the doctor Harold Shipman used his position to take advantage of their patients and, in a cruelly ironic twist, he became one of the most prolific serial killers in British history.
The Modus Operandi of the doctor Harold Shipman
Exploiting his trust, Shipman first diagnosed his patients with diseases they didn’t have and then injected a lethal dose of diamorphine. Unbeknownst to perhaps 250 people, his visit to Harold Shipman’s office would be his last.
Harold Shipman was born in Nottingham, England, in 1946. He was a promising student throughout school and excelled at sports, particularly rugby.
But the course of Shipman’s life changed when he was only 17 years old. That year, he to his mother Vera, with whom Shipman was pretty close, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. While he was dying in the hospitalShipman watched closely as the doctor relieved his suffering administering morphine.
Pundits would later speculate that this was the moment that inspired his sadistic slaughter and modus operandi.
Creepy Crimes of the Good Doctor
It was March 1975 when Shipman took his first patient, Eva Lyons, 70 years old. It was the day before her birthday.
By this time, Shipman had gotten enough diamorphine to kill hundreds of people, although no one noticed his addiction until the following year.
Although Shipman was fired that year for fake recipeswas not removed from the General Medical Council, the body doctors regulator. Instead, she received a warning letter.
According to investigators, Shipman stopped and restarted his murder spree many times throughout his decades of terror. But his method of killing was always the same. He would target the vulnerable, being his oldest victim Anne Cooper, 93, and her youngest victim, Peter Lewis, 41.
He would then administer a lethal dose of diamorphine and watch them die right there or send them home to perish.
Altogether, it is believed that killed 71 patients while working in the Donneybrook practice and the remainder while operating his sole proprietorship. His victims171 were women and 44 men.
The shocking murder that finally exposed him
Shipman’s crimes were finally discovered after made the mistake of attempting to falsify the will of one of his victimsKathleen Grundy, 81, former mayor of her town of Hyde.
After Shipman administered a lethal dose diamorphine to Grundy, selected the cremation box in your will to hide the evidence. Then, he used his typewriter to completely eliminate his testament familyleaving everything to him.
However, Grundy was buried, and local attorneys notified her daughter, Angela Woodruff, of the will. Immediately, she suspected a crime and went to the police.
Harold Shipman always denied the murders and refused to cooperate with the police or criminal psychiatrists. When the police tried to question him or show him victim photos, he sat with his eyes closed, yawned and refused to look at any evidence.
The police could only accuse Shipman of 15 murdersbut its death count is estimated to be between 250 and 450.
In 2000, Shipman was sentenced to life in prison with a recommendation that he never be released.
He was incarcerated in a Manchester prison, but ended up in prison of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, where he took his own life. The day before his 58th birthday, January 13, 2004, Shipman was found hanged in his cell.
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