DR. HAROLD SHIPMAN SERIAL KILLINGS 7
Forensic Analysis of Dr. Harold Shipman Serial Killing
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Forensic Analysis of Dr. Harold Shipman Serial Killing
The case of Dr. Harold Shipman provides a real-life application of concepts of forensic analysis. In this overview, different elements are investigated, including the background information, facts of the case, the forensic elements, and the motives behind the serial killings. Furthermore, it explores why Shipman’s crimes went undetected for very long and if earlier inquiries would have successfully convicted him.
Background Information and Facts of the Case
Harold Shipman was an English General Practitioner born on January 14, 1946, in Nottingham, England. He was discovered to have been involved in the serial killing of some 250 of his patients from the official inquiry into his crimes. While his crimes were evident, his background did not shed any light on a troubling childhood that would have inspired these waves of killings (Dyer, 2004). Born well-off family living in Manchester, Harold developed a keen interest at a younger age in which he saw his mother inject morphine as part of her palliative care from lung cancer. He then received medical degree from Leeds University by 1970, becoming a general practitioner a few years later in Todmorden Lancashire (Soothill & Wilson, 2015).
From the start of his professional practice, Harold had legal troubles. Notably, in 1975, it was discovered that Harold had written fraudulent prescriptions for the controlled drug opiate pethidine, which at the time, he had become addicted to. The incident compelled him to enroll in rehabilitation (Esmail, 2015). However, Shipman soon established himself as a respected general practitioner in the town of Hyde in Greater Manchester. It was till 1998 that one of his patients, an 81-year-old woman, was discovered dead in her home, prompting the first major a criminal inquiry into the practice of Shipman.
Different Inquiries into the Shipman practice revealed the salient features of the case setting on course an understanding into one of the most extended serial killing sprees in British history. According to Dyer (2004), the inquiry revealed that over his 20-year practice, Shipman murdered at least 215 of his patients. The inquiry was further made to believe that in addition to the initial 215, Shipman also claimed the lives of another 45 victims (Gunn, 2010). However, it was his last victim, the 81-year old woman’s death which prompted suspicion and inquiry into his crimes. According to the High Court Judge Dame Janet Smith, Shipman was hoping to get caught when he engaged in crude forgery of her will, making his detection and arrest an inevitable event. In the inquiry leading to the ruling, 888 cases were observed and published in a 200-page report entitled the Death Disguised. Out of this number, the inquiry did not find Shipman for the death of 604 patients, with no conclusion reached in the remaining 38. However, the investigation concluded that 215 people were killed by Shipman, with the majority being women (177) followed by children (44) (Esmail, 2015).
In making these conclusions, the inquiry engaged some 3500 witness statements. The inquiry further investigated the character of Dr. Death in search of any connection between his attributes and the end outcomes of his actions. It found that Shipman was a highly devious and unscrupulous character who exploited his professional reputation and plausible approaches to hide a long trail of criminal activities (Dyer, 2004 It further found that on some few occasions, Shipman was not keen to leave clues of his serial killings, which could have been possible to be investigated, especially in the earlier stages of the crime (Esmail, 2015). Specifically, on one of those occasions, two of Shipman’s colleagues noticed that he was injecting diamorphine in conditions in which this medication was not indicated.
However, the two colleagues failed to report this incident (Gunn, 2010). The criminal records of Shipman were also hinted to neighboring colleagues, especially the general practitioners who counter-signed cremation orders. These colleagues realized that there were higher death rates among his patients. Again, such concerns were also not seriously given way to even more crimes in the subsequent years. Until the last of his cases, when he forged the will of the 81-year older woman, his crimes became apparent. The action unmasked his intentional actions that directly led to the death of several patients who had entrusted him with their care (Esmail, 2015).
Up to the death of the 81-year old woman, there was no evidence or charges against Shipman due to lack of incriminating evidence. However, this death provided some of the most critical forensic evidence that led to the arrest and prosecution of Dr. Death. The woman died in her home on June 24, 1998, with Shipman the last person to have seen her. The will of the deceased which was a sum of 386,000 Euros had mysteriously been left to Shipman with no mention of the woman’s children. The police then exhumed the body of Katherine, the 81-year old woman (Dyer, 2004). Following a forensic analysis, traces of diamorphine was discovered in her body. Following the discovery of this evidence, Shipman was arrested on January 31, 2000, and found guilty of some 15 counts of murder and was then sentenced to life imprisonment. Subsequent investigations however discovered that his victims were 200 more which were directly linked to him. The majority of these were females. On 13, January 2004, Shipman decided to hang himself in the prison cells (Esmail, 2015).
Weapon of Choice
From the forensic analysis, Shipman’s weapon of choice was the injection of diamorphine. This is highly addictive and lethal morphine also known as heroine rapid onset of action and mainly negative physiological outcomes. Despite the long killing spree, Shipman went undetected for very long. Different factors contributed to this lack of detection. The first was that while there are mechanisms to detect the misuse of diamorphine in the clinical settings as set as by NHS, the low costs of these drugs made the access easier hence significant budgetary changes could not be detected despite fraudulent prescription. The second reason for the detection was that after injecting and killing his patients with lethal doses of these drugs, Shipman signed their death certificates noting that they died of natural causes. Some of the victims were also cremated hence erasing the evidence that could have been used against him in the court of law (Soothill & Wilson, 2015). Lastly, Shipman builds a trusting relationship between him and the patients leading to the inability of these patients or their relatives to suspect his negative intentions and evil actions (Esmail, 2015).
Motives for Killing
From the research, despite killing some 250 individuals, the motives for these crimes remain largely unclear. As from the first inquiry that shade light on the scale of Shipman’s crimes, the prosecution could not determine what exactly led to such criminal behavior. However, there were different speculations around the motives for his killings (Soothill & Wilson, 2015). The first was that Shipman might have been practicing euthanasia by removing from society those whom he thought were a burden to their families and society (Gunn, 2010). Besides, it is possible that pleasure was another motive as he derived the pleasure from the fact that as a physician, he had the power of life or death and in these cases, he chose death for his unsuspecting patients. There are strong grounds to believe that these and other grounds were strong motives for his engagement in serial killing (Dyer, 2004).
Prior Investigations
Before the final killing by Shipman that revealed the serial murders, another investigation was conducted which was concluded with no action taken. There are different facts and evidence that were overlooked in that first inquiry which would have revealed the murders sooner (Dyer, 2004). The first of these convictions was in 1976 when Shipman was convicted of several offenses related to the enormous misuse of pethidine. While these convictions were reported to the General Practitioner Council, no action was taken (Esmail, 2015). From this conviction, there was enough criminating evidence that Shipman could not be entrusted with patients and that his continued use of diamorphine was directly related to the reported deaths. This would have helped uncover the serial killings as early as 1976 and protected most of his victims (Soothill & Wilson, 2015). At the time, no evidence directly linked Shipman to the death of any specific patient. However, it could have been enough evidence to convict Dr. Shipman since there is a clear guideline for the use of these opiates in a clinical setting and Dr. Shipman was openly poisoning his patients based on the history of pethidine overdose.
References
Dyer, C. (2004). Shipman inquiry recommends tighter rules on controlled drugs. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 329(7459), 188.
Esmail, A. (2015). Physician as serial killer—the Shipman case. N Engl J Med, 352(18), 1843-4.
Gunn, J. (2010). Dr Harold Frederick Shipman: An enigma. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 20(3), 190-198.
Soothill, K., & Wilson, D. (2015). Theorising the puzzle that is Harold Shipman. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 16(4), 685-698.
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