Throughout the years there have been many creepy serial killers and other crazy people but none as extreme as Harold Shipman. Also known as Dr. Death, Shipman was born in Nottingham, England on January 14th, 1946. Shipman’s mother was given morphine when he was younger which peaked his curiosity for pain killers. After some time she died when Shipman was 17 years old (murderpedia.org). When Shipman was 19, he met Primrose. They got married while she was 5 months pregnant. Shipman was a very well educated killer. Shipman graduated from Leeds medical school and worked as a physician which gave him the perfect opportunity to perform the killings that he desired. (Biography.com)
Soon after college, Shipman became a family practitioner in Todmorden,
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Shipman continued to kill patients until he made a mistake in 1998 that would cost him everything. Angela Woodruff, a lawyer and daughter of one of Shipman's victims, was very certain that Shipman was up to something when she did not agree with the cause of death assigned to her mother. Kathleen Grundy died June 24th, 1998. She was a healthy and wealthy 81 year old. Woodruff was the daughter of Grundy and being a lawyer, she handled Grundy’s will. Upon seeing a will giving almost all of Grundy’s fortune to Shipman, she knew it had been faked. According to Britannica.com, the value of the things that were to be presented to Shipman were upwards of £400,000 or $ 527,920 USD. She presented this to the local police resulting in the exhumation of her body. This revealed that she died of a morphine overdose about 3 hours after she was injected which lines up perfectly with Dr. Shipman's visit. The police then raided Shipman’s home and found medical records, jewelry and a typewriter used to forge the will. Shipman was only accused with 15 counts of murder but many believe and evidence points to Shipman having upwards of 230 victims. After Shipman’s trial, he was given a whole life sentence in prison without parole. He died the day before his birthday in the year 2004 at the age 57 by hanging himself in prison (Biography.com, Britannica.com, …show more content…
After he was convicted, many medical laws and precautions became more strict and many new ones were created. What Shipman did was horrific but society learned from their mistakes. Obviously this man had a very negative effect on society as he directly impacted the lives of his victims and their families but he also changed the lives of his living patients, as they were left with thoughts such as "I could have been next" (Murderpedia.org). There were many things that should have been done differently from the extensiveness of the initial investigation to the lack of regulation and failsafes in place to prevent such a thing from happening. What society has learned from this awful human being is what makes him important. One of Shipman’s greatest downfalls was his greediness which got him caught although many say that he got caught on