Shipman trial: the victims | Special reports
| Marie West, 81 On March 6 1995, Harold Shipman injected Mrs West, his first victim, with a fatal dose of diamorphine (the medical term for heroine), unaware that her friend was in the next room. Shipman first told Mrs West's son that she had died of a massive stroke, then said it was a heart attack. Mrs West ran a clothes shop in Hyde, a suburb of Manchester, where all the victims came from. | ||
| Kathleen Grundy, 81 A former mayoress of Hyde and the last victim, Mrs Grundy died on June 24 1998. She was found fully clothed on a settee at home. Mr Shipman killed her with a heroin overdose on a visit to take a blood sample. He has also been found guilty of forging her will and two letters to secure her £386,000 estate, as well as altering his medical records to suggest that the widow was addicted to morphine. | ||
| Irene Turner, 67 Mrs Turner was found dead fully clothed on her bed by her neighbour, after Mr Shipman had called at Mrs Turner's house on July 11 1996. Earlier, he had asked the neighbour if she could help pack Mrs Turner's belongings for hospital, but told her to wait for a few minutes before going over. Morphine was later found in Mrs Turner's body. | ||
| Lizzie Adams, 77 Mrs Adams, a retired sewing machinist, died at home on February 28 1997. Dr Shipman stated that she had died of pneumonia and pretended to call for an ambulance, although no such call was made. | ||
| Jean Lilley, 58 Mrs Lilley was visited by Dr Shipman on the morning of her death on April 25 1997. A neighbour became increasingly concerned about the length of time that the GP had been with Mrs Lilley, who was suffering from a cold. She found her friend's body within moments of the doctor leaving her home. An ambulance crew later said Mrs Lilley had been dead for some time, killed by a lethal dose of morphine. She was the only one of the 15 victims to have been married at the time of her death; Shipman contacted her husband by mobile phone to tell him his wife had died. | ||
| Kathleen Wagstaff, 81 Shipman confused Mrs Wagstaff with another patient, Anne Royal, whose daughter was married to Kathleen's son Peter, and called on the wrong person on December 9 1997 to announce she had died. Harold Shipman visited Angela Wagstaff at her workplace to tell her her mother had died, but the dead woman was in fact her mother-in-law Kathleen. After injecting Mrs Wagstaff with morphine, Shipman put her death down to heart disease. | ||
| Bianka Pomfret, 49 Mrs Pomfret, a German divorcee, was found dead at her home by her son William on the same day she had been visited by Shipman, on December 10 1997. Excessive morphine levels were found in her body, but the GP claimed Mrs Pomfret had complained to him of chest pains on the day of her death. He fabricated a false medical history to cover his tracks after killing her. | ||
| Norah Nuttall, 65 Mrs Nuttall, a widow, died on January 26 1998 after visiting Shipman's surgery for cough medicine. The GP later visited Mrs Nuttall at her home, where her son Anthony found his mother slumped in a chair. | ||
| Maureen Ward, 57 Mrs Ward, a former college lecturer, died on February 18 1998. Although she had been suffering from cancer, she was not ill at the time of her death. Dr Shipman claimed she died of a brain tumour. | ||
| Winifred Mellor, 73 Mrs Mellor, a widow who had been Dr Shipman's patient for 18 years, was found dead on May 11 1998 in a chair at home with her left sleeve rolled up to suggest a heroin habit, following an earlier visit by Dr Shipman. He killed her with a fatal injection of morphine, and then returned to his surgery to create a false medical history to support a cause of death from coronary thrombosis. | ||
| Joan Melia, 73 Shipman murdered the divorcee on a visit to her home in Hyde on June 12 1998. She was found dead by a neighbour in her living room, having earlier visited Dr Shipman at his surgery about a chest infection. Shipman issued a death certificate stating she had died from pneumonia and emphysema. Her body, later exhumed, was found to contain morphine. The GP also claimed to have phoned for an ambulance, but didn't. | ||
| The other victims | ||
| Ivy Lomas, 63 Dr Shipman killed Mrs Lomas at his surgery on May 29 1997 in Market Street, Hyde. He then saw three more patients before telling his receptionist that he had failed to resuscitate her. Morphine was later found in her body. She was such a regular there that Shipman told a police sergeant who was called after her death he thought her a nuisance. He joked that part of the seating area should be reserved for her and a plaque put up. | ||
| Muriel Grimshaw, 76 Mrs Grimshaw was found dead at her home on July 14 1997. Shipman, who was called to examine her, said there was no need for a postmortem. Morphine was later found in her body. | ||
| Marie Quinn, 67 Dr Shipman injected Mrs Quinn with morphine at her home on November 24 1997. Shipman claimed she had contacted him complaining of feeling unwell before her death. But her telephone bills showed no such call was made. | ||
| Pamela Hillier, 68 Shipman gave Mrs Hillier's family a confusing account of how she had died, on Feb 9 1998, saying she had high blood pressure, but that it wasn't high enough to give him major concern, although she had died from high blood pressure. He had in fact given her a lethal dose of morphine. | ||
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Christie Applegate
Update: 2024-06-01