miceli…
Together, the three men had formed, owned, and operated several embattled companies over the years – one called M3 Energy Resources…another one named F.I.T. Management…
Then there was Argyll…well multiple Argylls…
Argyll Equities…a lending company…
Argyll Aviation….for, you know, planes…
And – Argyll Biotechnologies…a company that specialized in developing “Biological Response Modifiers” which had also gotten the troublesome trio in hot water thanks to its sole product…a serum derived from goat’s blood called SF-1019, which as Sherman had told me, was based on Gary Davis’ work.
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Reporter: And a new natural injection treatment called SF-1019 or Immunosyn, not yet FDA approved…
GH: Around 2007, online forums for people with multiple sclerosis lit up with talk about SF-1019…thanks, in part, to its celebrity spokesperson – a popstar.
Alan Osmond: Hi, this is Alan Osmond. I just want to inform all the friends out there that have multiple sclerosis like I do that there is help on the way.
GH: Alan Osmond – of The Osmonds think 1970s mega hits like One Bad Apple… Alan Osmond had been diagnosed with MS in the late 80s – and now he was telling people about this new treatment that had supposedly been a game changer for him.
AO: This product that I’m on called SF-1019, that is going to be approved very soon by FDA, but until then, you can get some help and this will tell you how…FADE OUT
GH: Argyll had built a company around this product…the company was called Immunosyn Corporation…and they were pitching the serum as a treatment for MS and many other illnesses. They were doing all of this even after Gary Davis was gone…
It all sounded remarkably similar to what happened in England once an eager investor had gotten his hands on the serum and just like that investor, David Shotton, now Doug McClain was saying his company added their own little something to the serum to give it that extra oomph…or maybe…to make it patentable…
Doug McClain was Chief Science Officer at Argyll Biotech…and claimed that their product, SF-1019, could treat several terminal illnesses and that FDA approval was on the horizon.
One company official allegedly told a prospective investor that Immunosyn was “the next Google.”
People flocked to the company…some seeking fortunes, others a cure…they bought shares of Immunosyn, and SF-1019, too.
But eventually those online forums…and investors…turned on Immunosyn…people accused the company of being a fraud, and government officials started to investigate.
In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Immunosyn, its officers, and McClain personally with defrauding investors out of about $20 million…
All of this happened, a year before McClain was arrested for allegedly swindling Deborah Layne’s dad out of hundreds of thousands of dollars…
And it was this history – Deborah dug up for her dad – which convinced him to take action against McClain.
She believed McClain had previously somehow avoided paying what he owed judgment creditors…
DL: He has avoided tons, tons…
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GH: But this time, McClain was facing criminal fraud charges…that was new.
DL: The next thing that was going to happen would be that Doug McClain got arrested and put in jail and the key thrown away for a hundred million years. He was so effing guilty.
GH: Except…that did not happen. McClain was never found guilty…in fact, the case never even made it to trial.
Instead, Deborah tells me McClain cut a deal. He repaid Deborah’s dad…and the case against McClain…wasn’t just dropped…it was somehow expunged.
Deborah desperately wanted McClain prosecuted…still does…but she settled for this small victory – the closest thing to justice for her dad she could get.
DL: I’m the one that took down Doug McClain. Thank you very much. I am the one that took him down.
GH: But unlike those civil cases, besides news reports from the time, which linked to a pdf of the arrest warrant affidavit I saw, the expungement meant all other official records of this ever happening vanished…this sounded odd – and believe me, I checked.
I called the San Antonio police department, the Bexar County clerk’s office, asked about files related to the case number on the arrest warrant.
Office worker: Okay, I asked her, she was like “Nope.”
GH: No?
Office worker: She doesn’t have access to that either. So did you try contacting SAPD?
GH: I did. Yeah. They said they didn’t have any records… FADE OUT
GH: And this infuriated Deborah…she feared history might repeat itself. That Doug McClain Sr. would just move on to a new mark.
DL: Dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of lawsuits.
GH: The more I looked into the many companies associated with Doug McClain and Argyll – the muddier the waters got.
I came across an independent journalist from Florida named Daniel Hopsicker who had done a lot of reporting on Doug McClain…
So I called him up…
Daniel Hopsicker: So, what do you wanna talk about?
GH: Told him what brought me here..
GH: Basically the whole deal is, a few years ago I got into a cab and you know, the driver told me about this, you know, alleged cure for AIDS and I-
DH: Goat’s blood.
GH: Exactly, exactly.
GH: Daniel Hopsicker had gotten interested in McClain for a different reason.
He was checking into a record breaking drug bust on an airport tarmac in Mexico that happened on April 10, 2006. Five-and-a-half tons of cocaine found on an airplane. The co-pilot was arrested, and claimed the plane was used by the CIA.
So, Hopsicker tried to figure out who owned this plane – and discovered that it linked back to a company called Skyway Communications – it wasn’t the only time this company had been reportedly connected to a plane that was transporting drugs…
DH: So I start looking at Skyway Communications, which is a totally bogus firm-
GH: After some more digging, Daniel found out that this company, Skyway, had ties with the Argyll group, Doug McClain’s operation…
DH: What I discovered was that a bogus investment bank in tiny Boerne, Texas, named Argyll Equities LLC, run by Doug McClain Sr, who already had a 20 year history of – of fraud and stock scams had been the second largest shareholder in Skyway-
GH: No one from Skyway was ever charged with a crime in connection with the plane…and Daniel learned that Doug McClain had evaded criminal charges again and again – despite his many questionable operations that attracted civil litigation.
A Texas detective told Daniel the reason was that investigations into McClain were being “obstructed by the FBI.”
DH: Yeah, I mean, you know, pretty shocking information isn’t it?
GH: According to Daniel, the detective hinted that Doug McClain was being protected by some within the federal government…and Daniel thought that these potential connections went way back into McClain’s distant past – when he was a prominent member of a Christian cult.
Sam Fife: The blood of Jesus is against you, the blood of Jesus….
GH: It was called “The Move of God”…founded by a Navy veteran…Sam Fife…heard here performing an exorcism.
CRYING
SF: SINGING Ah Jesus…FADE OUT
GH: The cult prophesied global economic collapse…
Vennie Kocsis: Okay, well, Sam Fife started his ministry in the 60s. It was definitely you know, during the Latter Rain movement, which is basically the evangelical movement.
GH: I connected with a former member of that cult – Vennie Kocsis – she wrote a book called Cult Child and has spent much of her life piecing together what she described as a series of traumatic experiences growing up in the Move of God.
It all started when her dad followed a new job opportunity.
VK: I was born in 1969, on a naval base in Portsmouth, Virginia. And then the first year of my birth, my father, he had just retired from the Navy and he was on the Grumman crew. So they were approached to design the F-14 Tomcat.
GH: So her family moved close to Miramar Naval Station in San Diego…
VK: And my father was away on a six week lockdown for testing for this plane…
GH: That’s when her mom was approached by an old friend who moved to California too…she suggested she bring her kids to a church about two hours away.
VK: Then it got so deep that my mother consolidated bedrooms. You know, put other cult members, you know it was the 70s…FADE OUT
GH: Soon members of the church were staying in their apartment…like a communal living situation…
VK: My father came home and said no, not having any of this. My mom gave him an ultimatum; she divorced him and took us to the first deliverance compound which was Ware, Massachusetts. Now this is where Doug McClain comes in.
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GH: That year…Vennie was three years old and went by a different name when her mom packed up their VW Bug, and drove the kids across the country to Ware, Massachusetts…
To a plot of land…129 acres. Records show…it was purchased the year before Vennie got there for one dollar. Bought by three men…one of whom was…
VK: Donald McClain…that’s Doug’s father.
GH: No one on the compound really knew much about Donald McClain’s past…but while Vennie and others there toiled away every day tending to the farm…doing manual labor…sleeping in uncomfortable places…
VK: Like a barracks…it had a mess hall. It had rooms upstairs with military style bunk beds, military blankets.
GH: Donald McClain and his wife…they got to stay in a big house – were to be treated with deference. For whatever reason, they were important. And their son Doug – he was part of something called…the father ministry.
VK: The father ministry…salesman types…
GH: He was a missionary…who traveled all over the world preaching about The Move of God…and collecting tithes…he was considered an elder of the church…even though he was barely an adult.
While Doug McClain traveled, Vennie Kocsis says she endured life in Ware…filled with bizarre routines, physical and mental abuse, and child labor…
VK: They worked us to the bone, welcome to my joints, which never got to develop properly as a child- you can’t work 12-14 hour days, on your hands and knees, and weeding gardens and shit and your joints develop, you’re not running, you’re not playing, you’re not moving them.
GH: The Move had dozens of cells all over the US and many in remote corners of the world…on at least five continents according to some accounts…
In 1978, Vennie moved from Ware to another settlement in Dry Creek, Alaska…she said the McClains moved there too.
Doug McClain was married by then, and had two sons …the youngest of which got really sick shortly after he was born in Alaska…
Vennie said the group preached faith healing…believed doctors were the devil.
VK: And they prayed all night, 24 hour prayer watches, praying and speaking in tongues to heal the baby. Well it died.
GH: Someone turned Doug McClain and his wife in for neglecting their child… they were put on trial…and were acquitted…though when Vennie went looking years later, she couldn’t find any records of the case.
VK: I went into the damn court library and got on the microfiche trying to find that damn case. It’s just, like, vanished.
GH: Vennie’s family was kicked out of the cult when she was an adolescent …McClain left too…but she was always curious what happened to him…suspicious of what the real purpose of this cult was and McClain’s central role as a young elder…
VK: Doug was in the city recruiting okay… Doug was a real good- He has always been a smooth talker…
GH: Did The Move really have factions in far off…often precarious…places during the height of the cold war simply because scripture told them to?
Why did those on her compound so often seem to get away with blatant abuses…even when members complained to authorities? Vennie suspects ties with intelligence agencies…
VK: And the only thing I can think of is this CIA government connection.
GH: Not every victim of the cult believes this, by the way, other former members I spoke to think Doug McClain might have merely disappeared with some of the cult’s money…
But Vennie…she suspects the cult might have been a part of some sort of government project…
Which, I don’t know, sounds a little much…but during the 70s and 80s, the US government and Christian missionaries, even members of cults, worked closely together under the guise of “relief work” to spread religious fervor and capitalism abroad.
In 1975, Christianity Today estimated that up to a quarter of US-based Protestant and Catholic missionaries had provided information to American intelligence authorities. It was a thing.
So much so that, a year later, the CIA promised to stop recruiting “missionaries and clergymen for informational purposes,” but still kept secret the names of those who volunteered information.
Vennie thought Doug McClain might have been caught up in all of this…some sort of asset…a suspicion reinforced by her own experience trying to get the authorities to investigate The Move…and by Daniel Hopsicker’s articles.
VK: I think Daniel holds some of those answers…you know the disappearing airport things like that… there’s no telling what… FADE OUT
GH: Here’s what she’s referring to… In 2014, Daniel Hopsicker was looking deeper into the Move of God – and he found a tiny rural airport in Fitzgerald, Georgia managed by a relative of one of the cult’s founders.
The airport had a list of planes that were stored there on its website. Daniel said he checked those planes’ registration numbers and several of them linked back to a company with established ties to the CIA.
The airport manager called Daniel’s reporting “totally bogus.”
But curiously…shortly following Daniel’s inquiries…the airport code for Bowens Mill Christian Center Airport…the public FAA identification code pilots use to know where they’re landing…it was changed…reassigned to a different airport 180 miles away.
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GH: So what was going on here?
Some of the wildest theories I’d heard surrounding Gary Davis had to do with covert government intervention in his quest to cure AIDS…
What were the chances that quest ended with his involvement with The Eternal Chameleon, Doug McClain?
Were these theories just more reaching…speculation? It seemed like nobody had asked anyone close to Doug McClain…or Doug McClain himself…where was he?
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GH: I wondered if his past schemes had caught up with him. If he had ever been charged with a crime since paying back Deborah Layne’s dad.
He had not. But his business associates had…including his son.
While McClain Sr. seemed to avoid any legal problems, in 2010, Argyll Equities got in some trouble…two of its officers, Doug McClain Jr. and Jim Miceli had been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud…accused of lying and deceiving their clients.
McClain Jr. was found guilty on all counts – sentenced to 15 years in prison…which he’s now serving under house arrest…living with his dad.
Jim Miceli died by suicide before the trial began.
Kaitlyn Miceli: He was a great dad. Um he was just fun and he tried to be so serious, but he was totally not serious.
GH: That’s Kaitlyn Miceli…Jim Miceli’s daughter. I called her to ask about her dad’s relationship with Doug McClain and his son. They had all worked together for over a decade.
KM: My dad was, he likes to see the good in people. I hate to say that he was kind of naive, but he was kind of naive. He was a very brilliant man. But at the same time he trusted. I don’t know the full story. So I can’t, you know, claim whether he was guilty, innocent, or what have you. But what I can say is that my dad, I know for a fact, his intentions, in my experience with him, were typically good intentions.
GH: Kaitlyn remembers her dad being excited when he and his business partners got involved with the goat serum treatment…
KM: So I remember learning a lot for the first time and just the excitement in my dad’s voice about how much it was helping people, specifically, Alan Osman was, you know, did a complete 180 going from, you know, having a issue, you know, walking and then being able to- being able to walk and just live his normal life again, or as close to it as possible.
GH: Then, when Kaitlyn was in her early twenties, she got a call from her mom, and learned that her dad had been arrested. Charged with fraud for his work with Argyll Equities…
KM: And you know, my mom just started crying and told me the truth, which is that he was in jail. Or the federal jail at that point, wherever that was, downtown. And she told me about all of the charges and stuff. And it was very shocking to me because, you know, as a child of, especially of my dad who was just such a kind man, it’s just something that was very shocking to me. I didn’t expect it. I’ll never really know what exactly happened, I’ll never really know. But I just know that that time was rough. And the FBI was around a lot. We would be places and they were, you know, the unmarked vehicles.
GH: Her dad was released on bond and awaiting trial. It was a tough time…she said he was under constant surveillance…even Kaitlyn remembers being followed once, too.
KM: They were always there, I felt that they always had an eye on him, all the time. And he had an ankle monitor.
GH: One day her dad didn’t return home for curfew…then she got a call from the San Diego County Coroner’s Office.
KM: And she said, “I know that you’ve been looking for your dad.” And I said, “Yes, I have. Do you have him?” And it didn’t click to me right away that it was the coroner. It just – it didn’t click that that’s what that would mean that he would be dead. I said, “Is he okay?” And she said, “No, I’m sorry to say he’s not. He’s deceased.” And I said, “Are you sure it’s him? Do you need me to come and identify the body” and she said to me, “A few FBI agents left a little bit ago, they already did.”
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GH: Kaitlyn sometimes calls her dad’s death an “alleged” suicide. She has a lot of questions about it – like why the FBI was notified of his death before her family.
He was found in a truck she says he never really drove. He wasn’t a gun person either…never owned or used one before that day. Not to her knowledge. Though she said he did leave a note.
KM: You then question everything.
GH: She hired a private investigator to pry information from the FBI – information on how this could’ve happened while he was under surveillance…FBI agents weren’t very forthcoming, she said, and they denied he was being heavily surveilled.
KM: And it’s very interesting because on the coroner’s report, the autopsy report, they said that there was not any gunpowder found on his hands. And that wasn’t something they were willing to give me easily. I had to hire a private investigator.
GH: I wasn’t able to confirm this. All these years later, she didn’t know if she still had a copy of the report. I requested Jim Miceli’s FBI files, but I haven’t received them yet.
Kaitlyn did not have any alternative theories for how her dad died, or who might have wanted him dead….
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GH: A litany of fraud allegations. A dead business partner. An upbringing in a strange, global cult, one son living under house arrest…another gone years ago in Alaska.
This is the person Gary Davis got involved with in his last-ditch effort to bring the goat serum to market…or had he gotten tangled up with something that went way deeper.
Doug McClain certainly sounded like somebody I should talk to.
I checked to see what McClain was up to these days…found a few web pages and blogs written by him online where he claims to be an “immunotherapy researcher.” That was basically it.
Except for one Youtube video…posted in 2011…
Doug McClain: Thank you, Father.
GH: Where he’s giving a sermon…
DM: I want you to turn to Johnny’s chapter for a moment verses scripture that we know. And again, it’s one of these scriptures that everybody knows…This passage of scripture isn’t secluded, this passage of scripture isn’t known just among Christians. As I said, it goes over the entrances of hundreds of universities. And if you’ve ever had a chance to go into some of the- the inner corridor of the CIA building in Virginia, there – carved in granite – a passage of scripture, about 20 feet long and about six feet high, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
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GH: So what is the truth? And who could it set free?
That’s what I wanted to know…at least I thought I did…a part of me believed I was better off ignorant to just how deep this might go…but I had to ask.
I found McClain’s number and left him a message – said I was interested in speaking with him, knowing more about his involvement with Gary Davis…and what happened with this goat’s blood serum…
The days passed…silence…no calls, no messages. Until one morning…my phone rings and on the caller ID…only the words “LOVE IN ACTION.”
It was Doug McClain.
MUSIC
GH: Coming up on SERUM…
GH: Alright so…I am in the airport…little nervous…little nervous don’t know how he’s going- going to react.
GH: Feeling a bit alone…in the Lonestar state.
MUSIC
GH: This is SERUM, I’m Grant Hill.
Against all odds – Doug McClain Sr. had actually agreed to meet with me. So, I flew to San Antonio, Texas. Considering all the speculation I had heard about the man up until now…I was…let’s just say nervous.
Thought long and hard about where McClain and I should meet and settled on a podcast studio.
ENGINEER: …You can probably get a little more length out of this… these cords… FADE OUT
GH: …A friendlier environment than, I don’t know, the Alamo…
ENGINEER: I typically have the curtains closed when I’m doing a podcast…just so no distractions…there shouldn’t be anybody coming by at this time.
GH: I’m just gonna open these- open these up actually….
GH: …at least an engineer would be present to make sure everything went smoothly.
ENGINEER: I’ve got an office literally about half a block away. I’m gonna run over there, run some errands, I’ll be in and out of this office space.
GH: Okay, cool, great, appreciate it.
ENGINEER: You can shoot me a text…FADE OUT
GH: Of course. Now – I’m totally alone in this space – and I don’t have time to come up with Plan B. Douglas Arthur McClain Sr. has arrived and he quickly fires off his opening salvo.
DM: If any way this is going to be a slam on Gary Davis, I’m just going to walk out. LAUGHS
GH: Oh, I mean, listen, you can- you can walk out anytime you want but… FADE OUT
GH: Doug McClain is a large man. Both taller and wider than me. But surprisingly soft spoken.
DM: My name is Douglas Arthur McClain. I am an immunologist. I’m not a medical doctor. I’m not an MD, but I’m a research immunologist and I develop uh biological response modifiers.
GH: We’ll get to the veracity of his credentials later….but he sure looks sophisticated. He’s 70 years old. Wears a black beret and a vest. Has a gray beard and piercing eyes. I can’t remember the color.
GH: Do you have any other questions for me before we begin? I’m totally free to answer anything…
DM: The only other thing is that…I’ve, up until five years ago, I experienced because the serum stayed with me and we’ve taken it farther, hundreds of millions of dollars and getting it ready to get it approved and blah blah blah and um I’ve never tried to straighten out what the internet says about me. If you read what the internet says about me, I am the devil.
GH: Well, I wanted to talk to you about that…FADE OUT
GH: But first…I wanted to talk about Gary Davis.
GH: When did you first meet him? How did you first meet him? Everybody has a story and I’m curious of yours…
DM: And it’s interesting, Gary and I never discovered how we got put together. Okay, but we did, it was 1998.
GH: Doug says by then, he had changed the course of his life…through a…series of things.
DM: And through a series of things, I became – I went from a virtual vow of poverty to fairly wealthy and um dedicated my wealth to finding medical cures…
GH: He says after his first wife died of cancer in the mid-80s, he moved from Alaska down to the lower 48…and devoted his life to finding medical cures…
DM: So I invested up to almost a million dollars in nine different medical ventures. None of them were scams. Some went a little bit farther, and then it didn’t work. Gary Davis was number 10.
GH: Doug never provided me with the names or any details of these medical ventures he says he invested in – and I never asked whether they were scams…But eventually he remarried, and he says he and his second wife, Deborah…they had a good feeling about this tenth venture…this doctor from Tulsa.
DM: We got introduced to each other. He fell in love with me and my wife. We fell in love with him. Because you know, he starts- every conversation he starts with the story. The dream in the barn…you know, and um it sounded great. And so having now been a student of immunology for 15, 16 years, I actually already was an expert.
GH: Over the years, all over the world …Doug says he saw Davis treat thousands of people.
DM: Uh, I met so many people. Um. First of all, anything I’m telling you I have the paperwork and the proof behind it….FADE OUT
GH: Uh..we’ll get to that later, too. Anyway, says he had his own ideas to contribute to this treatment…but wanted Davis on board. So Doug says he started to invest on a handshake deal.
DM: And then, we, Debbie and I made a commitment to invest it until it either died or went forward. And we did and we did it on a handshake. First check I wrote him was for $75,000 um and 50,000…100,000..it was never more than I think $100,000 at a time. But after a while, and – and we always saw results. And it got to be a lot of money. And to this day, don’t regret it.
GH: How much do you think in total that you invested?
DM: Well I know exactly how much- LAUGHS
GH: How much was – Can I ask…how much?
DM: About seven and a half million dollars.
GH: Wow.
GH: He says much of his money, at least at first, went toward funding trials in Mexico…and a documentary made about it all.
DM: The two hour uh – that video. You’ve seen that right?
GH: Doug says he was behind the footage featuring Tommy Farnsworth – not just David Shotton…still…despite what he says was a success in Mexico…it took some time for things to develop after that…partly because of the year the doctor spent in the UK…
GH: Shotton alleged some wild things of his own as I’m sure you, you are- you would probably, you know, not be surprised by, he actually told me that you put out a hit on him…
DM: Yeah, that was, first of all, no, that’s not true. Not even near true. I wouldn’t even know how to do that.
GH: Doug says Shotton’s claims of a hit were all an act…a legal maneuver really…to muck up Doug’s own pursuits with the serum in the states…his efforts to bring the serum to market – through a company called Argyll Biotech which started in 2002.
Doug says he was taking Davis’ serum to another level… developing it into a new treatment …what came to be called SF-1019.
DM: He brought lots of stuff to my table and I brought lots of stuff to his table.
GH: This was what Shotton was trying to stop…Doug says…but his attempts…what Doug calls baseless claims of a plot to have Shotton murdered…they didn’t work.
DM: I know nothing ever came of it. I don’t know that he actually took it to the police because he – he needed to stay away from the police for all kinds of reasons.
GH: Doug didn’t know if Shotton was really connected to organized crime. Says he acted like it though.
DM: It was very hairy. And this is our first involvement of bad things. Got called on the phone describing my children coming out of school. Human entrails were on my front doorstep.
GH: Human entrails?
DM: Yeah, intestine, kidney.
GH: When I ask him about this again, later – he tells me they could have been pig.
Doug says he was the one who eventually got Davis out of the UK…
DM: And so I went over there. I got Gary out of there and we flew back.
GH: He tells me this happened often…Doug would be called upon to go “rescue” the doctor from various places all over the world…he says it happened in Ivory Coast…
DM: They took his passport.
GH: In Ghana…
DM: I mean we had an army of help.
GH: In Spain…
DM: I said just go to a Marriott hotel. Gary, just go to a Marriott hotel and check in and you’ll be fine.
GH: So how did he know how to do this? How to extract this rogue doctor from foriegn countries that wanted to keep him within their borders?
DM: Well, again, because of Alan Osmond, and my connection with Senator Orrin Hatch, was only because of Alan Osmond so. But he would take my phone call. And so I called Alan Osmond, “What do we do?” And he said “Go to the US embassy.”
GH: Orrin Hatch said that?
DM: Oh yeah.
GH: Orrin Hatch is dead – so I couldn’t verify this, his foundation didn’t respond…but I get a sense that Doug McClain likes to name-drop, hint at his powerful connections that helped the doctor and the serum…
DM: Gary Davis and I and Alan were in his office in Washington DC because we got called there to meet with Congress. And after he heard the whole story… FADE OUT
GH: Argyll was ramping up to take Immunosyn and SF-1019 public…then Gary Davis died suddenly in April 2007. I tell Doug that some in Tulsa, some online, find his death suspicious. I ask him if he does…
DM: He died at home in his bed didn’t he?
GH: Yeah, yeah he did. Um but there was never an autopsy…
GH: He says he was close to Sadonna, the doctor’s first wife…and if she suspected anything, he says she would have told him.
DM: And he had just committed, from what I understand, to stop drinking. Just committed.
GH: Really?
DM: Yeah, maybe he died because he stopped drinking. I mean that, that can happen.
GH: He thought quitting drinking may have killed him. I ask about what Sherman had told me in his Lyft…
GH: He told me, Gary was thinking about actually, you know, leaving or selling his shares in Immunosyn at the time near his death. Do you know if that was- if that was true or not? What was the relationship like with him and Immunosyn near the end of his life?
DM: Well, we had several big meetings with our researchers in England.
GH: He says Gary Davis wanted his original serum backed by Immunosyn…not this new SF-1019 stuff.
DM: And I said, “Gary you’re part of this company, you have 5 million shares of Immunosyn,” which at that time was worth a lot of money. But first of all, the FDA has already said it will never approve, you know, a serum that’s based upon injecting the HIV virus….FADE OUT
GH: Doug veers off from the question. He does this quite a bit in his responses. I ask him about wealthy philanthropist Ray Bailey…the car crash after learning of Davis’ death at the Beverly Hills Hotel…
GH: Ray Bailey got in a car crash right afterward.
DM: Oh I know who Bailey is now.
GH: Do you remember this?
DM: I know that, yeah. That’s true.
GH: That is true?
DM: I mean I heard that…whether it’s true or not…I heard that.
GH: I tell him about the phone call Sherman got…
GH: A call from someone at Argyll, who he says is “fishing for information about-”
DM: His death?
GH: About his death.
GH: I bring up that both Sherman and Bailey said they were scared. Sherman waiting for a bullet with his name on it.
GH: They didn’t mention a fear of Argyll or anybody within Argyll. But Ray Bailey did say that this group that Davis was involved with, “almost killed him.”
DM: Well, starting with David Shotton. And well you have multiple testimonials of that. I mean, people, he sent one of his people to actually visit me…FADE OUT
GH: Doug says they probably just feared Shotton – his people.
Eventually, we get into what happened to Immunosyn – the company built around the new version of the goat serum – after Davis’ death. This is heavy stuff – I look at my notes which are based on all of the things I found in different court records…civil charges the Securities and Exchange Commission brought against Immunosyn and Doug personally…
GH: You know over the years, several individual investors and the SEC claimed Immunosyn, and you personally misrepresented both the serum’s efficacy, and how far along the company was with clinical trials and the FDA approval process. They said this misrepresentation occurred within the company’s financial filings and on the company’s website and during in person presentations. So in granting summary judgment in favor of the SEC, a federal judge found that you engaged in securities fraud, in other cases involving individual investors….
GH: I start to ask about specifics……Doug asks for a break.
DM: Restroom.
GH: Yeah go ahead.
DM: I’m on Lasix. LAUGHS
GH: Please, no worries.
GH: He returns a few minutes later and apologizes. Blames it on his medication.
GH: So yeah, basically just talking about the Immunosyn, kind of litigation that followed, the allegations that were against – made against you personally. So you know, Eleneanor Rabin, was one – was one plaintiff in those, in that litigation, she had a neurological disorder. She invested $80,000. She lost $65,000. Gary Elton had stage four lymphoma. He bought $10,000 worth of shares. And I believe he lost that as well. You know, Denise Campbell, she had MS. She injected herself with – just want to make sure I have this right – she injected herself with SF-1019. And she didn’t know at the time that it had killed four lab rats in tests. She said that was not disclosed to her.
DM: When and where.
GH: Well, I mean… FADE OUT
GH: I tell him exactly when and where those rats died, which I had discovered in a legal complaint made against him.
Remember he was Chief Science Officer at Argyll…responsible for all the science of SF-1019…the regulatory process, too.
GH: Four lab rats had – had perished after taking the serum or after being injected with the serum. And she – she claimed that – that was not disclosed to her. So, first of all, what’s your response to those allegations all these years later? And do you regret the way you represented SF-1019 at all to those investors, many of whom were terminally ill and didn’t have a lot of money?
DM: Well, uh never talked to Denise Campbell. She got her product through Mexico. Through Dr. Frank Morales.
GH: Dr. Frank Morales is not a real doctor. He was sentenced to 60 months in prison for selling SF-1019 to a doctor that was busted for treating patients in Mexico by the news show 60 Minutes.…
Morales was connected with Immunosyn.
GH: Well, she saw, I believe she saw Alan Osmond’s appearance…
GH: I remind him that this patient, Denise Campbell had heard of SF-1019 through Alan Osmond’s app1earance on Larry King – that Osmond wasn’t just a believer – he was given shares in Immunosyn for his promotion of the serum.
GH: Through Alan Osmond that was facilitated.
DM: So I didn’t know who she was. I never made any representations to her.
GH: Okay.
DM: I don’t remember all the details to Gary Elton. But to this day, if you have a serious medical condition, and medical – traditional medical science takes care of it. Why – you don’t go on the internet. You don’t go looking for other cures. You know, the only people that ever contacted us since we don’t advertise and never advertised was…
GH: Well, Alan Osman advertised for – for SF-1019 on his website and on YouTube.
DM: Is that – is that would be considered? I guess it would be considered advertising.
GH: Yeah, there are videos where he says, you know, go to my website, and he had links to Argyll’s website. And he said he could put you in touch with a doctor and everything.
DM: That’s true. Yeah. That’s- that’s- that is correct. But again why? Because it worked.
GH: Again, there is no proof it worked…But Doug says he could provide me with his own studies proving SF-1019 was effective. He has never done so.
GH: So you don’t regret any of – any of your representation about it?
DM: Well, to say I don’t regret….when Immunosyn was becoming public..I mean what.. You know.. we did a CD… we did a presentation- 30 something minutes, do you have a copy of that?
GH: No I don’t. Again I- if you have it… FADE OUT
GH: But I knew what he was talking about. It was one of the presentations the SEC used to prove in court that he made misrepresentations to investors. He claims his statements were all approved by the best lawyers…
DM: I mean… there was nothing- you know public companies are highly, highly regulated. And so um I don’t know anything on that CD that wasn’t true. Because there’s representation about how far we are with the approval process of – the only thing I ever said, and on tape and recorded is that we have started that process…
GH: In reality, Doug said far more than that. A federal judge concluded he claimed approval for SF-1019 was right around the corner and that some state medical boards had already granted compassionate use waivers…which obviously, was not true.
Doug doesn’t acknowledge he did anything wrong.
So next, I ask him about another claim he made…this one in 2008 at a holistic health center…when the SEC said he sold $300,000 worth of stock to 15 people.
He told them…
GH: The Defense Department had purchased 600,000 vials of the serum…a federal judge said that wasn’t true.
DM: That…that is correct that I said it and that’s correct that it is true.
GH: It is true? It was true that they purchased 600…?
DM: No, no, no, no, no.
GH Okay.
DM: It’s true that I said it because I was told that by Jim Miceli…
GH: The claim of a military connection with this serum had gotten my attention when I first saw it…but Doug now says they did not have a connection with the defense department and blames his deceased former business partner.
DM: I said we sold 600,000 that was absolutely categorically false, but, you know, my dad used to say there’s two kinds of- there’s the teller of lies, and the- the one who perpetrates- or uh there’s the liar and the teller- I was the teller of a lie. That’s what I was told.
GH: He says really, if you wanna know what happened at the clinic…he was begged to present about SF-1019 by the head of the clinic…who is also dead.
DM: Begged me, begged me and against my wife’s advice, because we were living in Utah at the time, came down there, did a presentation for her and let them buy some of my stock, personal stock. And uh the amount of people in that room that had been healed by not only BB seven, but also COUGHS but also SF-1019, I get calls to this day from those people can I get serum? Can I get serum? Can I get serum? And I just- I just ignore it right now.
GH: The first time we talked on the phone, Doug said something that alarmed me. He said he was currently working with a company on getting FDA approval for yet another variation of the serum…he wouldn’t give me the company’s name.
DM: Our website is based in Mexico. And it doesn’t mention us, it does mention the product… FADE OUT
GH: And still won’t. But he says people find out about it through word of mouth…he says there are cancer patients in Mexico currently receiving injections…
DM: And I don’t talk to the patients. They just, they go to the website, they talk to the people in Mexico. And there’s a throat cancer patient there right now. And what was the question?
GH: I ask him the obvious question, given his history…
GH: Why should people trust you now?
DM: Why are they in a position to trust me? I’m not out there.
GH: Yeah, I mean, why should patients, right, these patients who are um, you know, who are terminally ill. I don’t know if they pay- do they pay for the treatment at all when they go down to Mexico?
DM: Yes and no. Treatment has never been withheld because of lack of payment.
GH: Okay.
DM: But again, I have nothing to do with that. I just supply the product.
GH: Well, it’s your- it’s your product. So you have something to do with it.
DM: Well, but I don’t talk to the patients. I don’t. However, I help design the protocol for every patient.
GH: Okay, so you are involved in some capacity with it.
DM: Right, but I don’t have any interaction. Patients that go there have no idea who I am, what my company is or anything else.
GH: You can see the problem here. Assuming what Doug says is true…if patients knew who was behind it…they might not wanna get injected with whatever product this is…especially given the alleged “inventor’s” credentials…
DM: The original molecule was 250,000 kilodaltons in size. That’s why it took 10 CC’s – You got five CC’s in each arm… FADE OUT
GH: A few times during our conversation…like when he explains how his new serum is different from Gary Davis’…he says things I remember from reading the transcripts of other presentations he has given on SF-1019…the same descriptions…turns of phrases…like it’s memorized.
DM: I’m 70 years old, and I’m still a student. I read two or three papers a day. That’s just who I am. And so that’s why I am considered an expert. I’m not degreed.
GH: Yeah, I was gonna ask did you- did you get a degree from somewhere?
DM: No.
GH: So it’s all self study.
DM: It’s all self study. But I am- I am credentialled through the American Association of Immunologists. I’ve gone through all their advanced training in class. And the last one was virtual because of COVID. And I’ve been asked to speak at medical schools all over the world.
GH: He has a way of sounding… impressive
He tells me he spoke at Harvard…two schools in Manila…and more. He says he could get me the names of the doctors who invited him… Though I repeatedly ask for proof…he never provides any.
DM: …He’s on the board of directors of the American Association of Immunologists which I’m a member, and he’s a director of the Cancer Research Institute, which I’m a member of, proudly, alright?
GH: The American Association of Immunologists would not confirm whether Doug was a member…and the Cancer Research Institute isn’t even a member organization.
“Furthermore,” A spokesman for the institute wrote to me, “we have no record of—nor has anyone here heard of—Douglas A. McClain Sr., so he has not attended one of our conferences, is not a grant recipient, is not a donor, and so has no connection with us. He is not by any account a world-renowned immunologist.”
I ask him about the reported 8 million dollars worth of civil judgments the San Antonio Express news said were filed against him in Texas …the judgments Deborah Layne said she believed he never paid.
DM: The problem is, I don’t- I don’t know what $7.8 million in judgments we’re talking about. I mean, there’s none active now, they’ve all been settled. I mean, all the ones that were real um so I don’t know how to answer that.
GH: Okay.
DM: So really, we’re not talking about Gary Davis now we’re talking about me…
GH: No- I’m…we talked about that there were a lot of stuff on the internet about you.
DM: Oh, absolutely.
GH: This is a part of that.
DM: Yes, yes.
GH: I hope you’re comfortable with that. I mean it’s a part of the serum story and-
DM: It’s public information. LAUGHS FADE OUT
GH: That’s exactly right.
GH: So we get into it.
MUSIC
DM: They started at a farm called Ware in Massachusetts and my dad did put up the money, my mom and dad did put up the money to buy that… FADE OUT
GH: Doug doesn’t tell me much about his parents…what they did before his dad purchased the land for the compound where Vennie Kocsis grew up – in Ware, Massachusetts.
But later he tells me where some of his wealth came from…his inheritance…that before becoming part of The Move of God – he says his dad was a founding member of Shearson & Hammill, a wall street brokerage firm that would later merge with the likes of Lehman Brothers and American Express.
Doug didn’t say why his dad suddenly decided to change the direction of his life and purchase a farm in Massachusetts to join a religious movement.
But he admitted, in the Move of God, his family was important …and so was he.
DM: I truly was a neophyte. And I shouldn’t have been put in that kind of leadership position- I wasn’t in leadership at 18. But by 22, I was. But I was a voracious reader. I studied the Bible in Aramaic and Greek, I still read it in Aramaic and Greek, the original. I’m still asked to teach, because of my knowledge of the word. The Move was truly in my opinion, when it first started it was the move of God and it grew all over the world. And I went into 66 different countries to preach.
GH: Doug says he remembers Vennie Kocsis – the woman who grew up in the same cult, but denies seeing anything remotely abusive occur.
DM: Again, I’m traveling all over the world during this time, if you know, they have an airstrip, I have an airplane, and uh anyone that will tell you, of course, most of my sphere of influence, they’re all dead. You know, um the physical abuse as far as, I mean, they believed- they believed in corporal punishment, if you disobeyed in school, you got spanked.
GH: Vennie insists it went way further than getting spanked. Other former members told me so too.
Doug says when he moved to Alaska with the cult – he was appointed head of renewable resources by the governor…something I was unable to confirm…
And he says he was meeting with him when the governor’s phone rang…
DM: Governor answers his phone, he says “Doug, this for you. Doug you’ve been charged with uh homicide.” What? I’m thinking I hit somebody on the icy road or something. “No, they’re talking about your son.” So as it turned out- in the first, you know, I got criminally charged, both my wife and I. The thing could have been thrown out, because right to a speedy trial was violated- all these other things. And the judge with my attorney said, you know, these – your constitutional rights have been violated. So we can dismiss this right now.
GH: Doug says he wanted to go to trial anyway – to prove he did not neglect the well being of his son…that…
DM: We refused him medical attention. That it was part of our religious doctrine, which- not true. No, I mean, do we believe in healing, divine healing? Yes. At the point of not seeking medical attention? Well, just look what I’m doing right now. You know, but the point is, we went to trial, because I said wait a minute. I’ve been charged with murdering my own son, and it’s going to be dismissed on a technicality? I’m freaking guilty. If I mean, that’s, that’s what everyone’s gonna see. I’m a known person in this community. So we went to trial- we were found unanimously, which you have to be, not guilty. And the jury actually said, “Can we actually put a statement in here, your honor, that not only is Doug and Margaret not guilty, but they’re innocent?” And you can say that and they did. And I’ve tried to get the court records. I can’t find them either. But because they couldn’t get the court records, they tried to say I was actually guilty. Okay, and I’m walking around free, because I was found guilty of murdering my own son?
GH: Doug says he left the cult when he left Alaska in 1982 and a few years later, he made a bunch of money, added on to his inheritance.
GH: So how did you make your money? If you don’t mind me asking.
DM: No, no, the dot-com bubble. I did some consulting for a company and they gave me 15 million shares of stock that were worth nothing. And it went from nothing to $52 a share. Do the math.
GH: Some investors eventually did…and found it did not add up. They sued Doug and others and obtained a $5 million judgment.
I ask him more about the mountain of civil litigation he’s been named in…the many judgments against him…and the fact that he’s never been criminally charged… and what reporter Daniel Hopsicker had told me…
GH: Hopsicker seems to believe that you’ve not been held criminally liable for any of these alleged schemes or frauds because you’ve been protected by someone, possibly the FBI or the CIA. And you’re laughing on the other end of the microphone. So let me ask you for the record. Are you now or have you ever been in communications or associated with in any way the FBI, the CIA, or any highly influential individuals or organizations within the federal government?
DM: No.
GH: Um. Are you aware of anyone inside the government who is shielding you from criminal liability?
DM: No.
MUSIC
GH: He insists that some of Hopsicker’s articles were really written about his son – and this is something he does a lot: shift blame to Doug Jr. or his other, now deceased, business partner…
Like when I ask him about Skyway…his involvement with the company that had been connected to a plane that was transporting cocaine.
GH: What was the nature of your relationship with Skyway and its officers?
DM: Me personally?
GH: Argyll’s and yours.
DM: First of all, Argyll Equities, Argyll Investments, that whole Argyll…I had nothing to do with that. Zero. I had something to do with Argyll Biotech.
GH: He says that it was his son and Jim Miceli who were behind The Argyll Group…he was simply Chief Science Officer for Argyll Biotech…
But although this was McClain’s only official role in Argyll, scorned investors alleged he was a “secret owner” of other Argyll companies…and one federal judge agreed…concluded Doug McClain Sr. truly “controlled the Argyll Group.”
When I tell Doug this, he says like Daniel Hopsicker, the judge confused him with his son, too.
But, occasionally, he slips.
DM: So they were working a deal where they were going to… we were going to….we.. Argyll was going to buy back the stock. And I only know this because it came out in the pre trial stuff. And he was gonna… FADE OUT
GH: He admits he took part in negotiations with clients who had been loaned money by Argyll Equities…
DM: And in the negotiations, that happened in Texas with me, myself, and Ken Nunley, Jim Miceli’s out there with his attorney…
GH: And about the whole Skyway thing…
DM: Argyll lent money to a NASDAQ company who had a subsidiary of owning airplanes and rail cars. They lent money, that’s all Argyll did, they lent money. Took complete risk. And the plane owned by Skyways, I didn’t even know who it was owned by, um but they had a mechanical problem, they did have five and a half tons of cocaine. And how, I mean, why wouldn’t, wasn’t Argyll charged because all they did was lend money to a NASDAQ company who had a subsidiary that owned rail cars, trailers for trucks, and airplanes. That’s it, period, end of story.
GH: Doug says Daniel Hopsicker and Deborah Layne worked together to smear him. Hopsicker denies this. Doug maintains he did not scam Deborah’s dad…points to the fact that the case was expunged as proof…no FBI involvement needed.
I ask him about the video of him preaching online…you know…
GH: “And if you’ve ever had the chance to go into the inner corridor of the CIA building, in Virginia, there, carved in granite, a passage of scripture about 20 feet long and six feet high. ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’”
DM: Correct.
GH: This seems to imply…
DM: LAUGHS Google it and you’ll see it!GH: But he didn’t say Google it in the sermon. He asked if anyone had actually been there.
GH: This seems to imply that you or someone you know have been inside the inner corridor of the CIA building. Um. Is this true? Have you ever been inside-
DM: No. No. No. Don’t know a CIA agent or employee…knowingly. And again, the point I was making was that very point, secular organizations believe you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you- that was the point. But I can see going down that line, why you would think that…
MUSIC
GH: Doug says he has a doctor’s appointment to go to – he has got to run soon. It’s been nearly two hours. I’m shocked he’s stayed this long…
Finally, I ask him about how his son is doing…he says he’s doing well…confirms he’s staying with him as he serves his time under house arrest. I tell him I’d love to speak with him. He says he’ll ask, but we never connect.
He says the criminal fraud charges against his son and his longtime business partner, Jim Miceli, were politically motivated…says a deal with Argyll and a Mexican billionaire went south and the billionaire called in a favor to have them prosecuted.
DM: So he called, as billionaires do, they have connections, and they- he made a phone call, and all of a sudden, they’re being investigated and then indicted. And, you know, the two attorneys they had- it never would have gone to trial, they had really good attorneys. But what they’re able to do was seize all their assets and they didn’t have, so they ended up with public defenders.
GH: I wonder why Doug – with all of his wealth – didn’t help Jim Miceli out – pay for a good lawyer?
DM: When Jim Miceli had to go to a public defender, two days later, he was in my truck, had stolen my gun out of the house in Kentucky, and killed himself. And I found out about that because the FBI- “the truck was registered to your name” and the gun- I didn’t know he had the gun. And nothing came of that because they actually went to the house, saw the safe had been broken into and that’s where the gun was.
GH: So the FBI questioned you about Jim Miceli’s death?
DM: Yes.
GH: How long did they- did that questioning last?
DM: 30 minutes. Only because he’s in my truck, which is registered in Kentucky, but he’s in San Diego, and my gun.
MUSIC
GH: Do you have any regrets about your work with the serum?
DM: Maybe, no, no general regrets because of where we are right now. And the amount of people that have been healed by it. I mean, the crap that I’ve gone through for the last 15 years, if it wasn’t for seeing people walking around today that would be dead or free of disease. I would- I would have walked away. I mean, I haven’t made any money. I haven’t made any money at this point. And uh…I do have to go.
GH: Okay, that’s fine. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I’ll walk you out…FADE OUT
GH: I walk Doug out to his car. Shake his hand. And he drives off.
Then I do, too. To the airport – my body drained of adrenaline. It numbs the sting of discovering my flight has been canceled…I’ve got one more stop here in Texas…so I scramble to rent a car.
On the road again, I have lots of time to calm down, and think.
It seems like once Gary Davis got involved with Doug McClain – things took yet another turn for the worse for the doctor. The serum was passed into new hands – or grabbed by them.
It took on a new name, a new formula – and instead of being released to the world for free to cure Aids, it was now being marketed aggressively, to desperate people who were clamoring for options. People who were left feeling just as sick as they had before – and scammed out of their hard-earned money.
Things really couldn’t be further from the doctor’s original vision.
And while Gary Davis was certainly not a passive actor in this chapter of the story – he was never named in any of the litigation surrounding SF-1019…in fact, the SEC said one scientist involved with Immunosyn tried to put on the brakes…was this Davis? I hoped so.
It made me sad to see his dream end up this way.
Doug McClain was still involved in making some version of the serum – treating people in Mexico, though he wouldn’t tell me anything more about it…looking into that would have to wait…because now I was heading to Dallas where I was hoping to finally get an answer I had been chasing since the beginning.
Man: Hmm wow. I wonder how that happened.
GH: Uh I was curious if you might know how that happened.
Man: I might.GH: And then unexpectedly…I hear from the person who should know what happened best…..
Precious Thomas: My name is… Precious Thomas.
GH: That’s next time – on the final episode of SERUM.
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Serum
A Black doctor, a potential cure for AIDS, and the quest to find out what happened to it. A limited run podcast production of WHYY's The Pulse and Local Trance Media.
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