Serial killer doctor may have slain 100 in UK

Serial killer doctor may have slain 100 in UK
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

LONDON, FEBRUARY 1: An English family doctor was found guilty Monday of murdering 15 female patients, while the true number of his victims could top 100, making him Britain's most prolific serial killer. Harold Shipman, 54, was given a life sentence for each of the 15 murders by a judge at the court in Preston, northwest England. But the real number of killings during his 30-year medical career may never be known.

Police investigated 136 deaths during the period covered by their inquiry, and found enough evidence to raise suspicions about Shipman in some 90 of those. Prosecutors said a decision about whether to proceed on further charges would be taken in consultation with victims' relatives. Shipman, a married father-of-four, who was by all accounts highly popular, murdered the women, aged 49 to 81, by injecting them with lethal doses of diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. He also forged the will of one victim, 81-year-old Kathleen Grundyan act which ultimately led to his downfall and was givenanother four years for that.

One of the most puzzling aspects of the case was the motive. Only in Grundy's case did he stand to benefit financially from her 386,000 Pound (625,000-Dollar) will. Police concluded Shipman was probably motivated by his desire for control.

Detective Chief Inspector Mike Williams, who interviewed the doctor, said: "He likes control, and the ultimate control is over life and death." Richard Badcock, a pyschiatrist who examined Shipman in police custody, said: "He could either be in a state of complete control, in which case he was relaxed and normal, or he was in a state of collapse."

Shipman conducted his killing spree between March 1995 and June 1998 while working at his one-man surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester. The town was in shock Monday as many of his patients were Left wondering if their loved ones had also been victims of murder. Churches in the area were to hold special services on Tuesday, while the local health authority set up a telephone help line for worriedpatients.

Following the verdict, it emerged that police had probed Shipman six months before his arrest in 1998 after another doctor became suspicious about the number of cremation certificates she was being asked to counter-sign for him. Then, police failed to find sufficient evidence to charge him. But the case was reopened after the daughter of Shipman's last victim became suspicious over her mother's altered will. It also emerged that Shipman, the son of a lorry driver, had admitted a fascination with drugs and had once battled a drug addiction.

In 1976 he was convicted of stealing quantities of the drug pethidine. Former colleagues told how drugs went missing from his surgery as he forged prescriptions to feed his habit. He was forced to resign and undergo treatment, but less than two years later he was back at work as a doctor.Shipman stood emotionless in the dock as the verdicts were delivered after a trial lasting four months and six days of jury deliberations.

His wife, Primrose, 52, flanked bytheir sons, Christopher and David, and their daughter Sarah, stared straight ahead in the public gallery. Distraught relatives of the victims sobbed as the verdicts were read out. The court heard how Shipman amassed drugs to kill his victims and then falsified their medical records to create bogus explanations for their sudden deaths. But police called in computer experts who were able to show when the computer files were created and when they were changed or deleted. Shipman bullied grieving relatives into believing there was no need for a post-mortem examination, so the real cause of death would not come to light.