Harold
Shipman is one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history having
killed about 250 people (mostly women.) Four years after being sentenced to
life imprisonment he hanged himself in his prison cell aged 57. He lay in a mortuary
for over a year before being cremated. Here I am at the crematorium where it
happened.
Shipman was jailed for life in 2000 for the murder of 15 people but
it's thought he murdered between 200 and 300 people between 1971 and 1998. He
subjected them to a diamorphine overdose and hoped
their proximity to death meant the murder would be overlooked. Most victims
were cremated so the true number who were murdered remains unknown. Shipman
spend less than four years in prison. He hanged himself in his cell at Wakefield
Prison in January 2004 the day before his 58th birthday. When found he had
already died.
Perhaps he would have murdered more of his patients had it not been
for Dr Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde (near Shipman’s surgery.)
She countersigned cremation forms and was worried enough about the high death
rate among Shipman’s patients to inform the coroner. Shipman was known to be an
effective doctor with an understand bedside manner (his IQ was 140, most
doctors are 120.) Nobody knows why he did it. Perhaps the reason was rooted in
his childhood. He was particularly close to his mum who died of lung cancer
when he was aged seventeen. As the cancer took over doctors administered
morphine and he witnessed how instantly the pain subsided giving blessed
relief.
Shipman's widow, Primrose, has always refused to talk about his death.
She was advised by police against burying her husband in case the grave was
attacked.
Here
I am at the crematorium which is about a mile south from Sheffield city. It's a
rather bland building. There wasn't a single person there except a security
guard who suddenly appeared. He began walking toward me though I didn't see him
at first. I was too busy pointing and saluting for the camera. I said I wasn't
a burglar and "take a photo of me if you want to" but he didn't and
seemed more interested in a stream of text messages that beeped into his phone.
Up
behind the building lies a sprawling Garden Of Remembrance. I had a stroll
around it but down Shipman's "cremains" are
there (cremains from CREmation
reMAINS.) They probably went to his wife and four
children. I wonder how many people he murdered - he killed seven people in
February 1998 alone. He isn't on official lists of serial killers as the number
of victims can't be verified. Columbian Luis Garavito
is the world's most prolific serial killer with 193 proven murders.
I
doubt I'll visit this crematorium again. I sat in the car and looked at the
chimney through which particles of Shipman were ejected. Is there an afterlife
where deeds go rewarded or punished? If death is like a television being turned
off then he got away with it.