Deep Dive
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did and how. Episode 199.
In tonight's episode, we continue to witness Shipman's continuing murderous career. But we take a closer look at the man, Shipman. Media tend to portray Shipman as this enigma, a popular GP who outwardly never did anything wrong, and who was liked by all.
as we'll witness to-night the image of the clean-cut medical professional was cracking quite early on in shipman's career and he came close to losing everything he had worked for
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And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month, that's only $7.50 per episode, you are more than welcome to join the ranks of the TSK Producers Club too. So don't miss out and join now. It did not take long for Shipman to get involved in killing after becoming a GP. In August 1974, one day old Christian Orlinsky died.
The death was directly a result of Shipman's utter incompetence when it came to delivering babies and caring for women during and after childbirth. Shipman had, either out of recklessness or his depraved fascination with painkillers, given the baby boy's mother a dangerously high injection of the painkiller pethidine while she was in labor at her home.
The drug, which is the standard painkiller used in childbirth, crossed the placenta and went into the bloodstream of the unborn baby. Christian was born with breathing difficulties, and within 24 hours of his birth, the doctor was called back because the tiny baby was struggling to survive.
He had turned blue, and his devastated parents expected the GP to have him admitted to hospital immediately, as an emergency. But Shipman, and again, no one truly knows why, delayed sending the infant to emergency care, and the baby boy died. As a father of a young boy myself, this story hit hard.
I can only imagine the extreme grief and horror such a death would cause the boy's parents. Susan and Mark Orlinsky, whose first baby it was, were devastated. A post-mortem was held into Christian's death, but there was no inquest. The cause of death was recorded as sudden infant death syndrome, and Shipman appeared to be devastated by the death as well. But if this was...
A mask he conveniently donned for the occasion, or if he actually felt bad for having caused such a young life to end, is unknown. Shortly after the death of baby Christian, Dr. Shipman became involved in a bizarre attempt to drug a patient, but he probably did not intend to kill her. In fact, he went to great lengths to revive and resuscitate her.
nor was she one of his typical victims, being a pretty young married woman. Elaine Oswald was in August 1974 a twenty-five-year-old clerk working in the local social service department in Todmorden. She sought out the Abraham Ormerod Medical Center because she had a slight nagging pain in her side and was worried it might be appendicitis.
"'She was seen by Shipman, whom she had never met before, "'and was told that she was much more ill than she thought. "'He said she might have a kidney stone, "'and should be prepared to be off work for a few days. "'He gave her a prescription for Diconol, a mild opiate, "'told her to take two tablets when she had cashed the prescription, "'and go home to bed.'
He said she should leave the door open so that when he came to visit her later that morning, he would be able to get in. He said he needed to see her to take a blood sample. The correct procedure to investigate kidney stones would have been a urine test, and there was no explanation for why he needed to see her at home to take blood.
There was also no explanation why he needed to take the blood test at her home when he could have done it more easily at the surgery. In fact, because she was not feeling unwell, Mrs. Oswald did not go straight home to bed. She did some shopping, called at the library, and when she got home decided to tidy up the dishes from the kitchen and changed her bed linen. She wanted her house to appear neat and nice for when the doctor came to visit.
Only after she had done her chores did she take the tablets and go to bed with a book. Within half an hour Shippen was there. Mrs. Oswald was drowsy, but had the impression that he took blood from one arm and then moved round to the other, possibly to inject her. He chatted to her in a soothing voice, telling her that his wife and young son were outside in the car.
After Shipman's second injection, the one where he injected her with powerful opioids she had not consented to or was aware of, Mrs. Oswald quickly lost consciousness. Here is where the case gets really odd. Mrs. Oswald, a while later, came round to find herself on the floor with Shipman and an ambulance crew trying to revive her.
and primrose shipman and three-year-old christopher in the bedroom as well looking down at her with concern dr shipman went with her in the ambulance slapping her face constantly to try to keep her awake at the hospital mrs oswald got the distinct impression that the medical staff thought she was not telling the truth when she said she had only taken two diaconal tablets
They appeared to suspect she had either taken an overdose or had taken some other drugs with the diaconal, possibly illegal ones. Her chest was badly bruised from the resuscitation procedure and her mouth was cut and bruised. She spent four days in hospital and another four weeks at home recovering.
shipmen visited her and said she had reacted badly to the diaconal and should in future never take opiate drugs as she was allergic to them the week after her terrible ordeal the shipmen invited mrs oswald and her husband peter to their home for a meal
this was in all likelihood not because shipman felt bad for the woman but because the doctor was trying to establish how much she knew about what actually had happened to her as it turned out mrs oswald suspected nothing and it was a pleasant dinner with primrose saying little but being a perfect hostess
The case of Mrs. Oswald is possibly the only instance of Shipman trying to commit sexual assault against one of his victims. She was a very attractive young woman, and Shipman probably felt tempted to exert his power over her in any way he felt like. His plan was likely to drug her enough so that she would be unconscious for a while, rape the woman orally and virginally—not anally, as that would leave scars—
Then resuscitate her and pretend to be her savior. As she had bruising and wounds in her mouth after being brought back to life, it is highly possible Shipman got as far as raping her orally. But he did not want to kill her. Her death would cause far too much suspicion, and the risk of him being arrested was too high.
What happened was thus that as he was in the process of raping her, her skin started turning blue, a clear sign of impending death. Shipman was a competent enough medical doctor to know how to save her life, and the rest of his original plan of pretending to be her saviour worked like a charm.
Needless to say, Mrs. Oswald was in no way actually allergic to opioids, but she believed so for many, many years and suffered painful medical procedures as a result of this belief. Nine of Shipman's patients died in 1974. Evidence from so long ago is very hard to find, and many of the witnesses are themselves dead.
the shipman inquiry looked into all nine deaths and concluded that eight were from natural causes there was some doubt over two of them due to lack of evidence the ninth was classified as and here i quote insufficient evidence to make a decision
soon after the new year in nineteen seventy five ship began to develop what would become his established modus operandi for killing as a g p and he started with a spree of killings three people dying in one day on the twenty first of january
Although in all three cases there is not enough hard evidence to conclude he murdered them, the inquiry found there was clear suspicion of unlawful killing in all of them.
This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid.
So, first, call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee with your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 in order, additional terms apply. Hey, it's Sharon, and here's where it gets interesting. Raise your hand if you want salon-perfect nails for just $2 a manicure.
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as a family man with three kids i know first-hand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care but it's good to have some things that are non negotiable for some that could be a night out with the boys chugging beers and having a laugh for others it might be an eating night
For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. The first to die was 84-year-old Elizabeth Peirce, a widow who was living with her daughter.
She was frail and short of breath, sleeping downstairs. It is likely that Shippen was in the house at the time of her death. The next victim was Bob Lingard, a 63-year-old shuttle-maker who was well-known and a local character, smoking and drinking heavily.
He had acute problems with his breathing, and his family had been warned by one of the other doctors, Dr. Grieve, that he had not long to live. Again, Shipman was in the house when he died, staying with Bob's widow until her daughter-in-law, Margaret, arrived.
the third death that day was lily crossley a widow and retired school caretaker who lived with her brother douglas his wife and another sister she had terminal cancer but on the day of her death she was well enough to have come downstairs twice to tell the others off for having the central heating on too high
"'Shipman called at 7.30 in the evening, "'only minutes after the death of Bob Lingard, "'and administered an injection. "'She died an hour later. "'There was another suspicious death in February, "'and then in March came the death of the woman "'who has the sad claim to be officially "'Shipman's first murder victim "'since leaving Pontefract General Infirmary. "'Her name was Mrs. Eva Lyons.'
It was, arguably, a mercy killing, as Mrs. Lyons had terminal cancer of the esophagus and was in terrible pain. But she had recently finished a course of radiotherapy and was eating well for the first time in months. Mrs. Lyons had never smoked nor drank, so the cause of her cancer may have been the airborne spores she inhaled during her lifetime's work in a cotton mill.
Shipman was very attentive to her during her final weeks, calling every two or three days at the modern bungalow where sixty-nine-year-old Mrs. Lyons lived with her husband Dick, who was also a retired mill worker and a stalwart of the town's brass band. On the eve of her seventieth birthday, the doctor arrived at eleven p.m.
Mrs. Lyons had an intravenous stunt in her hand so that painkilling injections could be administered more easily. Despite her pain, she was sitting up in bed wearing a new NHS wig, having lost her hair, but not her pride in her appearance. Shippen put a syringe full of an opiate into her intravenous line, chatted casually to Dick Lyons for five minutes, then, turning back to his patient,
announced in a very flat tone, and here I quote, she's dead, end quote. The death of Mrs. Lyons echoes in many ways the death of Shipman's mother, Vera, twelve years earlier, a death he re-enacted many times over the ensuing years. He now had the blueprint for successful undetected murder, and he would follow it closely for the next twenty-three years.
Although far from the majority of his future murders would be clear cases of euthanasia, nobody knows whether Shipman was using his eventual drug of choice for murder, diamorphine, or whether he was, at this stage, using the supplies of pethidine he was illegally obtaining to support his own habit.
the shipman inquiry conclusion is that he was probably using morphine or diamorphine even at this early stage in his career as a murderer he was certainly obtaining large amounts of pathidine and was injecting a great deal of it into his own veins
The first sign that something was wrong came in February 1975, almost exactly a year after Shipman arrived in Tordmorden. The Home Office Drugs Inspectorate and West Yorkshire Police Drug Squad realized that Shipman was obtaining large quantities of pethidine from local pharmacies.
They talked to the pharmacists and were reassured. Shipman was held in high esteem, and the police report concluded with the words, and here I quote, It would seem from the inquiries made into this matter that there is no drug abuse by Dr. Shipman. A watch will be maintained, and should anything further come to light, then a further report will be submitted. End quote.
True to their word, the Home Office Drugs Inspectorate and the police continued to monitor the situation, and in June, a month after Shipman had started to experience blackouts as a result of his drug habit, started, they discovered that a local pharmaceutical company was supplying large amounts of injectable pethidine to Boots, the chemist in Todmorden.
the pharmacy accounted for this by showing the police the amounts they were dispensing to shipman on behalf of the abraham ormerod medical center and by prescriptions issued by him for patients shipman was this time interviewed by two home office inspectors and a detective the doctor had ready explanations for why he needed such large supplies for his patients
He denied he was abusing the drug. Shipman's rampant ordering of massive amounts of the opioid pethidine was eventually discovered. His partners at the Abraham Ormerod Medical Center confronted him, and this resulted in Shipman bursting into a fit of rage and refusing to quit.
this forced his partners to fire shipman outright they suggested shipman get himself to a hospital for treatment which he surprisingly agreed to after a short stay in halifax royal infirmary he was put under the care of consultant psychiatrist dr hugo
who arranged for his voluntary admission to the world-famous psychiatric center in York called The Retreat. Although privately run, The Retreat had a philanthropic approach to members of the medical profession, and Dr. Shipman may have been treated there free or for very reduced fees.
In 1975, when Shipman went there, there were 320 new admissions, among them 103 suffering from various kinds of depression, 58 from alcoholism, and just four from drug addiction. Recreational drug use was nowhere near as widespread in the 1970s as it is today.
The Retreat offered comfortable accommodation. In fact, in 1975, The Retreat was one of only three medical institutions across the UK to win a five-star award in a Sunday Times survey of hospital food. When Shipman arrived, he would follow the same procedure as all new patients.
He was not the only doctor, nor the last, to go to the retreat for treatment for alcohol or drug abuse.
He was accorded no special privileges. He was put under the care of Dr. R. W. Bryson, a consultant psychiatrist. Dr. Michael Bear Park, a consultant psychiatrist at the hospital from 1961 to 1984, describes the routine for new admissions as follows, and here I quote,
relatives would take them into the dormitory where they would undress put on pyjamas and go to bed after a physical examination they would be prescribed medication for the night usually a sedative and a careful watch would be kept on them for twenty-four to forty-eight hours
A new admission was called a parchment, because the parchment, or file, with all the patient's details, would be handed over from one nurse to another when they went off shift. For the first few days, everything would be taken very gently. The new patient would be prescribed Librium or Phenobarbital, if there was thought to be any chance of convulsions.
they would more or less go straight into detox. Withdrawal from drugs is rarely as bad as people think. End quote. Depending on the level of addiction, coming off pethidine would be similar to having a bout of flu. Headaches, runny nose and eyes, and generally feeling under the weather, but lasting no longer than a week or two.
After withdrawing successfully, Shipman was diagnosed as suffering from moderately severe depression, but responded well to antidepressant medication. He wrote at this time to one of the doctors he knew from Pontefract General Infirmary, Dr. Diane Gordon, who was a surgical house officer at the same time he was.
He told her about his drug addiction and his treatment and expressed a very positive outlook for his future. After his arrest, his whole future, and that of his wife and two children, was in jeopardy.
It took his partners in Todmorden months to sort out the formalities. They had to buy him out of his share in the practice, and of course it was a time of great upheaval for the family, because he was unable to work. They could not keep the house in Todmorden, and Primrose, with six-year-old Sarah and three-year-old Christopher, was forced to move back home to live with her parents in Wetherby.
The buyers of the house were horrified by the state it was in. It was neglected and dirty, and a new owner rallied friends to help her clean it before moving in. It's difficult to know why Primrose's previously conscientious housekeeping had lapsed. Perhaps the strain of having to combine looking after two small children, as well as driving her husband around to all his home visits, was telling on her.
Whatever the reason, it was a complete change for Primrose. She had been brought up in the stern, ox-to-be household to believe that cleanliness was next to godliness. She had been taught to cook, clean, and be proud of her environment. In the honeymoon years of their marriage, when they played house in their tiny flats in Leeds, both she and Fred had embraced cosy domesticity. In the early days in Todmorden, they were warm and hospitable hosts.
All that, however, had changed. The Shipman family vanished instantly and completely from Todmorden. Eric Crossley, their neighbor, only realized they had gone when he saw the house empty.
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And with that, we come to the end of part five in this sojourn into the life and crimes of Harold Shipman. I hope you enjoyed listening to me telling it to you. Next episode will continue his saga. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. What follows is a message to my dear Norwegian listeners in Norwegian.
I remind you that my Norwegian-language podcast, Seriemorderpodden, is available to listen to both on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all other places you listen to podcasts. As they say in Radio Land, follow along.