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Harold Shipman

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Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman, Jr. a.k.a. Dr. Death and The Angel of Death was an English prolific "angel of death"-type serial killer, poisoner, and robber, guilty of the murders of hundreds of patients by aggravated overdoses during his career as a physician. Shipman is the most prolific serial killer in the United Kingdom, and one of the most prolific serial killers in world history.

Background[]

Shipman was born on January 14, 1946, in the Bestwood Estate in Nottingham, the middle child of his family. His father Harold, Sr., was a long-haul truck driver, and the famil were Methodists. Shipman's mother Vera was the parent he closely related to, so he watched over her treatment for terminal lung cancer when he was in his teens. What stuck with Shipman was watching a doctor coming for house calls to inject morphine into Vera for her pain. She died on June 21, 1963, when she was in her 40s, and when Shipman was 17. He married a woman named Primrose Oxtoby in 1966, the couple having four children. Shipman graduated from the Leeds School of Medicine in 1970, then quickly began working in circulations of medical offices throughout his career. He was fined 600 pounds for forging Demerol prescription for himself, getting treatment in a rehab center in York. After years of work in Hyde, earning the respect of the people, he opened his own clinic in 1993. He was interviewed by Granada Television for a special on mental illness.

Murders and Trial[]

A local physician, Dr. Linda Reynolds, reported Shipman to coroner John Pollard, as Shipman ordered a higher-than-average rate of cremations. The Greater Manchester Police never charged Shipman due to insufficient evidence. Cabbie John Shaw was the next reporting witness, saying he drove 21 of Shipman's victims to the clinic when they were in adequate health, only to die shortly thereafter. After Shipman killed Kathleen Grundy, her daughter Angel Woodruff, a lawyer, consulted her colleague Bran Burgess over Shipman's forged medical records, as well as a forged will leaving him 386,000 pounds. As Grundy was a former mayoress, the police exhumed her and ran toxicology tests, which came up positive for lethal doses of heroin. Shipman lied Grundy suffered addictions, but as entries that chronicled these false accounts were written after Grundy died, Shipman was arrested, and a search of his belongings revealed the typewriter he forged the will on.

Imprisonment and Suicide[]

Shipman was tried for fifteen counts of murder in 1999. He was found guilty on all counts in 2000 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. The justice system declined to further prosecute Shipman due to the success of the case, and the publicity risking biased verdicts in future trials. Shipman has never admitted to his crimes, and even Primrose continues to defend him. He remains the only doctor in British history to be convicted of the murder of a patient. Shipman met another serial killer, Peter Moore, a rapist and murderer of men, in prison, during which they got acquainted.

In 2002, The Shipman Inquiry was conducted and determined Shipman killed 218 patients over the course of 23 years, along with additional inconclusive deaths with few details available. Multiple doctors who signed for cremations with Shipman were tried for misconduct by the General Medical Council, but few were found guilty. David Spiegenhalter, a statistician, published a paper in 2003 revealing Shipman's crimes could've been noticed when his mortality rate sharply increased starting in 1995. Shipman's crimes led to numerous changes in medical procedures, with both benefits and consequences. Hyde Park added the Garden of Tranquility as a memorial to the victims in 2005.

On January 13, 2004, Shipman hanged himself in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield and died, a day shy of his 58th birthday. People surviving the victims, who long hoped for an admission of guilt from Shipman, were furious. The Shipman family got a National Heath Service pension, and Shipman was cremated. with his family in attendance.

Profile[]

Shipman never offered the motives for his murders. It's popularly believed Shipman killed for a sense of power, but he also forged wills to be in his favor, suggesting an added focus on profit from his crimes. Shipman demonstrated compulsive details in his killings, such as using drugs in the morphine class similar to what his mother was administered. It's also notable that the widest recognized murders, particularly the ones Shipman was convicted of, were committed near the ends of each month they happened, usually around the days in the 20s, the same period his mother died. This suggests Shipman ritualistically killed to reenact his mother's death, believing it fitting to repeat monthly cycles to execute his murders. Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie, who wrote Prescription for Murder after following the Shipman case, believed when he forged Grundy's will, he either wanted to retire and flee the country to avoid prosecution, hr was giving up and wanted to be caught.

Modus Operandi[]

Shipman primarily targeted elderly and middle-aged Caucasian female victims resembling his mother, typically whenever they were patients at wherever Shipman was working, but he also targeted other people. He would kill them with overdoses of morphine and heroin, reflecting his mother's morphine injections when she was dying, then ordered their remains to be cremated as a countermeasure. Police found Shipman also killed patients in the afternoon to fit into his house calls. Shipman often forged wills to rob the victims and their families of various inheritances, as well as medical records to cover up their deaths and even blame the victims, including by painting them as addicts. At least once did Shipman also steal jewelry from the victims after murdering them.

Known Victims[]

  • At least 218 victims; named ones include:
    • March 1975: Eva Lyons, nearly 71
    • March 6, 1995: Marie West, 81
    • Unknown date, 1996: Renee Lacy, 63
    • July 11, 1996: Irene Turner, 67
    • 1997
      • February 28: Lizzie Adams, 77
      • April 25: Jean Lilley, 59
      • May 29: Ivy Lomus, 63
      • July 14: Muriel Grimshaw, 76
      • November 24: Marie Quinn, 67
      • December 9: Kathleen "Laura" Wagstaff, 81
      • December 10: Bianka Pomfret, 49
    • 1998:
      • January 26: Norah Nuttall, 65
      • February 9: Pamela Hillier, 68
      • February 18: Maureen Ward, 57
      • May 12: Winifred Mellor, 73
      • June 12: Joan Melia, 72
      • June 24: Kathleen Grundy, 81

On Criminal Minds[]

While never directly mentioned or referenced in the show, Shipman appears to be the inspiration for the following unsubs:

  • Season Nine
    • David Wade Cunningham ("Rabid") - Both are psychopathic serial killers who watched their relatives die from chronic diseases (Cunningham lost his brother to rabies, Shipman lost his mother to lung cancer), developed God complexes from their childhoods and psychopathy, targeted victims of both genders, and killed their victims in fashions evoking the deaths of their relatives (Cunningham experimented with slow rabies infection; Shipman killed victims with heroin to evoke his mother's morphine treatments).
  • Season Thirteen
    • Kevon Winters ("Miasma") - Both are serial killers and poisoners whose mothers suffered chronic diseases, only to die by euthanasia (though Winters was directly responsible for his mother's death), targeted victims of both genders whose sicknesses were exaggerated by their respective killers, killed their victims by overdoses to evoke their respective mothers' deaths, and attempted suicide (though only Shipman succeeded). Also, Winters' denial of killing his mother alludes to Shipman's denial of his own crimes.

On Evolution[]

References[]

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