Dr. Harold Fredrick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004) was a convicted English serial killer. A doctor by profession, he is among the most prolific serial killers in recorded history with 218 murders being positively ascribed to him, although the actual number is likely much higher.
After his trial, the Shipman Inquiry, chaired by Dame Janet Smith, investigated all deaths certified by Shipman. About 80% of his victims were women.
In 1983, he was interviewed on the Granada television documentary World in Action on how the mentally ill should be treated in the community.
H. G. Kinnell, writing in the British Medical Journal, also speculates that Dr. John Bodkin Adams “possibly provided the role model for Shipman”.
Dr. John Bodkin Adams (21 January 1899 – 4 July 1983) was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraud and suspected, but acquitted, serial killer. Between the years 1946-1956, more than 160 of his patients died under suspicious circumstances.
Dr. Jacob “Jack” Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) killed an admitted 130 people, but was only convicted of one homicide. Kevorkian served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder.
Importantly, perhaps the only reason that Adams, and later Shipman were caught, was because they attempted to fraudulently steal from their victims. Had they been more discreet in doing so, or murdered solely for the joy of murdering, they would likely have never even been suspected of homicide.
Which raises the question of how many other physicians, and other medical caregivers are out there, who have committed, and continue to commit murder, with little or no chance of being caught?
And would they stop killing if what they did was effectively legalized?
>>> Which raises the question of how many other physicians, and other medical caregivers are out there, who have committed, and continue to commit murder, with little or no chance of being caught?
Bing Crosby’s final screen role spoke to this question.
“One of the amazing films of the ABC Tuesday Night at the Movies, Bing Crosby starts out as a Kervorkian style doctor but crosses the line as he begins to make judgments on who in his small town must live or die based on their conduct. Chilling and foretelling.”
Dr. Cook’s Garden (1971)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065657/combined