UK's 'Dr.Death' found hanged in prison

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 14, 2004

UK's 'Dr.Death' found hanged in prison

Family doctor Harold Shipman, dubbed "Dr Death" for being the biggest serial killer in Britain, was found hanging dead in his cell on Tuesday, prison officials said.

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Family doctor Harold Shipman, dubbed "Dr Death" for being the biggest serial killer in Britain, was found hanging dead in his cell on Tuesday, prison officials said.

Shipman was found hanging in his cell at Wakefield Prison in northern England at 6:20 a.m. (1420 GMT) and staff tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead at 8:10 a.m.(1620 GMT),the officials said.

Shipman, 57, worked in the Manchester suburb of Hyde. He preyed largely on elderly woman, killing them with lethal injections.

In January 2000, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 15 of his female patients between 1975 and 1998.

High Court Judge Janet Smith, who investigated Shipman's activities after he was jailed, concluded in 2002 that he killed 215 of his patients, including 171 women and 44 men.

"Doctors are respected, rightly so, and Shipman in particular was highly respected in Hyde," Smith had said. "He betrayed their trust in a way and to an extent that I believe is unparalleled in history."

Shipman's activities did not arouse suspicion until March 1998,when another doctor, whom he had asked to co-sign some cremation certificates, expressed concern at the number of deaths.

Police concluded there wasn't enough evidence to pursue charges.The investigation was resumed months later after a woman discovered that her 81-year-old mother apparently had changed her will before she died to leave everything to Shipman. That led to exhumations and eventually to Shipman's trial and conviction.

Shipman's motives remained a mystery as he had always denied his crime.

In only one case there was evidence that he killed for money, and there was "no suggestion of any form of sexual depravity," Smith said.

However, his crimes horrified the nation and raised questions about how he was able to evade detection for so many years.

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