Born To Kill: Harold Shipman biography
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Born the middle child into a working class family on 14th June 1946, Harold Frederick Shipman, known as "Fred", was the favourite child of his domineering mother, Vera. She instilled in him an early sense of superiority that tainted most of his later relationships, leaving him an isolated adolescent with few friends.
When his mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he willingly oversaw her care as she declined, fascinated by the positive effect that the administration of morphine had on her suffering, until she succumbed to the disease on 21st June 1963.
Devastated by her death, he was determined to go to medical school, and he was admitted to Leeds University medical school for training two years later. By 1974 he was a father of two and had joined a medical practice in Todmorden, Yorkshire.
He initially thrived as a family practitioner, before allegedly becoming addicted to the painkiller, Pethidine. He forged prescriptions for large amounts of the drug, and he was forced to leave the practice when caught by his colleagues in 1975.
A couple of years later he was accepted onto the staff at Donneybrook Medical Centre in Hyde, where he ingratiated himself as a hardworking doctor. He remained on staff there for almost 20 years.
The local undertaker noticed that Dr. Shipman’s patients seemed to be dying at an unusually high rate, and exhibited similar poses in death. He approached Shipman about this directly, who reassured him that there was nothing to be concerned about. Later, another medical colleague, Dr. Susan Booth, also found the similarity disturbing, and the local coroner’s office was alerted, who in turn contacted the police.
A covert investigation followed, but Shipman was cleared, as it appeared that his records were in order. Later, a more thorough investigation revealed that Shipman altered the medical records of his patients to corroborate their causes of death.
His killing spree was only brought to an end thanks to the determination of Angela Woodruff, the daughter of one of his victims, who refused to accept the explanations given for her mother’s death.
Kathleen Grundy, an active, healthy 81-year-old widow, was found dead in her home on 24th June 1998, following an earlier visit by Shipman. Woodruff was advised by Shipman that an autopsy was not required, and Kathleen Grundy was buried in accordance with her daughter’s wishes.
Woodruff was a solicitor, and had always handled her mother’s affairs, so it was with some surprise that she discovered that another will existed, leaving the bulk of her mother’s estate to Dr. Shipman. Woodruff was convinced the document was a forgery, and that Shipman had murdered her mother, forging the will to benefit from her death. She alerted the local police, where Detective Superintendent Bernard Postles quickly came to the same conclusion on examination of the evidence.
Kathleen Grundy’s body was exhumed, and a post-mortem revealed that she had died of a morphine overdose, administered within three hours of her death, precisely within the timeframe of Shipman’s visit to her.
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Shipman’s home was raided, yielding medical records, an odd collection of jewellery, and an old typewriter which proved to be the instrument upon which Grundy’s forged will had been produced.
It was immediately apparent to the police, from the medical records seized, that the case would extend further than the single death in question, and priority was given to those deaths it would be most productive to investigate, namely victims who had not been cremated, and who had died following a home visit by Shipman, which were given priority.
Police later established that Shipman altered medical notes directly after killing a patient, to ensure that his account matched the historical records. What Shipman had failed to grasp was that each alteration of the records would be time stamped by the computer, enabling police to ascertain exactly which records had been altered.
Following extensive investigations, which included numerous exhumations and autopsies, the police charged Shipman with 15 individual counts of murder on 7th September 1998, as well as one count of forgery.
Following summation by the judge, and a caution to the jury that no one had actually witnessed Shipman kill any of his patients, the jury were sufficiently convinced by the testimony and evidence presented, and unanimously found Shipman guilty on all charges: 15 counts of murder and one of forgery, on the afternoon of 31st January 2000.
The fact that a doctor had killed 15 patients sent a shudder through the medical community, but this was to prove insignificant in light of further investigations that delved more deeply into his patient case list history.
A clinical audit examined the number and pattern of deaths in Harold Shipman's practice. This audit estimated that he may have been responsible for the deaths of at least 236 patients over a 24-year period.
Hiding behind his status as a caring, family doctor, it is almost impossible to establish exactly when Shipman began killing his patients, or indeed exactly how many died at his hand. The sheer scale of his murderous activities meant that Shipman was catapulted from British patient killer to the most prolific known serial killer in the world.
Born To Kill: Harold Shipman biography
Born To Kill: Harold Shipman biography
Born To Kill: Harold Shipman biography
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