Born in England in 1946, British most notorious serial killer Harold Shipman became known as Dr. Death. His fascination for the world of medicine can be traced back to as early as taking care of his dying mother. Shipman became obsessed with the positive effect of how morphine was administered. This serial killer killed over 215 of his patients. Shipman lived by the motive, "if you want to become a serial killer, become a doctor." In 1974, Shipman joined the Abraham Ormerod Medical Practice in Todmorden. Until September 1975, when his partners discovered that he had been stealing controlled drugs for his personal usage. Shipman pleaded guilty in February of 1976 at the Halifax Magistrates’ Court of these allegations. There was no disciplinary …show more content…
action implemented against him by The General Medical Council. He was allowed to continue to maintain is privileges of doctoring without any restriction or supervision. In October of 1977, Shipman joined the practice of Donneybrook which consisted of seven doctors in Hyde in Greater Manchester. Shipman later started a private practice in January of 1992. He was worshiped by the majority of his patient, mostly the elder. Shipman first victim was a Mrs. Eva Lyons. She was murdered in March of 1975 the day before her 71st birthday. The last victim Shipman murder was Mrs. Kathleen Grundy. She was found dead in her home on June 24th of 1998. She was last seen alive by her Dr. Shipman. Shipman would visit the victims in their homes and administer a lethal dose of morphine. The alarm was raised by Kathleen Grundy's daughter Angela Woodruff. It was proving that Shipman had arrived at Mrs.
Grundy's home and pretended to give her a blood test. DNA confirmed that he had given her a massive dose of morphine. Police became increasingly suspicious when discovering that Mrs. Grundy had left Shipman a sum of $386,000. The will was altered and left out Mrs. Grundy's children. As a result, Mrs. Grunbdy's body was exhumed and examined. Traces of diamorphine, known as heroin, were found in her body. Of the 215 killings, one took place in Todmorden, 71 during Shipman’s time at the Donneybrook practice and the remaining 143 during his six years at the Market Street Surgery. While at the Market Street Surgery, Shipman killed one patient in 1992, 16 patients in 1993 and 11 in 1994. In each of the years 1995 and 1996, he killed 30 patients, increasing to 37 in 1997. During the first three months of 1998, he killed 15 patients. He maintains a seven weeks interval before killing again. Shipman went on to kill three more patients before his arrest in September 1998. Of the 215 murder victims, they consisted of 171 women and 44 men. With this vital evidence, Shipman was arrested. On 31 January 2000, Dr. Harold Shipman was found guilty of 15 counts of murders and sentenced to life in prison. Later investigations uncovered further victims, and now over 200 murders have been positively linked to Shipman, though more are suspected. The majority of eighty percent of Shipman’s victims were older female. On the other hand, the youngest victim was forty-one
years of age. On 13 January 2004, Shipman hanged himself in his cell in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire.
Convicted for the murders of his wife and two kids, thirty-four years ago, Dr. MacDonald still endures the agony of being accused of killing his family. Even after twenty-four years of imprisonment and several unlawful court hearings, additional documentation continues to up hold Dr. MacDonald’s testimony.
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
Clifford Olson is one of Canada's well known serial killers. He showed no sign of sympathy for the public all throughout his life and would eventually end up killing many innocent people and spending a good portion of his life in jail.
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.
What would cause an individual to behave in this rather heinous and macabre manner? Using Robert Pickton as a case study, this paper will explore the phenomenon of serial murder and apply research literature to help explain his behaviour and examine issues such as psychopathy, mental disorder, and substance abuse relevant to the Pickton case. In addition, the paper will explore the sexually sadistic nature of Pickton’s murders. Finally, the paper will explore the reasoning behind Pickton’s selection of drug addicted prostitutes as victims that enabled him to conduct his murders in relative anonymity. ...
The detectives were able to track Richard. He refused to reason with them, but they found an opportunistic approach to search him. He was discovered with Dan Meredith’s wallet. They searched his apartment and found his apartment caked in blood. In 1979, they arrested him and tried him in court for six counts of murder. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in an attempt to avoid death sentence, but was overruled. He was sentenced
Erick Larson wrote in Devil in the White City, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing – I was born with the Evil One standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered in the world, and he has been with me since” (Troy, Taylor). This statement was a quoted confession from Dr. H. H. Holmes himself in 1896. Holmes was the first major serial killer in America, even though he came after many others in his time. Thomas Neil Cream, the Austin Axe Murderer, the Bloody Benders, and Jack the Ripper came before him. His name was originally Herman Webster Mudgett. He was born on May 16th, 1860 in Gilman, New Hampshire. He was raised by his mother and father, who was a wealthy and respected citizen for 25 years. As a boy, Mudgett was always in trouble and was well known in his community for his rather sociopathic behavior. He would show cruelty to both animals and other children. The only thing keeping hope to society was the fact that he was an excellent student. He later changed his last name to Holmes in order to pursue both his medical and criminal careers. He had many other aliases in which he would hide under and try to derail the cops from finding him (Juan, Blanco). Holmes was medically trained to be a doctor and received his degree from the University of Michigan. He was not just into insurance fraud scams. His evil doings included forgery, claiming to find the cure for alcoholism, real estate scams, and pretending to have a machine that turned natural gas into water. He was quite the ladies man, had many wives, whom often had become his victims. Many of his medical partners became subject to him, also. He once even had three wiv...
People move all the time. Whether the relocation is due to personal or professional reasons, most often is it to start a new, and better, life. The community doesn’t usually know that new members are present and they go about their daily lives. In April of 1987, Rochester, NY gained two new members of the community and they were none the wiser until women, mainly prostitutes, began to disappear and then would turn up murdered starting in early 1988. Arthur Shawcross, relocated to Rochester after being paroled and having his criminal record sealed, was given the ability to start a new life, but he returned to his old habits of mutilation and murder by killing 11 women over two years.
One well-known serial killer is Gary Ridgway. Ridgway was born in February of 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah. His early life can be viewed as an indicator to his la...
As if molded directly from the depths of nightmares, both fascinating and terrifying. Serial killers hide behind bland and normal existences. They are often able to escape being caught for years, decades and sometimes an eternity. These are America’s Serial Killers (America’s Serial Killers). “Even when some of them do get caught, we may not recognize what they are because they don’t [sic] match the distorted image we have of serial killers” (Brown). What is that distorted image? That killers live among everyday life, they are the ones who creep into someone’s life unknowingly to torture and kill them. The serial killers that are in the movies, Norman Bates, Michael Myers, and the evil master mind of SAW, these characters are just that characters. They have been made up as exaggerated fictional characters from the Hollywood imagination.
From 1987 to 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer reign terror over the gay community. He was a social incompetent, homosexual man. His spent his entire life feeling as an outcast in this giant world and struggled to find his voice and his sense of self. He resorted to dead rodents and mannequins to bring him entertainment and companionship. Eventually, Dahmer thirst for more and when his abuse of alcohol could no longer medicate him he allowed his gruesome fantasies and needs to take control.
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
Serial murder is defined by the National Institute of Justice as a "series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually but not always, by one offender acting alone. The crimes may occur over a period of time ranging from hours to years. Quite often the motive is psychological, and the offender's behavior and the physical evidence observed at the crime scenes will reflect sadistic, sexual overtones." This definition perfectly describes serial killer Albert Fish.
The Zodiac Killer is one of the most popular murders. The fact that made him so infamous was that The Zodiac Killer was never identified. The mysterious killer was never caught and jailed for his crimes. The FBI have looked for the killer for decades, but still, even to this day, could not find him. The whole mystery of the killer and the name of the killer has made him popular across the United States. The Zodiac Killer was a mysterious killer, and he had a very unique way of going about the murders.
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...