Harold Shipman 1947-2004
...ped to explain many of the deaths. His crimes were finally uncovered, after it emerged that he forged the will of one of his victims, Mrs Kathleen Grundy. Although the cremation box was ticked on the will, Mrs Grundy was nevertheless buried. When alerted about the will, her daughter went to the police suspecting foul-play; she was extremely close to her mother and knew of her wishes after her death. The body was eventually exhumed, and a post mortem revealed that there was morphine in her muscle tissue, the following month, Shipman was arrested. Over the following 2 months, 11 other victim’s bodies were exhumed, and a police check on Shipman’s computer, showed false entries to support the cause of death given on his victims’ death certificates. The conviction of Doctor Harold Shipman brings to a close the trial of one of Britain's biggest serial killers, those behind the investigation believe that he is responsible for many more murders, beyond those for which he was convicted, but it was felt that the process of a second or third trial may have significantly delayed or hampered the process of the public inquiry. The inquiry considered 887 deaths and 1 incident involving a living person, a decision was made in respect of 493 deaths. 394 cases were closed without a written decision, because of the compelling evidence that death was natural, and the families involved had no concerns. Of the remaining 493 deaths, it was found that Shipman killed 200 patients, this is in addition to the 15 patients of whose murder he had already been convicted. 210 of the patients were found to have died by natural causes, which left 38 patients for which there was not enough evidence to go by. Therefore, the figure of 215, may not represent the true total of people who lost their lives at the hands of Shipman. It is believed that Shipman first killed in March 1975, whilst working in Todmordon. Mrs Eva Lyons was found to have died from an excessive dose of strong opiate, and she is believed to be Shipman’s only victim whilst he was working at this practice, although there are suspicions surrounding other deaths. When Shipman moved to the practice in Hyde, it is thought that he claimed his first victim there in August 1978, and 6 others by November of the same year. There was then an interlude. He didn’t kill again until April 1981, this gap was probably to do with a scare, when he failed to kill Mrs Gorton after administering a lethal dose of drugs. Whilst he was telling a relative about her death, and his usual spiel that a post mortem was unnecessary, his victim groaned; she was still alive and went on to live for a further 24 hours. There was another similar incident when the murder of Mrs Overton, was also not successful. After administering the lethal dose of opiate an ambulance arrived, paramedics resuscitated her and took her to hospital, where she lived in a Persistent Vegetative State for 14 months, again Shipman must have felt terribly anxious about being caught and for a period committed no further murders. There were many other interludes in Shipman’s murder sprees, which suggests that he was able to restrain himself from killing. If he was addicted to killing, it doesn’t seem that the addiction was so great that it could not be controlled. When Shipman resumed killing after these pauses, he would do so gradually, often starting with a terminally ill patient, it was like he was metaphorically entering a pool at the shallow end to see if he could still swim. His highest levels of murder, were in 1997 and early 1998, this could be related to the ease in which he could acquire the diamorphine during this period, and/or that he had become addicted to killing, and now needed to kill more frequently. He was now taking more risks and appeared to be more confident about not getting caught. His victims were male and female, healthy and sick, young and old. His preference for middle-aged women was no more. All he seemed to require was opportunity, this is typical of addictive behaviour, and he was out of control. Dame Janet Smith, chair of the Shipman enquiry found that his killings usually followed a typical pattern. He would visit a patient, sometimes by request and sometimes a routine visit, he would kill the patient by administering a lethal injection. Afterwards he would behave in one of several typical ways. Sometimes he would stay at the patients house and immediately contact the relatives saying he had found the patient dead on arrival, sometimes he would say that he had found the patient close to death or that the patient had been well, but collapsed and died suddenly in his presence, sometimes he would leave after the killing locking the door behind him and would later contact a friend or neighbour who had a key, and say that he had called at the patients house and was concerned that there was no reply, together they would enter the house and discover the body, and on other occasions he would just wait for a friend or relative to find it. He always had a ready account for what had occurred and however unexpected the death was, he always managed to assure friends and family that a post mortem was not needed. During their interviews with him, a highly confident Shipman denied all charges, and offered no explanation of mishandling lethal medicines, and making false statements on death certificates, which were incontrovertible facts. Detective Chief Inspector Mike Williams said “He was an arrogant type of individual to deal with, he wanted to control and dominate the interview and officers, at all times belittling them. He treated it as some kind of game, a competition, pitting, what he considered to be his superior intellect, to those of the officers who were interviewing him”. In only one murder, that of Mrs Grundy, did monetary gain appear to be a motive, but it isn’t totally convincing that his motivation was to inherit her vast estate. It seems that some deeper, complex psychological reason is behind the murders of these middle aged women who became Shipman’s victims. Mrs Grundy’s daughter, being a solicitor, and Shipman’s incompetent forgery of the will made discovery inevitable. It’s hard to resist the inference that he was drawn by a need to draw attention to himself. The bare fact that he left so many indelible clues indicates that he desperately wanted to be discovered and stopped. Although what drove Shipman is unclear, forensic psychologist Dr Richard Badcock who interviewed Shipman to try and provide the police with some insight into why he killed, said “Shipman had no comfortable way of living with himself unless he was in complete control. If he was not in control, he was in a state of collapse. He was definitely not doing it for excitement, he was doing it mainly to resolve something within himself, to get rid of an anxiety, but an anxiety which he might not have even let himself to think about”, however the coroner John Pallard, who knew and worked with Shipman feels that his motives were simply down to enjoying viewing the process of dying and feeling the control over life and death. There is no evidence of any other possible motive for his crimes. Shipman did not interfere with the bodies of his victims, and no suggestion of any sexual foul play was ever apparent, either sadistic or ...