Harold Shipman was a British medical doctor who was convicted in 1998 for killing his patients by injecting them with lethal doses of painkillers. Harold grew up as a loner; yet and still he was his mother favorite child. When his mother became diagnosed with terminal lung cancer he willingly oversaw her care. It was then that he became fascinated with the affects morphine had on his mothers suffering. She passed away from the disease leaving Harold devastated; however it sort of motivated him to become a doctor. He began his career as a physician in 1970 after attending Leeds School of Medicine for two years. By 1974 Harold was thriving as a family practitioner and a family man in Todmorden, Yorkshire. Unfortunately he allegedly became addicted to …show more content…
He worked there for almost two decades. It wasn’t until the local undertaker began to notice that Harold’s patients were dying at an unusual high rate, and in similar ways that someone caught on to what he was doing. The undertaker approached Shipman about it, but he just reassured him that everything was fine. Another colleague Dr. Susan Booth became concerned and contacted the coroner’s office, who then contacted the police. The police investigated Shipman, but found no foul play because everything seemed to be fine and his records were in order. The police made a vital mistake by not checking his criminal background or contacting the General Medical Council. If they would have checked they would have seen his previous record. It is not noted when Shipman’s killing began, but it was not until Angela Woodruff, the daughter of one of the victims refused to accept the way her mother died. Angela’s mother Kathleen Grundy was an wealthy active 81 year old who was found dead in her home shortly after visiting Dr. Shipman on June 24, 1998. Angela was told by Shipman that an autopsy was not necessary, so she buried
Most medical experts often had to supplement their findings with more conventional detective work. Rob Rapley recounts the famous cases of the day including the factory workers who painted glow in the dark watch dials with radium paint. Women who worked in these factories were unknowingly being poisoned as they put their brushes in their mouths to touch up the point. Since women were dying years after having access to the paint, it was hard to tell whether or not they died from the paint at work or from another cause. It wasn’t until Gettler ran tests on a woman’s bones five years after her death and found radium still remaining in her bones. Also, a man named Mike Malloy miraculously survived tragic situations such as being run over by a taxi and being fed rotten food before finally dying from poisonous gas. The cause of his death, however, was not spontaneous and was a result of money hunger than those who insured him shared. This models that murderers used poison to commit crimes in search of money. One pair of murderers, exculpated by Gettler’s evidence in 1924, was finally caught in 1936, when they killed again using the same poison.
The issue with this is that Mr. Swensen was not diabetic. How can a non-diabetic have an insulin shock? The only answer would be that he was administered insulin voluntarily and thus murdered by an individual with good medical knowledge, and access to medical facilities. Another medical mystery is related to Mr. Calley’s infection a few days after his penile prosthesis placement surgery that was also done by Dr. Mathis. Although infections are a common risk after surgeries, Moe was very meticulous in performing the surgery and made sure no such compromising mistakes were made. Upon inspection, he identified the infection cause to be due to a streptococcus bacterial species that contaminated one of the scalpels. This bacteria is commonly found in the human mouth and; therefore, a logical and likely cause would be someone spitting on the operating material. Who would do such a thing? And for what reasons? In addition, Dr. Ray Mosdell a close friend of Dr. Mathis who had Coronary Heart Disease and Serious Heart problems fell into a coma for unknown reasons. He then died shortly after of heart failure. There is a medical mystery surrounding what caused Dr. Mosdell’s coma, heart
On 1997 four men were convicted of the rape and murder of Michelle Basko. The four men were Joe Dick, Daniel Williams, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice. Detective Robert Ford believed that the four U.S. navy men were all guilty of the crime. One of the victim’s friend claimed that Daniel Williams, was Michelle Basko’s murderer. Based on the information provided by Basko’s friend, Ford suspected that William was guilty. With that, the series of harsh interrogations led by detective Robert Ford began. Detective Ford began his interrogatories with a label that Williams is the suspect. The psychological abuse he used, led Williams to make a false confession. After closing the case, the DNA results did not match the one in the crime scene. Instead of releasing Williams, it was believed that Joe
Born on February 2, 22, 1996, Charles Cullen is a famous serial killer from New Jersey (Jennifer Hash, 2006, p. 3). The Media named him “the Angel of Death,” an apt nickname for a serial killer that worked as a nurse. According to Brain D, Andresen (2005), an angel of death describes is a type of serial killer that often works as a caregiver in the medical field who intentionally kills patients (1). An angel of death has power over their victims and may try to play god by deciding the victim would be better off dead than to suffer from their illness. As a nurse, Cullen had access to drugs, which he used to kill his victims. He gave patients overdoses of the drug digoxin, a heart stimulant. Charles was given a way out of the death penalty if
Police found the tip of a broken knife by Wilson’s head, suggesting the murderer had been rushed. It was found, after a thorough background search, that Albright was living under forged documents of his father, who had
The following day, a fisherman was at the Treeland Blvd. pond when he spotted some stuff floating in the water. Upon closer inspection he noticed it was firefighters gear and figured something must be wrong since firefighters do not just leave their equipment. The police had the pond drained and found a green Chevy truck at the bottom. Inside the truck was a substantial amount of blood; when the blood was tested it was that of Brandy Hall. The amount of blood in the cab of the truck makes it unlikely she will be found alive. The woods around the pond were also searched but nothing more was found.
In Kate Summerscale’s book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, we are introduced to a murder case at the Road Hill House in the late 19th century. The young child Saville Kent has been murdered and who murdered him is the question the entire town is interested in. All of the evidence we are introduced to points to Saville 's older, half sister, Constance Kent, as the murderer.
The imagery of the patient’s lifeless body gives a larger meaning to the doctor’s daily preoccupations. Gawande’s use of morbid language helps the reader identify that death is, unfortunately, a facet of a physician’s career. However, Gawande does not leave the reader to ponder what emotions went through him after witnessing the loss of his patient. He writes, “Perhaps a backup suction device should always be at hand, and better light is more easily available. Perhaps the institutions could have trained me better for such crises” (“When Doctors Make Mistakes” 73).
without risking life or limb had proved too tempting for several of the more barbarous resurrectionists” (Nuland). As the public became steadily more aggressive, surgeons and anatomists grew desperate; thus, enter the infamous duo of William Burke and William Hare. These two poor Irishmen employed an unconventional method to the typical body snatching: murder. In other words, they purposely killed people in order to sell the bodies to a renowned anatomist known as Dr. Robert Knox. Their ingenious process for obtaining victims was quite horrific. “Friendless people were enticed into their house, stupefied with drink and then smothered so that there would be no marks on the body to suggest a violent death” (Magee). Within a year’s time, “[a]t least sixteen people were dispatched in this way before the pair were apprehended in 1828, when the body of the last of these victims was found in Dr Knox’s rooms” (Magee). “Hare turned King's evidence against Burke, who was hanged in a riotous ceremony witnessed by more than twenty thousand...onlookers” (Nuland), and, in a twisted sense of karma, Burke’s body was ordered by the court to be publicly dissected by a professor of the University of Edinburgh. Interestingly, for their cooperation with the authorities ,“Burke’s accomplices...avoided punishment. Robert Knox... also went unpunished, although his reputation and career were damaged”
Player: case report and emerging medicolegal practice questions. Journal of Forensic Nursing, 6(1), 40-46. doi:10.1111/j.1939-3938.2009.01064.x
Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals symbolize people whom we seek in time of need, but in the article, “Reconceptualizing the notion of victim selection, risk, and offender behavior in healthcare serial murders”, we are introduced to a new type of monster. Lubaszka and Shon define healthcare serial killers as, “any healthcare professional or worker who intentionally kills two or more patients in a care-giving environment for reasons not related to mercy, euthanasia, or physician ass...
The Army CID sent a new, inexperienced investigator named William Ivory to investigate the scene. Ivory decided after looking around the house that MacDonald made up the story of the killers. He also persuaded everyone that he was the culprit. This meant that everyone in Ivory’s chain...
Harold Shipman is known as one of Britain’s worst serial killers. Over twenty-five years it is suspected he killed 251 individuals while working as a medical doctor (“Harold Shipman”, n.d., para 1). Shipman had been injecting fatal amounts of poison into their bodies (para. 1). Shipman’s actions and why he acted in this manner can be explained from the sociological perspective and psychological perspective. The sociological perspective examines factors including social setting, level of education and positive or negative role models in a person’s life (Pozzulo, Bennell & Forth, 2015, p.338-341). The psychological perspective examines colorations between an individual’s mental process, their behaviour, their learning process and traits an individual
George’s journey in the criminal justice system began when officers arrested her at her house in the presence of her children, which occurred rather in a calm manner, considering the nature of her charges. The detectives arrived at her house with a social worker to secure her children, and they refrained from making a brutal arrest scene by not
Donaldson said in his foreword: the doctor with the sinister and macrebe motivation of Harold Shipman is a once in a lifetime occurrence. (Gunn, 2010). Dame Janet described him as being "addicted" to murder. There was no evidence to suggest that he was motivated by monetary gain.The final reason I believe Dr. Shipman was a Hero killer is because of the wording in the forgery of a patient's will that led to his capture. In the will it stated that all of her estate, money, and house should be left to him because " I want to reward him for all the care he has given to me and the people of Hyde." For me, he forged that as a show of recognition on his part and so that he would seem like a hero. Not only for his patients but for the community of