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Case Study of Serial Killer Harold Shipman

   

Added on  2020-04-13

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SERIAL KILLER2Introduction Serial killer is a term which refers to such individual who murders three or a higher number ofpeople and this could be due to a number of reasons including abnormal psychologicalgratification, and in which the murders take place over a period of months, where a cooling offperiod in terms of a major break is included between the murders. There are different criteriawhich are applied by the authorities when it comes to designating of the serial killers; though, themajor set the limit of three murders, some lessen it to two and some extend it to four (Waller,2011). In terms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, i.e., FBI, serial killing is a series of two ora higher number of murders which are undertaken as different events, which usually isundertaken by an offender who acts alone, but the same is not necessary each time. As per FBI,the motives of serial killers vary from anger, financial gain, attention seeking, and thrill seekingto psychological gratification (Newton, 2008). Harold Shipman is one of such serial killers whowas a doctor turned serial killer and who used the characteristic of manipulator to murder. Thefollowing parts cover a case study of Harold Shipman and would attempt to explain the mannerin which his characteristic of manipulation played a role in the murders. Case StudyHarold Frederick Shipman was a British general practitioner, who lived from January 14th, 1946to 13th January 2004 and is considered as amongst the most prolific serial kills in the recordedhistory. In the backdrop of mayhem created by Shipman, the legal structure of the nation relatingto the health care and medicines was reviewed and was altered. He continues to be the onlyBritish physicians who have been found guilty of murdering their patients even when a numberof doctors have been acquitted for crimes of similar nature, or convicted with lesser charges.Shipman died on his own hands by hanging himself one day before his 58th birthday, at his prisoncell in Wakefield Prison (Whittle and Ritchie, 2009).On January 31st, 2000, he was found guilty of fifteen murders by the jury, for killing the patientsthat were in his care. As a result of this, he was given a life term imprisonment, where arecommendation was given along with this that he should never be released (Marshall, 2016).

SERIAL KILLER3The Shipman Inquiry was carried on for a period of two years, into the deaths which werecertified by Shipman and this was chaired by Dame Janet Smith who investigated into the crimescommitted by Shipman. 218 victims were identified in the inquiry but the estimated number ofhis victims was over 250, where 80% were elderly women. A 41 year old male was his youngestconfirmed victim even when the suspicion was that he had killed patients as young as the age offour (Plehov, 2014). Crimes The crimes of Shipman came to light when a local undertaker noticed that the patients ofShipman seemed to be dying at a rate which was unusually high and also showed similar posesin death where the body was always fully clothed and they were usually reclining or sitting up ona settee. He started becoming suspicious and approached Shipman regarding this issue in a directmanner (Green, 2015). However, he was reassured by Shipman that the local undertaker hadnothing to worry. Dr. Susan Booth, another medical colleague, after some time also found thesimilarity as a disturbing thing and this led to the local coroner’s office being alerted about thisand he raised the alarm bells with the police. Initially a covert investigation was undertaken inwhich Shipman was not found guilty and his records appeared to be in proper order. However,this inquiry never included checking the criminal records or a contact with the General MedicalCouncil, which would have been proof enough of the earlier record of Shipman. After a morethorough investigation was undertaken, it was revealed that the medical records of the patientshad been changed by Shipman in order to substantiate their causes of death (Biography, 2017). Shipman gained the advantage of his status and hid behind the shield of being a caring familydoctor, which made it nearly impossible to ascertain when exactly he had started killing hispatients or that how many individuals had died at his hands. The authorities further faceddifficulty as he denied all the charges. The determination of the daughter of one of his victims,i.e., of Angela Woodruff, led to his killing spree being brought to an end, as she rejected theexplanations given regarding the cause of death of her mother. Angela’s mother was KathleenGrundy who was a wealthy widow of 81 years age and he was found dead on June 24th, 1998, ather home, after Shipman had visited her. Angela was given the advice that there was no need ofan autopsy and so Kathleen was buried as per the wishes of her daughter (Batty, 2005).

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