Harold Shipman

[Homicidalheathen]

It is unclear when Shipman started killing people, or even how many he killed. A report into Shipman's activities submitted in July 2002 concluded that he had killed at least 215 of his patients between 1975 and 1998, during which time he practiced in Todmorden, West Yorkshire (1974 – 1975) and Hyde, Greater Manchester (1977 – 1998). Dame Janet Smith, the judge who submitted the report, admitted that many more suspicious deaths could not be definitively ascribed to him. Most of his victims were elderly women in good health.

In her sixth and final report, issued on 24 January 2005, Smith reported that she believed that Shipman had killed three patients, and she had serious suspicions about four further deaths, including that of a four-year-old girl, during the early stage of his medical career at Pontefract General Hospital, West Riding, Yorkshire. Smith concluded the probable number of Shipman's victims between 1971 and 1998 was 250. In total, 459 people died while under his care. It is uncertain how many of these were Shipman's victims, as Shipman was often the only person to certify a death.[24]

The Shipman Inquiry also recommended changes to the structure of the General Medical Council.[25]

The General Medical Council charged six doctors who signed cremation forms for Shipman's victims with misconduct, claiming they should have noticed the pattern between Shipman's home visits and his patients' deaths. All these doctors were found not guilty. Shipman's widow, Primrose Shipman, was called to give evidence about two of the deaths during the inquiry. She maintained her husband's innocence both before and after the prosecution.

In October 2005, a similar hearing was held against two doctors who worked at Tameside General Hospital in 1994, who failed to detect that Shipman deliberately administered a "grossly excessive" dose of morphine.[26][27]

A 2005 inquiry into Shipman's suicide found that it "could not have been predicted or prevented," but that procedures should nonetheless be re-examined.[21]

In 2005, it came to light that Shipman might have stolen jewellery from his victims. Over £10,000 worth of jewellery had been found in his garage in 1998, and in March 2005, with Primrose Shipman pressing for it to be returned to her, police wrote to the families of Shipman's victims asking them to identify the jewellery.[28][29]

Unidentified items were handed to the Assets Recovery Agency in May.[30] In August the investigation ended: 66 pieces were returned to Primrose Shipman and 33 pieces, which she confirmed were not hers, were auctioned. The proceeds of the auction went to Tameside Victim Support.[31][32] The only piece actually returned to a murdered patient's family was a platinum-diamond ring, for which the family were able to provide a photograph as proof of ownership.

A memorial garden to Shipman's victims, called the Garden of Tranquillity, opened in Hyde Park (Hyde) on 30 July 2005.[33]

[edit] Cultural Impact

Harold and Fred (They Make Ladies Dead) was a 2001 strip cartoon in Viz, also featuring serial killer Fred West. Extracts from the strip were subsequently merchandised as a coffee mug.

Shipman, a television dramatisation of the case, was made in 2002 and starred James Bolam in the title role.[34] The case was also referenced in an episode of the television series Diagnosis: Unknown called "Deadly Medicine" (Season 2, Episode 17, 2003).[35] Shipman's activities also inspired D.A.W., an episode of the American TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In it, the police investigate a physician who they discover has killed 200 of his patients.[36]

Both The Fall and Jonathan King have released songs about Shipman. The Fall's song is titled "What about Us?" King's song became controversial when, six months after its release, it was reported to be in Shipman's defence, urging listeners not to "fall for a media demon".[37]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman

[Simon Bar Sinister]

It's important to have a goal in life.

[Homicidalheathen]

Pedro López (serial killer)

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Pedro López

Born October 8, 1948 (1948-10-08) (age 60)

Santa Isabel, Colombia

Charge(s) Rape/Murder

Penalty Life imprisonment

Status Living

Pedro Alonso López (born 8 October 1948 in Santa Isabel, Colombia) is a confessed serial killer from South America, accused of killing more than 300 girls. Aside from un-cited local accounts of the crimes, Lopez’s crimes first received international attention from an interview conducted by Ron Laytner, a long time freelance photojournalist who first met Lopez in his Ambato Prison cell in 1980.

Laytner’s interviews were widely published, first in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, July 13, 1980. Then they appeared in the Toronto Sun and the Sacramento Bee on July 21, 1980, along with many other North American papers and foreign publications over the years. Apart from Laytner’s account and two brief Associated Press wire reports[1] the story was published in The World's Most Infamous Murders by Boar and Blundell.[2]

According to Laytner’s story, [3] Lopez became known as the 'Monster of the Andes' in 1980 when he led police to the graves of 53 of his victims in Ecuador, all girls between nine and twelve years old. Then in 1983 he was found guilty of murdering 110 young girls in Ecuador alone and confessed to a further 240 murders of missing girls in neighboring Peru and Colombia.

Contents [hide]

1 The López story

2 AP wire reports

3 See also

4 References

5 Additional material

[edit] The López story

A basic version of the story is as follows:

López became notorious as the Monster of the Andes. According to López, his mother, a prostitute with 13 children, caught him fondling his younger sister in 1957, when he was eight years old, and evicted him from the family home. He was then picked up by a pedophile, taken to a deserted house and repeatedly sodomized. He was later taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. He allegedly ran away, either with a teacher from his school, or because he was molested by a teacher. At 18, he was gang-raped in prison and, he claimed, killed three of the rapists while still incarcerated. After his jail term he started preying on young girls in Peru. He later claimed that, by 1978, he had killed over 100 of them. He had been caught by a native tribe, who were preparing to execute him, when an American missionary intervened and persuaded them to hand him over to the state police. The police soon released him. He relocated to Colombia and later Ecuador, killing about three girls a week. López later said "I like the girls in Ecuador, they are more gentle and trusting, more innocent." The authorities had previously believed the disappearance of so many girls was due to white slavery or prostitution. Lopez became one of the most prolific serial killers in Ecuador and in the world. He is in prison in Ecuador today, prisoner for life. He became notorious internationally as a serial killer. López was arrested when an attempted abduction went wrong and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders. The police only believed him when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave of many of his victims.

Typical online sources are those such as Court TV's Crime Library.[4]

According to the BBC:[5] "He was arrested in 1980 but was freed by the government in Ecuador at the end of last year [1998] and deported to Colombia. In an interview from his prison cell, Lopez described himself as "the man of the century" and said he was being released for "good behaviour".

A documentary[citation needed] reports that he was released by Ecuadorian prison on 31 August 1994, and re-arrested an hour later as an illegal immigrant, and handed over to Colombian authorities who charged him with a twenty year old murder. He was found to be insane and held in a psychiatric wing of a Bogotá hospital. In 1998 he was declared sane, and released on $50 bail. The same documentary says that Interpol released an advisory for his re-arrest by Colombian authorities over a fresh murder in 2002.

[edit] AP wire reports

Two AP wire reports from July 1980 and January 1981 are extant.[1] The first is a late report of López' arrest in March, and his confession to killing 103 girls, including 53 whose bodies had been found. The second reports that he was convicted of three murders, and had confessed to 300 sexual assaults and stranglings. He is believed to have been murdered by contract killers on behalf of victims families.

[Saint Germain]

Todmorden, West Yorkshire

nice name for a town, the literal german translation is Death-Killing .