No. 5- Dr. Death
Seven of the Most Notorious Serial Killers in History
Fred Shipman, also known as Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), was an English general practitioner and serial murderer. With an estimated 250 victims, he is regarded as one of the most prolific serial killers in contemporary history. Shipman was found guilty on January 31, 2000, of killing 15 patients who were under his care. He received a life sentence with a lifetime restriction. On January 13, 2004, at the age of 57, Shipman committed himself by hanging himself in his cell in HM Prison Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
Under the direction of Dame Janet Smith, a two-year inquiry of all deaths Shipman certified looked at the crimes committed by the man. It became clear that Shipman preyed on older individuals who were weak and believed him because he was their doctor. He either administered a lethal quantity of medication to his victims or prescribed an excessive amount.
Shipman, known by the monikers "Dr. Death" and "The Angel of Death," is the only British physician to have been found guilty of killing his patients to date; however, other physicians have been cleared of comparable crimes or found guilty of less serious offenses.
Family, Upbringing, and Education :
Shipman was the second of three children born to truck driver Harold Frederick Shipman (12 May 1914 – 5 January 1985) and Vera Brittan (23 December 1919 – 21 June 1963) on the Bestwood Estate, a council estate in Nottingham, on January 14, 1946. His poor parents were devoted Methodists. Shipman was a skilled rugby player in juvenile levels when he was younger.
After passing his eleven-plus exam in 1957, Shipman enrolled in High Pavement Grammar School in Nottingham, which he attended until 1964. He was a strong distance runner and served as the team's vice-captain in his last year of school. When Shipman was seventeen years old, his mother, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, passed away.In the last stages of her illness, she had morphine supplied at home by a doctor, which eventually became Shipman's own method of operation. Despite having a terminal illness, Shipman saw his mother's pain ease up until her passing on June 21, 1963. He wed Primrose May Oxtoby on November 5th, 1966; they had four kids together.
Shipman completed his medical studies at the University of Leeds' Leeds School of Medicine in 1970.
Career :
In 1974, Shipman accepted his first post as a general practitioner (GP) at the Abraham Ormerod Medical Center in Todmorden. Shipman had previously worked at the Pontefract General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Riding of Yorkshire. The year after, Shipman was discovered fabricating pethidine prescriptions for his personal use. He paid a £600 fine and spent a short time in a York drug recovery facility. In 1977, he served as a general practitioner at Donneybrook Medical Center in Hyde, Greater Manchester.
Throughout the 1980s, Shipman continued to practice general practice in Hyde. In 1993, he opened his own office at 21 Market Street, where he quickly earned the respect of his neighbors. He was questioned about how the mentally ill should be handled in the society in an episode of the Granada Television current affairs documentary World in Action in 1983. The conversation was rerun on Tonight with Trevor McDonald a year after his conviction on murder charges.
Detection :
Concerned about the high mortality rate among Shipman's patients, Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde voiced her worries to John Pollard, the coroner for the South Manchester District, in March 1998. She was particularly worried about the enormous number of paperwork for old women's cremations that he had required countersignature on. Police ended the inquiry on April 17 after determining there was insufficient proof to file charges.Greater Manchester Police was eventually held accountable by the Shipman Inquiry for sending untrained officers to handle the case. Following the conclusion of the investigation, Shipman murdered three more people.
A few months later, in August, cabbie John Shaw reported to the police his suspicions that Shipman had killed 21 patients. Shaw started to wonder why so many of the elderly patients he brought to the hospital and who appeared to be in good health passed away while in Shipman's care.
Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde, was Shipman's final victim. She was discovered dead at her house on June 24, 1998. He was the last person to see her alive, and he later put his signature on her death record, putting "old age" as the reason of death. When fellow attorney Brian Burgess told Grundy's daughter Angela Woodruff that a will had been drafted, ostensibly by her mother, with questions regarding its veracity, she grew anxious. Woodruff and her children were not mentioned in the bequest, but Shipman received £386,000. Woodruff went to the police at Burgess' prompting, and they launched an inquiry.
When Grundy's body was unearthed, it was discovered to have traces of heroin (heroin), a drug frequently used to treat the suffering of terminal cancer patients. However, a police examination of Shipman's computer revealed that the entries were made after Grundy had passed away. Shipman had claimed that Grundy had been an addict and had shown them comments he had written to that effect in his computerized medical journal.
When Shipman was apprehended on September 7, 1998, a Brother typewriter similar to the one used to create the fake will was discovered in his possession. According to the 2000 book Prescription for Murder by journalists Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie, Shipman may have fabricated the will in order to avoid being discovered, because his life was out of control, or because he intended to retire at age 55 and flee the UK.
Police looked into further fatalities. Shipman examined and certified fifteen sample cases. He had a practice of giving diamorphine in deadly quantities, writing death certificates for individuals, and then forging their medical records to claim they had been unwell.David Spiegelhalter and colleagues stated in 2003 that "statistical monitoring could have led to an alarm being raised at the end of 1996, when there were 67 excess deaths in females aged over 65 years, compared with 119 by 1998."
Trial and imprisonment :
On October 5, 1999, Shipman's trial got under way at Preston Crown Court. He was accused of murdering 15 people between 1995 and 1998 by administering deadly doses of diamorphine:
- Marie West
- Irene Turner
- Lizzie Adams
- Jean Lilley
- Ivy Lomas
- Muriel Grimshaw
- Marie Quinn
- Kathleen Wagstaff
- Bianka Pomfret
- Norah Nuttall
- Pamela Hillier
- Maureen Ward
- Winifred Mellor
- Joan Melia
- Kathleen Grundy
Due to the alleged fabrication of Grundy's will, Shipman's legal counsel unsuccessfully sought to have the Grundy case tried separately from the others.
After six days of deliberation, on January 31, 2000, the jury declared Shipman guilty of 15 counts of murder and one count of forgery. Mr. Justice Forbes then sentenced Shipman to life in prison for each of the 15 murder charges against him, with the suggestion that he also serve a full life term concurrently with a four-year sentence for forging Grundy's will. The General Medical Council (GMC) removed Shipman from the medical registration on February 11, 11 days after his conviction.Just months before British government ministers lost their authority to set minimum terms for prisoners, Home Secretary David Blunkett confirmed the judge's whole life tariff two years after it was initially proposed. Authorities had the option of filing several additional charges, but they decided against it because of the extensive media coverage the first trial received. The 15 life sentences previously given out made more litigation pointless.While incarcerated, Shipman made friends with Peter Moore, a fellow serial killer.
Shipman contested the scientific evidence against him and disputed his guilt. He never expressed his opinions in the media. Even after his conviction, Shipman's wife, Primrose, remained adamant that he was innocent.
The only physician ever convicted of killing his patients in British history is Shipman. John Bodkin Adams was accused of killing one patient in 1957 despite rumors that he had killed many more over a ten-year period and "possibly served as Shipman's role model." He was found not guilty, and no more accusations were brought against him. According to historian Pamela Cullen, Adams' acquittal prevented the British legal system from being scrutinized until the Shipman case.
Death :
At the age of 57, Shipman hung himself in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield around 6:20 in the morning on January 13, 2004. At 8:10 a.m., he was pronounced dead. He hung himself from his cell's window bars using his bed clothes, according to a statement from Her Majesty's Prison Service. Shipman passed away, and his corpse was transported by undertaker's van to the morgue at the Medico Legal Centre in Sheffield for a post-mortem examination. The remains was finally returned to the family by West Yorkshire Coroner David Hinchliff after an inquiry was started and adjourned shortly after.
As a result of Shipman's death, several of the victims' relatives claimed they felt "cheated" since they would never have the pleasure of a confession or an explanation for why he did his atrocities. Home Secretary David Blunkett said that it was tempting to celebrate: "You wake up and you get a phone saying Shipman has overdosed, and you wonder, is it too early to crack open a bottle? Then you find out that everyone is furious with him for doing it.
National media were split over Shipman's death; the Daily Mirror called him a "cold coward" and criticized the Prison Service for allowing him to commit suicide. The Sun, on the other hand, printed the joyful front-page headline, "Ship Ship hooray!" The Independent demanded that the investigation into Shipman's suicide include a broad look at both the condition of UK prisons and the wellbeing of inmates.General Sir David Ramsbotham, who formerly held the position of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, advocated for the replacement of whole-life sentences with indefinite ones in The Guardian. He claimed that doing so would at least give prisoners some hope of eventual release, lower the likelihood that they will commit suicide, and make managing them easier for prison staff.
Although Shipman reportedly told his probation officer that he was considering suicide to ensure his wife's financial security after he lost his National Health Service pension, the reason for his suicide was never determined. If Primrose Shipman had lived above the age of sixty, she would not have been eligible for a full NHS pension.In addition, there was proof that Primrose had started to doubt Shipman's culpability despite his long-standing protestations of innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence. Shipman was temporarily denied privileges, including the ability to call his wife, as a result of his refusal to participate in programs that would have pushed him to confess his crimes.According to Shipman's cellmate, at this time, Primrose wrote him a letter urging him to "Tell me everything, no matter what."Shipman's suicide "could not have been predicted or prevented," according to a 2005 investigation, but protocols should nevertheless be reviewed.
Despite several erroneous claims concerning Shipman's funeral, his remains was left in Sheffield for more than a year after being given to his family. Police warned his widow not to bury her husband in case his tomb was harmed. Shipman was ultimately cremated at Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium on March 19, 2005.Primrose and the couple's four children were the only ones present during the cremation, which was held at a time other than regular business hours to protect privacy.
Aftermath :
Chris Gregg, a senior West Yorkshire Police officer, was chosen to head an inquiry into 22 of the fatalities that occurred in West Yorkshire in January 2001.The Shipman Inquiry, which was completed in July 2002, came to the conclusion that between 1975 and 1998, when he was in practice in Todmorden (1974–1975) and Hyde (1977–1998), he had murdered at least 218 of his patients. The judge who provided the findings, Dame Janet Smith, acknowledged that many further unexplained fatalities could not be conclusively linked to Shipman. Most of his victims were healthy older women.
Smith stated in her sixth and final report, which was released on January 24, 2005, that she had strong suspicions about four additional deaths, including the death of a four-year-old girl, that occurred early in Shipman's medical career at Pontefract General Infirmary and that she believed he had killed three patients. Between 1971 and 1998, he was responsible for the deaths of 459 patients, although it is unclear how many of them were murder victims because he frequently served as the lone physician to certify a death. 250 victims were thought to have been Shipman's total throughout those 27 years, according to Smith.
The GMC accused six doctors of wrongdoing for signing cremation authorization papers for Shipman's victims when they should have seen the correlation between Shipman's home visits and his patients' fatalities. These physicians were all found not guilty. A comparable hearing was held in October 2005 against two physicians who were employed at Tameside General Hospital in 1994 and who were found not to have known that Shipman had purposefully delivered a "grossly excessive" quantity of morphine.The Shipman Inquiry suggested changing the GMC's organizational structure.
It was discovered in 2005 that Shipman could have taken jewelry from his victims. Police had discovered almost £10,000 worth of jewelry in his garage in 1998, which they had confiscated. When Primrose requested its return in March 2005, police sent letters to the families of Shipman's victims requesting that they identify the jewelry.The Assets Recovery Agency received unidentified objects in May.In August, the inquiry was finished. Authorities sold 33 items that Primrose verified weren't hers and returned 66 pieces to her. The auction's proceeds were donated to Tameside Victim Support.A platinum diamond ring with a photo of the family as ownership confirmation was the sole item given back to the family of a slain patient.
The Garden of Tranquility, a memorial garden for Shipman's victims, debuted on July 30, 2005, in Hyde Park, London.Over 200 families of the Shipman victims were still looking for financial compensation as of the beginning of 2009. Letters that Shipman wrote while incarcerated to pals were scheduled to be auctioned off in September 2009, but the sale was canceled after media and victim's family concerns.
Shipman effect :
The "Shipman effect"—a series of changes to accepted medical practices in the UK—was brought on by the Shipman case and a number of recommendations in the Shipman Inquiry report. Many doctors reported changes in their prescribing habits, and it's possible that a reluctance to take the chance of over-prescribing painkillers led to under-prescribing.Practices for death certification were also changed. The transition from single-doctor to multi-doctor general practices was arguably the biggest transformation.[Reference required] This was not a direct suggestion; rather, it was done because the study found that there was insufficient oversight and protection of physicians' judgments.
The questions on the forms required for cremations in England and Wales have changed as a direct result of the Shipman case. For instance, the individual or people organizing the burial must respond to the question, "Do you know or suspect that the deceased person's death was violent or unnatural? Do you think there needs to be any more investigation of the deceased person's remains?
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No.6 - JEFFREY DAHMER
The Milwaukee Monster or the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (/dmr/; May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991.[4] His later killings frequently entailed cannibalism, necrophilia, and the permanent retention of body parts, usually the entire or portion of the skeleton.
By JERAN THIVAabout a year ago in Criminal
THE MYSTERY OF THE MIDNIGHT RIDDER
This is one of the Lesser known of America's unsolved crimes a series of murders which took place during the early 1900s perpetrated by an enigmatic and brutal killer one who had become known over time as the Midnight Rider. There had been relatively few instances during the time he had served as County Sheriff that Arthur Turner had made the decision to attend a crime scene in person but having heard the background story regarding the incident his deputies had attended earlier that morning it seemed prudent to do so under the circumstances during the short ride from his office in Grand Forks to the premises in question Turner privately hoped that the Mata had escaped the interest of the local newspapers but as he arrived to find one of his deputies ushering a reporter from the Bismarck Daily Tribune away from the boundaries of the address he knew that he would have no such reprieve we are really acknowledging that if there was one there would be others the sheriff had assisted his subordinate in removing the Troublesome journalist before making his way across to the nearby farmhouse once inside he spoke briefly with the homeowner a somewhat emotional young man named vikulin before being led out to the rear of the household waiting alongside the beginnings of a basement which they had been digging out beneath the property were two workmen both of whom looked equally as haunted as their young employer Turner listens solemnly as the pair described what they had encountered during the course of their work and what lay beneath the tarpaulin they were standing next to then with the wave of his hand he had watched as the covering was pulled back to reveal the five skeletal bodies beneath it all with their skulls completely smashed beyond all hope of recognition it would not be until well into the late 1800s that the United States government eventually settled on a means by which to resolve the thorny issue of the Dakota territory having spent no small amount of time pondering over how best to dispose of the problem it was decided to divide the sprawling region into two separate states such a decision naturally created a need to establish New Towns and infrastructures with would-be settlers incentivized by the reward of free tracks of land granted by the authorities amongst the many groups who decided to take up this offer was a small party from New York which selected a site in the Red River Valley to found its new community christening their settlement Niagara in honor of the home county they had left behind the inhabitants soon settled down into a quiet and unassuming lifestyle that was however with the exception of one of their number a 33 year old Bachelor by the name of Eugene Butler from the moment he arrived Butler's increasingly eccentric nature brought him into direct conflict with his fellow settlers electing to build his home while away from the rest of the town in the depths of the surrounding Prairie it seemed that trouble followed hot on his heels whenever he chose to venture into town Butler was convinced that every unmarried young woman in the town was deeply intent on pursuing him romantically and that every man he encountered bore him a hidden degree of ill will he spoke openly of his belief that his life was constantly in danger with the town's inhabitants all secretly eyeing his property and monies for their own selfish desires when he did attend social functions he would refuse to have his picture taken saying that the photographer would somehow steal his soul into the device as his mental health deteriorated Butler's neighbors began to complain to the authorities that he was continually harassing them several reports were filed with the police to the effect that he was riding beyond the boundaries of his property at night screaming wild obscenities and howling at the moon when visited by deputies the farmer did not deny his activities instead justifying them by claiming that it was he who was the victim of harassment by those who had made the report at Great length he described to the officers how unknown persons were creeping around his property in the dead of night trying to gain entry to his home and steal his belongings on trusting of the police or indeed any other person within the community he had decided his only recourse was to resolve the issue himself conducting nocturnal patrols of his property on his horse he would shout challenges to any Intruder he believed he had caught sight of lurking within the surrounding Darkness eventually in 1904 it was decided that Butler's Antics had gone far enough with the town leaders seeking engagement with his extended family in New York after a brief period of consultation he was subsequently removed from his home by force and then detained in the state mental facility in Jamestown it was there that he would remain until his eventual death from natural causes in 1911. but the end of Eugene Butler would turn out to be only the beginning of his story in the years that followed his almost unnoticed passing Butler's estate was gradually divided up amongst his surviving relatives this process would take no small amount of time as his isolated and miserly lifestyle had accrued him a small fortune both in land and government bonds he had purchased reports in local newspapers suggested that the overall value of Butler's assets at the time of his death would be the equivalent of half a million dollars in modern value it would not be until 1915 that his home was finally passed into the hands of a group of lawyers before being placed on the property market for sale in no time at all it was promptly sold to a young family who were looking to settle down in the town having just migrated to the local area from Wisconsin upon first moving into The Farmstead with his wife and newborn baby the over cooling was more than satisfied with his new surroundings heralding from traditional farming Stark he immediately set about tilling the land around the property commissioning workers to dig out a basement below the homestead but hardly had this work began when the Tradesmen had immediately downed tools calling for the coolant to come and see what they had Unearthed there in the crawl space below the building with the skeletal remains of a naked human body its skull completely pulverized and crushed beyond all recognition immediately alerting the authorities the hapless homeowner had then been forced to witness a truly horrifying Revelation as over the coming days several further bodies went on to be recovered as word of the fine began to spread throughout the surrounding area journalists and crowds of onlookers were quick to attend demanding Clarity on what exactly had been discovered during a hastily convened press conference County Sheriff Arthur Turner provided what little detail he could in an effort to suppress the many rumors that were beginning to circulate in total the remains of six unknown persons were discovered beneath the property which were all believed to have been killed in an identical manner the life of each victim had been cruelly and brutally ended with a fatal blow to the left side of their head from a sharp or pointed object they had then been stripped of their clothing with their school smashed to Pieces before being pushed through a trapdoor which had been built into the floor of the homestead in the case of at least two of the deceased arms and legs had apparently been broken in order to fit them through the aperture five of the bodies had been found grouped quite closely together a sixth half buried a short distance away with nothing whatsoever to identify who they were the working theory of the investigators was that the victims were Farm Workers or Hired Hands who Butler had killed at various times over the years likely as a result of his Madness it is probable that at the time of his speech Sheriff Turner believed that however grisly the crime was it would prove relatively easy to investigate but as the months turned into years the exact opposite would be true the initial assertion by the police that the victims had been laborers or casual workers quickly began to fall apart examination of the bone suggested that only two of the deceased were adult males one of the others most likely belonged to an adult female with the remaining three being children of varying age a new Theory arose with the corpse set aside from the others being one of the two men it was now speculated that he alone may have been a laborer the rest of the bodies most likely belong to a family which had been killed all at once inquiries by deputies would soon establish that no family matching the description of the remains had ever resided in or around the local area there was also no suggestion that Butler had ever allowed Lodgers to stay at the premises prompting speculation that the victims may have been visiting members from his own extended family but liaison with the police department in New York revealed that this was not the case with Butler's surviving relatives adamant that nobody from the family had ever disappeared the only person to ever answer the public appeal for help in identifying the deceased was a businessman from Minnesota named Leo abansky in a letter to the state attorney he inquired if it was possible that his missing brother may be the dead man buried alongside the family John ivanski had last written to him in late 1902 stating that he was passing through the Niagara area but would be staying on a while to work on the farm of a local Bachelor with the suggestion that the missing a bansky brother and the lone body which had been recovered both possessed crooked noses it was hoped that this aspect of the mystery would be solved however it proved inconclusive during the 1980s the emergence of DNA analysis provided a means of identifying human remains and the authorities moved to apply this technique to the still unsolved case but when members of the team allocated to carry out the inquiry looked into the matter they discovered that the remains of the victims were nowhere to be found it transpired that there had been lengthy periods of time during the original investigation where the bodies had been left unguarded by Sheriff Turner and his deputies this had resulted in local residents being able to trespass on the farm and remove pieces of the bodies from the grounds as Grizzly souvenirs in addition to this the samples taken by the police department had either been lost or disposed of over the years leaving absolutely nothing to compare the familial DNA sample to with the passage of time that has elapsed since the incident it now seems apparent that the identities of the deceased will forever remain a mystery but as frustrating as this fact is it has not deterred investigators and commentators from continuing to examine the case in subsequent years analysis of the scene at the time would suggest that the murderer could only have been Butler himself and no one else it was he who had personally constructed the property where the bodies were discovered and added modifications such as the trapdoor where they had been disposed of there is no suggestion that any other person had resided with Butler at the address and the erratic Behavior he displayed seems to offset the lack of any obvious motive for the crime interviews with doctors at the North Dakota State Hospital suggested that Eugene Butler had been something of a model patient finally separated from his fortune his paranoia and suspicion had faded away with no signs of aggression displayed towards the medical staff or those who visited him but they remained a strong conviction that all women were attracted to him with one female nurse having to be moved to avoid the patient's aggressive and unwanted advances in an interview at the time the remains were discovered Dr a w guest stated that despite his many ramblings Butler had never once spoken of harming or killing any person it is entirely possible that he had killed the people found at his home suspecting them of trying to steal his fortune and had then completely forgotten he had done so as his mental state began to recover it was not uncommon however for Butler to describe to his doctors that he had heard Sinister voices telling him what to do on occasion he would carry out strange acts in front of the staff later claiming he had no recollection of doing so as if someone seen Force had temporarily taken control of his body this raises the prospect that had he lived to be accused of the crimes Butler May well have claimed to have been suffering from some form of Personality Disorder or even demonic possession in truth the only person who actually knew what took place at the remote farmhouse on the outskirts of Niagara died well before his crimes were discovered the house that Eugene Butler constructed and then adapted to serve his misdeeds was demolished many years later in industrial storage unit now stands on the site belonging to a local family which owns the land repeated public appeals for local residents to search their basements and attics for the bones that were stolen from the crime scene have yielded no positive results all of which seems to indicate that the victims of the Midnight Rider will remain unidentified the manner in which they came into contact with their killer is as mysterious as the reasons for which their lives were so brutally ended May their souls rest in peace...
By Mark Chinkwita4 days ago in Criminal
Russians Blamed in Ghana Cocoa Smuggling While Ghanaians on Border With Côte d'Ivoire Smuggling Cashews & Cocoa
Saturday, 29 June 2024 By: TB Obwoge I will never for get the words of the young Chadian, "Ghanaians are hypocrites!" When he said this it was like a light bulb went on, he said the one word to sum of the behavior of many in Ghana. Of course it is not all, however you will find it everywhere, in the media, when trying to rent a place to live or the fraud and corruption.
By IwriteMywrongs6 days ago in Criminal
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