Dr. Harold Shipman Circumstantial Evidence

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald was a U.S. Army officer and a medical doctor who was convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970. The reason why I chose this case is because this murder case is said to be one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries and the main topic of a best-selling book. Not only this, but I also chose this case because it took about 9 years for Macdonald to be finally convicted and the U.S army got involved and made their own investigation because they didn’t believe his story. This meant that this case had many twists and turns, making it a mysterious case that’s very intriguing and wanting to know more about.

2. Case Facts: On October 13, 1979, George Schnopps fatally shot his wife of 14 years. The victim and schnopps began having marital problems six months prior, when schnopps became suspicious that his wife was seeing another man. A few days prior to the incident, Schnopps threatened to make his wife suffer. On October 12, 1979 while at work asked a coworker to buy him a gun, telling the worker that he had been receiving threatening phone calls. Schnopps paid his coworker for the gun and ammunition. On the day of the incident, Schnopps told a neighbor he was going to call his wife and have her come pick up some things, and asked if them to keep the youngest child with her so he could talk to with his wife. When the wife went over Schnopps tried to convince his wife to stay with him, in response the wife made some vulgar comments which triggered Schnopps. He then shot her and then shot himself. Shortly after he called the neighbor and told her what had happened and she called the police. The defense offered evidence from friends and coworkers who noticed difference in Schnopps physical and emotional health after the victim had left him. The Commonwealth’s expert

This is an attempt to unravel the tangle by an objective and empirical examination of information from crime scene and post mortem examination of the victims. Pre-digested information such as speculative newspaper reports, and statements from witnesses other than those called in a professional capacity have been avoided since theirs is largely subjective testimony that confounds more than it informs.

Harold Shipman, during his adolescent years, is also interested in pursuing medicine as a career. Shipman’s high intelligence earns him a scholarship to Leeds School of Medicine. As with Holmes, everything is not exactly normal with Shipman during this time. After graduating from university, Shipman finds a job as a general practitioner and soon after finds himself addicted to drugs. This difficult time for Shipman is described in more detail as, “Shipman was convicted of making out drug prescriptions to himself and given a heavy fine. He was also fired from his job at the Todmorden practice” (Profile). This drug addiction is very possible it could stem from the childhood event of his mothers death and the up close exposure to morphine that his mother used. This is very similar to Holmes case, as Holmes disfiguring of corpses most likely stemmed from his exposure of a skeleton as a child. Another interesting detail about this event of his drug addiction is that the drug he abused was a morphine-like drug, which is important to know since his mother used morphine. It is evident he had a fascination with morphine considering it is also what he used to kill his victims, for example, “the jury found Shipman guilty of killing 15 patients by lethal injections of diamorphine” (Dr. Harold). This obsession with morphine can all stem back to his childhood exposure to the drug when he was first fascinated to the power of it able to bring his mom out of pain. After going through

In my opinion, Dr. Shipman motive for his murders was to be in control of people's lives, especially the elderly. He gave his patient a sense of friendship(The Irish Time, 2017). According to the Biography of Harold Shipman, it states "he was fascinated by the positive effects of administration of morphine had on his mother during her suffering. In doing such, I believe in his thinking, he was helping his patients by relieving them of their pain. Dr. Shipman, also realize that his patients trust him and there was a close friendship outside of his doctor hour. For instance, Kathleen Grundy a wealthy 81-year-old widow, who Dr. Shipman made after hour doctor visit. was taken for grant. In his effort, he took her for grant and forge her name to

Harold Shipman a medical practitioner unlawfully killed 215 patients and in about 45 cases the true cause of the death has not been determined. He was regarded as a caring and dependable doctor who treated the elderly . The first definite killing was in March 1975 and the last one was in June 1998. On average, he killed about 10 people a year but there were some years he killed only about 3.

There were no animals, drugs/drug paraphernalia, money/valuables, signs of forced entry found on the scene. A preliminary external examination of the body was performed (See Body Inspection). No other external sign of injury was observed. The body was subsequently placed into a brand new white body pouch and sealed close with a plastic evidence seal number xxxxxxx at 20:37 by the livery service (TLC), who were informed at 19:11. We departed the scene at 20:45 (same date) and left the scene in the custody of the

American colonists brought the coroner system from England intact. . Thus, the coroner’s office developed as a broad spectrum investigative agency concerned with a large proportion of all deaths. The United States ultimately adopted an act similar to the English law. It is reflected in current statutes that empower the medical examiner’s office and lay the jurisdictional foundation for the performance of medical

B’s tolerance to opiates not considered, Mr. B.’s clinical situation not considered (i.e., Mr. B’s age and renal function), and knowledge deficit of opiates. Drilling down the data to identify the root cause of Mr. B’s death is the fifth step in conducting a RCA on Mr. B’s sentinel event. Upon analyzing the data, causative factors, and events leading to Mr. B’s sentinel event, the RCA team determined that the root cause of Mr. B’s death is a medication error. Mr. B was given an overdose of hydromorphone. The final step in a root cause analysis is to implement changes that will mitigate the root cause. Changes include educating the nursing staff about hydromorphone, such as side effects and adverse reactions,

As the lead prosecutor in Dr. Shipman’s murder trial some things should’ve taken place sooner but didn’t. One leading factor of evidence was that all of the victims died in the afternoon and they all were injected with morphine. So there was a link in the timing and having the same doctor and the same drugs in their system at the time of death. If the authorities would have taken a look at some of the prescriptions that he wrote to detect if there was any similarities with each victim could’ve potentially been contributing factors linking Dr. Shipman to their deaths.

As the lead investigator, the biggest part of this case was when the Undertaker began to get concerned when he noticed that Dr. Shipman’s patients were dying at an unusually high rate and arriving with the same poses. The Undertaker first decided to confront Dr. Shipman about the concerns that he had with the high-rate of deaths coming in the morgue. Dr. Shipman informed the undertaker that there was nothing to be concerned about because he would not do anything wrong. As the investigator, I would have looked at Dr. Shipman history and questioned why he was in drug rehabilitation. As the lead law enforcement investigator, in this case, there was other evidence that was overlooked such as excessive amounts of morphine missing from the medical

At the time it was very uncommon that the murder of a prostitute be reported, but these murders were different. “They [The killings] were marked by sadistic butchery, suggesting a mind more sociopathic and hateful than most citizens could comprehend.” (Editors). It was believed that the killer was either a doctor or a butcher due to the precision that was used in the cuts. However, one of the coroners, Thomas Bond, stated “In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge.

Dr. Harold Shipman's weapon of choice would be a lethal amount of Heroine. (Gunn, 2010). At first, I was confused as to whether the syringe was the murder weapon of choice but the syringe is not what killed the victims, it was the drug in the syringe. What allowed him to go so long without being detected is a mixture of several different factors. Because so many people in the community respected him as a doctor they didn't question his methods when he told them that they needed an injection. He was very popular with patients and would attend to a patient's needs immediately. He also visited the patients at their residence. This ensured him the privacy that he needed to do whatever he felt necessary with them. Another reason is that because

He started killing his patients in 1975 by overdosing them with morphine injections. People soon started to notice that Dr. Shipman’s patients started to die at a high rate. A colleague started to notice that his patients that died all demonstrated similar poses at death. Most of them were fully clothed, sitting up or reclining in a chair. A member of the staff of the practice that he worked at approached shipman about his concern with all of the patients that were dying. Shipman was quick to reassure him that there was nothing to be worried about. Later, the local corner’s office was contacted and then, the police officers were contacted.

An article posted in CNN talked about a German nurse, Niels Hoegel, was arrested in 2015 after being convicted of killing six people (Schmidt & Shubert, 2017). He attempted to kill his patients by lethal injection. Police suspected Hoegel had killed over thirty-six patients in Oldenburg, Germany between 1999 and 2001. They also suspect him of committing the same crime in a different hospital in Delmenhorst; here he is assumed for murdering forty-eight patients. The authorities say that the number of patients killed may be higher, but the total number cannot be determined due to some possible victims being cremated. In hearing in the past, Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that causes them to have heart failure so he can try and revive them. He claims that it was euphoric when he could revive them, but devastated when he could not. Police say that this is one of the country’s worst cases of serial killing ever.