Harold Shipman
Harold Frederick Shipman is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in modern history. On 31 January 2000, he was found guilty of the murder of 15 patients under his care. Shipman was sentenced to life imprisonment with the recommendation that he never be released. He died by suicide by hanging on 13 January 2004, a day before his 58th birthday, in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
About Harold Shipman in brief
Harold Frederick Shipman is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in modern history. On 31 January 2000, he was found guilty of the murder of 15 patients under his care. The Shipman Inquiry, a two-year-long investigation of all deaths certified by Shipman, which Dame Janet Smith chaired, examined Shipman’s crimes. The inquiry identified 215 victims and estimated his total victim count at 250, about 80 percent of whom were elderly women. Shipman was sentenced to life imprisonment with the recommendation that he never be released. He died by suicide by hanging on 13 January 2004, a day before his 58th birthday, in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire. He is the only British doctor known to be guilty of murdering his patients, although other doctors have been acquitted of similar crimes or convicted on lesser charges. His last victim was Kathleen Grundy, who was found dead at her home on 24 June 1998. He was the last person to see her death certificate, recording the cause of death as old age; he later recorded the old age as ‘cancer’ His youngest-confirmed victim was a 41- year-old man, although suspicion arose that he had killed patients as young as four. His body was exhumed and found to contain traces of diamorphine, often used for pain control in terminal cancer patients, which he often used to control the pain of his patients. He claimed his computer had been an addict and showed them comments he had written to them that showed him to be an addict.
He also claimed that his computer showed him that his patients had been excluded from his care because he had been a drug addict and had written them to them in a bid to control their pain. He killed three more people after the investigation was closed, after the police were unable to find sufficient evidence to bring charges and closed the investigation on 17 April. In August, taxi driver John Shaw told the police that he suspected Shipman of murdering 21 patients. In March 1998, Dr Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde expressed concerns to John Pollard, the coroner for the South Manchester District, about the high death rate among Shipman’s patients. She was concerned about the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he needed countersigned. In the following year, Shipman continued working as a GP in Hyde throughout the 1980s, and established his own surgery at 21 Market Street in 1993, becoming a respected member of the community. He married Primrose May Oxtoby; the couple had four children. In 1983, he appeared on a Granada Television documentary World in Action on how the mentally ill should be treated in the community, a year after his conviction, the interview was re-broadcast on Tonight with Trevor McDonald. In 1983 he was interviewed in an edition of the Granada television documentary World In Action. A year after the interview, he was Interviewed by Trevor McDonald on Tonight in Action.
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This page is based on the article Harold Shipman published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
