Read Next
Discover
Harold Shipman
British physician and serial killer
Also known as: Dr. Death, Harold Frederick Shipman
Harold Shipman (born January 14, 1946, Nottingham, England—died January 13, 2004, Wakefield) was a British doctor and serial killer who murdered about 250 of his patients, according to an official inquiry into his crimes. Shipman’s murders raised troubling questions about the powers and responsibilities of the medical community in Britain and about the adequacy of procedures for certifying sudden death. Shipman was born into a working-class family in Manchester. A bright child, he became interested in medicine as he watched his mother receive morphine injections to ease the pain she suffered while dying of lung cancer. In 1970 he received ...(100 of 504 words)