Dr. William Husel has been a mystery since being fired from his job and accused by Mount Carmel Health System of ordering excessive doses of pain medication for 34 patients. All of the patients died, but the health system does not believe the drugs caused six of the deaths.

He has been thrust into the national spotlight and is the subject of a sweeping criminal investigation into dozens of deaths.

He has not answered inquiries from police, has evaded reporters and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination when questioned by investigators from the state medical board.

Dr. William Husel has been a mystery since being fired from his job and accused by Mount Carmel Health System of ordering excessive doses of pain medication for 34 patients. All of the patients died, but the health system does not believe the drugs caused six of the deaths.

The Dispatch has started to piece together glimpses of Husel’s past that include his glory days as a high school basketball star in Cleveland, legal trouble for detonating a pipe bomb at a small Catholic university in West Virginia, his interaction with nurses at the hospital and two marriages that ended in divorce.

Few people who know Husel have been willing to talk about him, and his attorney, Jim McGovern, did not return a call seeking comment for this story.

“Many of us are very sad for Billy and wondering what happened in that hospital and what his motives were,” said Brian Becker, Husel’s varsity basketball coach at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland. “He has always portrayed himself in a positive light in our community, and that’s why it’s such a hard thing to wrap your head around. There are two sides to every story, and hopefully we get to hear from Billy.”

Husel, now 43, was a captain on the St. Ignatius basketball team his senior year and graduated in 1994. He soon found himself in trouble after enrolling at what was then Wheeling Jesuit College in West Virginia.

Husel pleaded guilty in 1996 to a federal misdemeanor charge after he stored a pipe bomb in a dorm room, a device he later used to blow up a trash can near a health and recreation center on the private school's Wheeling campus.

Husel tried to frame another person for the crime by planting bomb-making materials in that person's car, according to U.S. District Court documents filed in the 23-year-old case.

Decades later, a nurse who worked with him at Mount Carmel West hospital described him this week as even-keeled, someone who would be able to calmly direct staff members even if the hospital burned down.

The nurse, a former Mount Carmel employee, said Husel was generally respected and popular, but that she heard doctors express frustration and concern among staff members over the dosages Husel was ordering for sedatives and paralytics. She and other nurses, she said, had made a verbal, informal complaint about the same issue to leaders in the unit.

"I have no explanation for what has occurred as far as what we’re hearing ... But I feel like something about him has changed because he, to my knowledge, he didn’t do that when I worked there, as far as overprescribing 20 times the normal dose of fentanyl,” said the nurse, who asked that her name not be published for fear that her career could suffer if she is linked with Mount Carmel or that she could face retaliation.

In the pipe bomb case, it took federal investigators nearly two years to charge Husel in the Nov. 9, 1994, incident. Court records show that another man was charged in connection with the case in 1995 and appeared to be cooperating with investigators. That man also pleaded guilty.

Husel was originally indicted in June 1996 on three charges that included malicious damage by means of explosive device, possession of an unregistered explosive device and unlawful making of an explosive device. He pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of improperly storing explosive materials and was sentenced to serve six months in a community confinement center, followed by one year of supervision. Court records don't indicate if that time was served.

Husel eventually moved to Ohio State University, where he graduated in 2000 with a degree in microbiology.

He graduated in 2008 from the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine (now called the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, with campuses in Athens, Cleveland and Dublin).

From 2008 to 2013, Husel completed medical training, including an internship/residency and a fellowship in critical care at the Cleveland Clinic. A preliminary review of his medication-prescribing history there has turned up no concerns, clinic officials have said.

He began working for Mount Carmel in 2013, serving as an intensive-care doctor, primarily at Mount Carmel West. He was removed from treating patients on Nov. 21 and fired Dec. 5.

The nurse who worked with Husel said she liked to share shifts with him because he would explain issues such as why he prescribed certain medications, the settings on a breathing machine or the physiology behind new tactics he tried to stabilize patients.

“He’s highly intelligent, and he likes to educate,” said the nurse.

She said she’s been told that the initial complaint on Husel was related to his angry reaction when nurses said they could not administer a medication that most nurses are not qualified to administer.

The highest fentanyl dose she remembers giving under his order was 200 micrograms, which gave her pause, but she administered it after reviewing the patient chart and seeing that such a dose would not be unusual.

If a doctor had ordered doses of 1,000 micrograms, as has been reported by lawyers representing some patient families, she said, “I would think ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Did you mistype a zero?’”

“I wouldn’t ever give it, because I know I’d kill them,” she said.

Husel, she said, was regarded as a “cool, muscled, good-looking” doctor from the Cleveland Clinic who drew a core group of buddies.

“I thought he’s just full of himself because he’s intelligent and good looking and fit, but I never got ‘God complex’ from him,” she said, noting that he wore scrubs that showed off his upper arms, where he had a tattoo.

Husel has been divorced twice and had no children with either woman. The first marriage aligns with part of the time he would have been working in Cleveland.

The file in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court shows the two were married in a Clark County courthouse in Las Vegas on Aug. 9, 2005. He was 29 at the time; she was 24.

William Husel filed an original complaint for divorce in April 2008, citing “incompatibility.” The complaint was dismissed that September. On July 16, 2012, the Husels filed a joint petition for dissolution. A final agreement reached that September shows Husel had to pay his ex-wife's tuition, insurance and other expenses while she was a student.

In September 2013, Husel married a woman who is a registered nurse in Ohio.

That marriage was dissolved in Franklin County in April 2016. Records show the couple divided their properties, with his ex-wife keeping a home that she owned in Cleveland, as well as one in Dublin. Husel kept the property where he currently lives, in Liberty Township outside of Dublin.

Becker, who stayed in touch with Husel up until the past five years, said he remembers Husel as a good student and an excellent basketball player. He said at times Husel’s quick wit and brashness would frustrate people, but overall his legacy in the St. Ignatius community is a good one and includes being charitable and dedicating his time to his alma matter.

“As a teacher and a coach, you want to be compassionate,” Becker said. “But when they leave here you never know what path they are going to take or what they will become.”

Theodore Decker, JoAnne Viviano, Holly Zachariah and Mike Wagner are staff reporters for The Columbus Dispatch. Dispatch Reporter Lucas Sullivan contributed to this story.