Harold Shipman: The Death Doctor

0:00 Speaker 1: June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight, Hyde, Greater Manchester, England.

0:06 Speaker 1: Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor, fails to show up for

0:09 Speaker 1: her volunteer shift at a local charity, so her friends

0:13 Speaker 1: go to her home to check on her. Inside, they

0:16 Speaker 1: find her lying on her sofa, fully clothed and quite dead.

0:20 Speaker 1: The friends call her doctor Harold Shipman, a popular and

0:24 Speaker 1: beloved local physician. Shipman tells them he had visited her

0:28 Speaker 1: some hours earlier to take a blood sample, making him

0:31 Speaker 1: the last person to see her alive. He pronounces her

0:35 Speaker 1: dead and files the death certificate, listing the cause of

0:38 Speaker 1: death as simply old age. The energetic eighty one year

0:42 Speaker 1: old had been the picture of health until that day,

0:45 Speaker 1: volunteering on a daily basis and juggling a busy social life.

0:48 Speaker 1: Her sudden death comes as a shock to the small

0:51 Speaker 1: traditional community. Shipman notifies Grundy's daughter, Angela Woodruffe, a solicitor

0:58 Speaker 1: similar to an attorney in Warwickshire, of her mother's demise.

1:02 Speaker 1: He tells her there is no need for a post

1:05 Speaker 1: mortem examination, as he had seen Grundy just hours before

1:08 Speaker 1: her death, So Woodrooff buries her mother in the local cemetery.

1:13 Speaker 1: Shortly afterwards, she receives a call from another solicitor claiming

1:18 Speaker 1: to have her mother's will. Woodroff is surprised at this. Previously,

1:23 Speaker 1: she had handled all her mother's legal affairs, including her will.

1:27 Speaker 1: When Woodroff looks at her mother's new will, she is

1:30 Speaker 1: immediately suspicious. First, it is typewritten, something her mother never did. Second,

1:36 Speaker 1: it is so short and simple, so lacking in specifics,

1:40 Speaker 1: Woodrooff can't believe it was written by her meticulous, detail

1:44 Speaker 1: oriented mother. It states that Grundy bequeathed nearly all her

1:47 Speaker 1: money and estate worth nearly three nine zero zero zero

1:51 Speaker 1: zero to her doctor Harold Shipman, but it lists only

1:55 Speaker 1: one house. Woodroof knows her mother owns two houses. The

1:59 Speaker 1: final suspicious clue is the signature on the will. It

2:02 Speaker 1: doesn't look right. Woodroff checks through her mother's papers to

2:06 Speaker 1: find examples of her signature, then compares them to the

2:09 Speaker 1: signature on the will. They do not match. Woodroff takes

2:13 Speaker 1: her concerns to the police. They agree with her conclusion

2:17 Speaker 1: that the will had been forged. The police begin an

2:20 Speaker 1: investigation into the forgery and possible murder of Kathleen Grundy.

2:24 Speaker 1: What they uncover is a trail of bodies that would

2:27 Speaker 1: shock the entire nation. Shipman, as a young boy, was

2:30 Speaker 1: intelligent and aloof earning good enough grades to gain entrance

2:34 Speaker 1: to an elite school. While he was considered easygoing and nice,

2:38 Speaker 1: he had no actual friends to speak of. His mother, Vera,

2:42 Speaker 1: doated on him, and she had great ambitions for him.

2:46 Speaker 1: It was Vera who discouraged him from making the wrong

2:49 Speaker 1: kind of friends, isolating him and instilling in him a

2:52 Speaker 1: sense of superiority over his peers. But his mother would

2:56 Speaker 1: not live to see those ambitions come to fruition. She

2:59 Speaker 1: battled lung cancer for years. As the pain from the

3:02 Speaker 1: cancer worsened, her doctor would visit more and more frequently

3:06 Speaker 1: to give her injections of gem orphine. Often, Harold would

3:09 Speaker 1: come home to find his mother in the living room

3:12 Speaker 1: waiting for him, a cup of tea sitting on the

3:14 Speaker 1: coffee table, the doctor ready with the syringe. It was

3:18 Speaker 1: in justice tableau, with his mother sitting on the sofa

3:21 Speaker 1: with her tea nearby, that she finally passed away. Harold,

3:25 Speaker 1: who was seventeen at the time, was right at her side.

3:29 Speaker 1: After this, Harold dealt with his grief by running. He

3:32 Speaker 1: also declared his intention to become a doctor. It took

3:36 Speaker 1: him two tries to pass the entrance exam, but he

3:39 Speaker 1: did gain acceptance to study at Leeds University. It was

3:42 Speaker 1: while studying at Leeds that he met Primrose Ox Toby

3:46 Speaker 1: and the two began dating. Soon he got Primrose pregnant,

3:49 Speaker 1: so the two married in a small ceremony. The couple

3:52 Speaker 1: would eventually have three more children. Shipman graduated from Leeds

3:57 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy and began working at the Pontefrares General

4:00 Speaker 1: Infirmary in Yorkshire. In nineteen seventy four, he began his

4:04 Speaker 1: first physician's practice at the Abraham Ormored Medical Center in Toddmerden,

4:09 Speaker 1: West Yorkshire. The other physicians thought of him as a godsend,

4:13 Speaker 1: a young, energetic doctor fresh out of medical school who

4:18 Speaker 1: brought new techniques and the most up to date information.

4:21 Speaker 1: It was here that he shed his aloof persona and

4:23 Speaker 1: became more outgoing. He wanted to be seen as a

4:27 Speaker 1: respected member of the community, and he was. Staff however,

4:31 Speaker 1: saw a different side of him. He was condescending and rude,

4:35 Speaker 1: often calling people stupid. He was arrogant, two demanding, things

4:40 Speaker 1: be done his way and arguing with anyone, even much

4:43 Speaker 1: more experienced doctors who wouldn't go along with him. Mostly,

4:46 Speaker 1: he was a control freak, so much so he refused

4:49 Speaker 1: to allow anyone else to give his patient's injections or

4:51 Speaker 1: take blood samples from them. While his patients loved the

4:55 Speaker 1: personal attention he gave them, the other staff were growing concerned.

4:59 Speaker 1: Shipman's behavior seemed to become more and more erratic as

5:02 Speaker 1: time went on. He was having fainting spells, but Shipman

5:05 Speaker 1: explained them away, claiming that he suffered from epilepsy. Then

5:10 Speaker 1: one of the receptionists noticed something alarming in the narcotics register.

5:14 Speaker 1: Shipman had been prescribing a lot of pethidine, a painkiller

5:17 Speaker 1: usually prescribed to women in childbirth. When the practice followed

5:21 Speaker 1: up with an investigation, they found that many of the

5:24 Speaker 1: patients had never received the drug, and the ones who

5:27 Speaker 1: had hadn't taken nearly the amounts Shipmen had prescribed. The

5:30 Speaker 1: doctors confronted him. Shipman begged for a second chance, but

5:34 Speaker 1: was refused. Hearing this, he threw a fit, yelling at

5:38 Speaker 1: the other doctors, flinging his medical bag across the room

5:42 Speaker 1: and storming out, Shipman went to a posh rehabilitation facility,

5:46 Speaker 1: and when he got out, was convicted of several counts

5:49 Speaker 1: of prescription fraud and made to pay a small fine.

5:52 Speaker 1: He was, not, however, stripped of his medical license after this.

5:56 Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, he applied to the Donnybrook Medical

6:00 Speaker 1: Center in Hyde, a town perhaps most known for being

6:03 Speaker 1: the home of serial killers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

6:06 Speaker 1: Ever confident at his interview, Shipman readily admitted his past

6:10 Speaker 1: drug addiction, but assured the doctors he was now clean

6:14 Speaker 1: subscribe to the Medium newsletter. Perhaps appreciating his forthrightness, or

6:19 Speaker 1: perhaps in desperate need of any doctor they could get,

6:23 Speaker 1: Donna Brook hired him there. He made a name for

6:26 Speaker 1: himself among his elderly patients as being exceptionally kind and attentive.

6:31 Speaker 1: He continued being rude to staff, but hid it from

6:33 Speaker 1: his colleagues better than he had in Toddmerden. In nineteen

6:37 Speaker 1: ninety three, he shocked the hospital by declaring he was

6:40 Speaker 1: going out on his own and taking his patience with him.

6:43 Speaker 1: His private practice grew to be quite successful over the

6:46 Speaker 1: next few years, mainly thanks to word of mouth referrals

6:49 Speaker 1: from his satisfied patients. However, as time went on, several

6:54 Speaker 1: people whose work put them into contact with the doctor's

6:56 Speaker 1: patients began having suspicions. Debbie Bambroff, who ran a local

7:01 Speaker 1: funeral home with her father John Massey, was concerned that

7:05 Speaker 1: so many of Shipmen's patients were passing away. It seemed

7:08 Speaker 1: as though they were dying at a much higher rate

7:11 Speaker 1: than other physicians' patients, and there was the way the

7:14 Speaker 1: bodies would be found. Often the patients, overwhelmingly elderly women,

7:19 Speaker 1: would be sitting up in their chairs, fully clothed, often

7:23 Speaker 1: with a cup of tea nearby. Having dealt with many

7:26 Speaker 1: elderly people who died in their homes, it struck the

7:29 Speaker 1: experienced undertakers as extremely odd. It didn't seem to fit

7:33 Speaker 1: with their causes of death either. Many of their death

7:36 Speaker 1: certificates filled out by shipmen listed myocardial infarction or heart

7:40 Speaker 1: attack as the cause of death. Someone dying of a

7:43 Speaker 1: heart attack, the undertakers knew, wouldn't sit quietly in their chair,

7:49 Speaker 1: so Brambroff took her suspicions to a local doctor, Susan Booth.

7:53 Speaker 1: Booth had her own concerns too, In British law, in

7:57 Speaker 1: order for a body to be cremated at from another

8:00 Speaker 1: practice has to sign off on the order. Booth, along

8:03 Speaker 1: with Bambroff, noticed there was an unusually high number of

8:07 Speaker 1: Shipman's patients being cremated, so Booth secretly approached a small

8:11 Speaker 1: group of local physicians who agreed to look into it.

8:15 Speaker 1: After crunching the numbers, they found that, even controlling for

8:18 Speaker 1: age and illness, Shipman's patient death rate was nearly three

8:22 Speaker 1: times higher than other physicians in the area and had

8:25 Speaker 1: been for years. The doctors, along with Bambrof, took this

8:29 Speaker 1: information to the local coroner, doctor John Pollard. Pollard also

8:34 Speaker 1: noticed discrepancies, such as Shipman filling in the death certificate

8:37 Speaker 1: saying he had performed a full external exam, yet the

8:41 Speaker 1: bodies were still fully clothed. Pollard turned his and his

8:44 Speaker 1: colleague's findings over to the police, but the police gave

8:48 Speaker 1: the investigation to an inexperienced detective and one who had

8:52 Speaker 1: no experience with medical cases. In March nineteen ninety eight,

8:56 Speaker 1: after a covert investigation confirming that the patient's causes of

8:59 Speaker 1: death matched that on their medical records, the police declared

9:03 Speaker 1: Shipman innocent and closed the case. It was only a

9:06 Speaker 1: few months later when Woodruff came to the police with

9:09 Speaker 1: evidence of the forged will and of a possible homicide.

9:13 Speaker 1: Detective Superintendent Bernard Postles handled the case. He quickly saw

9:18 Speaker 1: that Woodroff's investigation had been correct, but in order to

9:22 Speaker 1: prove that Shipman had killed Grundy, they would have to

9:25 Speaker 1: exhume her body. Woodroff agreed, and the court ordered the

9:29 Speaker 1: exhumation at the same time. So as not to tip

9:32 Speaker 1: off Shipman and risk him destroying evidence, they searched the

9:35 Speaker 1: doctor's home and medical clinic. In his clinic, they seized

9:39 Speaker 1: his computer, along with an old underwood typewriter, the kind

9:42 Speaker 1: used to type the forged will. Forensic testing would later

9:45 Speaker 1: confirm it was the very typewriter used to type it,

9:48 Speaker 1: and that Shipman's fingerprints were on the will itself. Shipman's

9:52 Speaker 1: home was a different matter for a doctor. His home

9:55 Speaker 1: was shockingly unsanitary. Dirty clothes and trash were strewn about.

10:00 Speaker 1: They seized the medical records they found there, along with

10:03 Speaker 1: a box full of women's jewelry found in the garage. Shipmen,

10:07 Speaker 1: still arrogant, as ever, claimed Grundy often borrowed the typewriter.

10:11 Speaker 1: When Grundy's tissues came back from the lab, they were

10:14 Speaker 1: found to contain lethal levels of gemorphine. The levels were

10:18 Speaker 1: so high they would have to have been administered within

10:21 Speaker 1: three hours of her death, exactly when Shipman was with her.

10:25 Speaker 1: This revelation, along with the information given to him by

10:28 Speaker 1: Bambrof and the doctors, gave Possels enough evidence to widen

10:32 Speaker 1: the investigation into the deaths of his other patients. First,

10:36 Speaker 1: investigators focused on those who had died shortly after a

10:40 Speaker 1: house call from Shipmen. Those who hadn't been cremated. Eleven

10:43 Speaker 1: more women were exhumed and tested. They were all found

10:47 Speaker 1: to have gemorphine in their remains. For those who had

10:50 Speaker 1: been cremated, the vast majority, police would have to rely

10:54 Speaker 1: on the circumstantial evidence in Shipman's computerized medical records. These

10:58 Speaker 1: deceased patients were shown to have medical conditions which did,

11:02 Speaker 1: as the earlier investigation discovered, match with their causes of death. However,

11:07 Speaker 1: even in nineteen ninety eight, computer forensics was a thing.

11:11 Speaker 1: Investigators discovered that Shipman had gone into his patient's records immediately,

11:16 Speaker 1: sometimes minutes after their deaths, and altered them to reflect

11:20 Speaker 1: the cause of death he would claim on their death certificates.

11:23 Speaker 1: In Grundy's case, he altered her records to indicate the

11:26 Speaker 1: well off socialite was actually a heroin addict. In some instances,

11:30 Speaker 1: Shipman had printed out death certificates before the patient had died.

11:34 Speaker 1: September seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Shipman was arrested on fifteen

11:39 Speaker 1: counts of murder and one count of forgery. Under questioning,

11:42 Speaker 1: he remained just as conceited as ever. He denied falsifying

11:46 Speaker 1: medical records, and he denied killing anyone. He treated the

11:51 Speaker 1: investigators with the same contempt he treated the staff at hospitals.

11:55 Speaker 1: His trial began in October nineteen ninety nine. Witness after

11:59 Speaker 1: witness and as testified to their seemingly healthy, fit, parent

12:03 Speaker 1: or relative dying suddenly of diseases that they had never

12:06 Speaker 1: disclosed to anyone. Some witnesses described arriving at their loved

12:10 Speaker 1: ones home to find them dying or recently dead. While

12:13 Speaker 1: shipmen casually admired the china, never calling an ambulance or

12:17 Speaker 1: attempting any form of resuscitation, most were pressured to cremate

12:21 Speaker 1: the bodies. Many also described Shipmen as behaving callously and

12:25 Speaker 1: saying odd things when he would inform them of the deaths.

12:28 Speaker 1: On January thirty, first, two thousand, after nearly thirty four hours,

12:33 Speaker 1: the jury back with guilty verdicts on all counts. Shipman

12:37 Speaker 1: was given the harshest sentence allowable under the law, life

12:40 Speaker 1: in prison, but the tragedy wasn't over. A year later,

12:45 Speaker 1: an investigation was launched into twenty two more suspicious deaths

12:48 Speaker 1: associated with Shipmen, called the Shipman Inquiry. The investigation concluded

12:53 Speaker 1: that Shipman had likely killed two hundred and fifteen of

12:56 Speaker 1: his patients beginning in nineteen seventy five. Further investment mitigations

13:00 Speaker 1: would link him to even more deaths over two hundred fifty,

13:04 Speaker 1: making him possibly the most prolific serial killer in history,

13:07 Speaker 1: behind only Charles Cullen. His first victim is believed to

13:11 Speaker 1: have been four year old Susan Garfet, who had cerebral palsy.

13:15 Speaker 1: He is believed to have injected her with jemorphine or

13:17 Speaker 1: other sedatives in nineteen seventy two while her mother stepped

13:21 Speaker 1: out of the room and left the girl in Shipman's care. However,

13:25 Speaker 1: because Shipman was already serving a life sentence. The crown

13:28 Speaker 1: declined to prosecute him for the other murders, and Shipman

13:32 Speaker 1: wasn't about to confess. When questioned, he would turn his

13:35 Speaker 1: chair around so his back was to the investigator. He

13:39 Speaker 1: wouldn't speak a word, but he would pick his nose

13:42 Speaker 1: and yawn, showing his utter contempt for the officers. Then

13:46 Speaker 1: on January thirteenth, two thousand four, guards found Shipman hanging

13:50 Speaker 1: from a bed sheet in his cell. He had taken

13:53 Speaker 1: all knowledge of his crimes, as well as his motives,

13:56 Speaker 1: with him to his grave. After a post mortem exam,

14:00 Speaker 1: his remains were released to Primrose, who had him cremated.

14:04 Speaker 1: His case did have one positive outcome, called the Shipman Effect.

14:08 Speaker 1: The recommendations from the Shipmen Inquiry led to changes in

14:11 Speaker 1: medical practices, such as more careful monitoring of narcotic prescriptions,

14:15 Speaker 1: changes to the way death certificates and requests for cremations

14:18 Speaker 1: are filed, and eliminating single doctor practices. In two thousand five,

14:23 Speaker 1: the city of Hyde dedicated a small park, the Garden

14:26 Speaker 1: of Tranquility, dedicated to the memory of Shipmen's victims.