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Murder, Mystery & Makeup
He Was a Respected Doctor… Until They Found the Bodies - Harold Shipman
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Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder Mystery and Makeup Monday. Hi. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down, I talk about true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would say subscribe. Cause I'm here for you on Mondays. Or don't. That's okay. Do whatever you want, you know. But other than that, let me tell you about today's story because. Terrifying. Terrifying. I've had a lot of caffeine, so I've got the shakes too. So today we're going to talk about a case that is disturbing, it's dark and it's just honestly baffling. Okay? And fair warning, everyone dies. So sorry, just letting you know. Disclaimer. Everyone dies. Now, let me ask you this. Have you ever been to the doctor and thought, wow, this doctor, like really cares about me, you know, like the kind of doctor who knows your name and makes you feel important? They just remember you. Yeah, me neither. Because I've had Kaiser. Kaiser sucks ass. They're trying to fucking kill you. Right? I know, but it's a cute idea, right? The thought of like a doctor that knows everything about you, knows your name, grows up with you. I like the idea of that. But then today's story was like, never, nevermind, okay? Because what if like that cute doctor that knew your name and knew everything about you was actually just like murdering people? Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about today. I'm talking about Harold Shipman. Have you heard of him? Well, you guys have been recommending him since day one. He went by the name of Dr. Death and he's probably one of the most prolific serial killers ever. And you know what's wild? He was a doctor. Like a real doctor, went to school. Hi, I'm a doctor. Right. So trauma let's get into it. So Harold Shipman was born in Nottingham, England. Yes, Nottingham, home of Robin Hood. But this is not a story about like stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, unfortunately. Well, today I guess Nottingham's economy depends more on like big corporations. But something I found ironic is it's also the home of the National Justice Museum, which focuses on law, crime and punishment through the ages. And I was like, oh, that's funny. Cause it brings us back to our main character, Harold. Very fitting, but not really. Harold was born on January 14, 1946. He was a middle class child in a middle class family. There wasn't like much said about it other than that his dad was like a truck driver and his mom was a stay at home wife, a housewife. And it just seemed pretty normal. Normal, you know, except things got hard for the family when Harold was around like 17 years old. His mom, her name was Vera, she was diagnosed with like an incurable lung cancer. Not great, right? So some sources said that Harold was actually his mom's like primary caretaker. And then there were other sources that said like that he would just like watch helplessly as his mom lie in bed in agonizing pain and just like slowly dying from this cancer. And he was just like watching it. Right. Well, I guess Vera's doctor would do house calls, you know where they would come to the family home. They would get Vera morphine injections to relieve the pain and like make her just feel more comfortable. Many would say that this had a lasting impression on Harold. Like he would watch the doctor give his mom these morphine injections and he was just fascinated. I mean, maybe, I don't know, observation, maybe something darker like clicked in his brain because years later Harold would use that very same drug to kill hundreds. Harold's mom ends up passing away and you know, life goes on. Right. Well, Harold decides that he actually wants to go into the medical field. Right? So at the age of 19, he goes to Leeds University and decides he wants to become a doctor. So it was around the same time that he meets and starts dating a 17 year old department store employee that he met on the bus. Her name was Primrose. You don't hear that name often, huh? Primrose. Her last name was like Oxtobee. Primrose. Oxtoby. Do something with that name. That's like a fragrance name I'm wearing Primrose Oxtoby. Well, that was his girlfriend and they began dating. And you know, it wasn't even that long after they started dating that Primrose gets pregnant, Right? But that's okay. Harold was determined to finish school, so he was trying to finish school. He was trying to hustle and work so he could take care of the situation that he was in now, because this is the olden days, you had to get married if you got pregnant, you know? So they got married before the baby was born, and then their daughter, her name was, like, Sarah, arrived. And then shortly after, they had another kid named Christopher. Harold still, like, stayed on track, and he finished school. He ended up graduating in 1970. There's, like, family photos you can see, and he looks so happy. He's hanging out with his children. Just looks like this perfect happy little family with the kids, you know, and everything just looks normal. But here we are. So obviously it wasn't Bailey. After med school, Harold started working at Pontefract General Infirmary. And here's where things got a little suspicious. Like, people just, like, started dying. Which, sure, it's normal, because that happened here, but, like, all of a sudden, a lot of people started dying. Like, a lot. Now, the weirdest part was that these deaths always seemed to happen when Harold was on the night shift. People did notice this, but, like, there's no way, you know, no one wanted to put two and two together because, like, Harold was a big hit at Pontefract Infirmary. I mean, the nurses, they loved him because whenever they needed help, they would call Harold, and he was always there, willing to help. And, I mean, they always said that he was super nice, great to work with. They just really liked the guy. And then senior doctors, guys who were above him, were, like, really impressed with how enthusiastic and reliable Harold was. He was always around, always available, checking on patients. They would say that he would sit. Harold would sit, like, in the nursery. And when he was still studying for school, like, he would sit in the nursery study, watch over, like, the newborns, and everyone's like, oh, my God, Harold's amazing. You know? But of course, there were some people who, like, would give Harold the side eye. They were like, look, this Harold guy, he's only 24 at this time, fresh out of medical school, and he was coming across super cocky. A lot of people didn't like it. It was rubbing them the wrong way. Like, who are you? At times, like, he was coming across arrogant or dismissive, and people just. They knew something was up, but they didn't know what, you know? So, you know, that one task you've been putting off since forever. Well, for me, it's always looking into, you know, getting a New therapist or seeing a therapist, I tell myself like, oh, yeah, I'll get to that. Like, I'll do it next week, you know, I'll do it tomorrow, whatever. And then months go by and you're like, oh, whoops, my bad. Oopsie. And then it's 2am and I'm googling like, therapist near me, you know, oops. But listen. Thankfully, there is Grow Therapy. Growtherapy is an online therapy platform that connects you with thousands of licensed therapists across the US and helps you find the right one for you based on your schedule, your insurance, and your needs. You can search by specialty, identity, availability, and then boom, you can be matched and booked in as little as two days. And it's flexible too, with virtual and in person options. Plus they have like nights and weekend options available. That's hard to find. Oh, yes, there's no subscriptions, there's no long term commitments. Just therapy that fits your life and your schedule, you know. So if you've been avoiding therapy because the whole process felt too complicated, expensive, overwhelming, or maybe you just don't want to talk about it, well, listen, it's good for you. Avoid no more. Grow Therapy is a tool that can be helpful in so many ways. Because sometimes taking care of your mental health isn't just about, like, overhauling your life. It's just about having an honest, open and safe conversation and talking things out. That's all it is, you know? And grow makes that first step way easier. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Most visit growththerapy.com makeup today to get started. That's growththerapy.com makeup growtherapy.com makeup availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. So this is a side note, but after everything came to light in 1998, a judge had conducted an inquiry into what Dr. Shipman did and, like, how he got away with it for so long. A committee had spent over four years going through over 270,000 pages of evidence and like, gathering 3,000 statements from witnesses. And like much of today's story, is based on the details that I found in what became known as the Shipman Inquiry. That's how we know all this. Harold ended up extending his stay at Pontefract to earn diplomas in pediatrics, but also as an obgyn. Mm, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. I just feel like, isn't that a conflict of interest when a man is an obgyn. No. Okay. I just thought. But maybe it's not. I think that's sexist, Bailey. Sorry. So one thing Harold liked about this job was that an opiate called pethidine, also known as Demerol, was commonly used as like a painkiller during childbirth and during his time on the maternity ward. It's believed, even though he confessed, but it's believed that Harold started injecting himself. It's not funny, but he was injecting himself with Demerol and became addicted. I guess this drug Demerol would give him this beautiful euphoric high, like he's walking on sunshine. And it's also just highly addictive, so he could not stop. According to the inquiry, it's believed that this was more than like just getting high. Harold Shipman had or seemed to have a weird fascination with drugs and the power a doctor could wield with just a needle. It's believed that he liked to push the boundaries of like dangerous narcotics and he began experimenting on patients who, who were close to death anyway. So he was like, let me just try this little concoction, see what happens. Now, the judge was either convinced or like strongly suspected that Shipman Harold caused the deaths of two dozen patients during his three and a half years at Pontefract. It's hard to say and I will explain why. So once he was fully certified as a doctor, Harold left the hospital to become a junior partner at like a more busy practice. And this was in Todmorden. Todmorden. Did I get that right? Let me know. Because it's like a German name. But this was at the time a struggling blue collar town. So Harold moves there. And a little fun fact it's not, but it's kinda. Todmorden is in German, means death, murder. So really friendly, welcoming name. Love that. So this is where he moves. Great. So right away, I mean, Harold is just impressing his partners because he's willing to do all the stuff that nobody else at the practice wanted to do. So like he would clean out the cabinets where the doctors had stored the narcotics, which now he probably wasn't like really cleaning and organizing. He was probably stealing. But at the time they thought he was cleaning, you know, and he would be like, oh my God, yeah, I'll go through all of the drugs and dispose of any of the expired ones. No problem, I got you. And they loved him for that. To the rest of the staff, I mean, it only seemed natural for Harold to take on the responsibility of like now restocking the cabinets. Right. So around this time, it's like 1974. Most British doctors at this time, they actually started to phase out the tradition of house calls. This was like, no longer a thing. But Harold prided himself on being like the old fashioned doctor, you know, the one that, like, who was just deeply devoted to his patients. So he would spend mornings, like in the office, then afternoons seeing anyone who had requested a house call. People loved him because, like, when he would show up, he never rushed anyone. If you needed him in the middle of the night, he was there. He would even come by if you didn't need him. Yeah. Like, if he was driving around in your area, in your neighborhood, you know, he'd probably stop by and be like, hey, Martha, like, how are you today? How are, how are, how is that infection, you know? Now, a majority of his patients were actually elderly women and most of them lived alone. And these were sweet, you know, older women who adored Dr. Shipman. He would come over, he would joke around. They would crack little inside jokes to each other, laugh, giggle, you know, he would come over and like, compliment the ladies on their antiques. I love your Faberge eggs. Love that painting. And the ladies are just like, oh, my God, yes, thank you for noticing my antique. You know, this was my grandmother's. She actually made this in a cave. Yeah, A story for everything. But Dr. Shipman was there to listen, and the ladies loved it. They would chat over some tea. He was friendly. What I'm getting at is that Harold was just the friendly neighborhood doctor that everyone loved. And patients would even like, give little Christmas gifts to, you know, which side note, Christmas. Listen. Harold seemed to develop, like his own little Christmas tradition. If you look at his entire victim list, like chronologically, there's definitely a pattern of cluster murders around Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, it's always around Christmas. The sky just wanted to ruin Christmas for everyone, for Christ's sakes. So Harold had been in Todmorden for like about a year when authorities were actually kind of flagged that Harold was in getting large quantities of Demerol from local pharmacies. When police went to the pharmacist and like, asked them, the pharmacist told police, like, there was nothing to worry about. Dr. Shipman, he was a top doctor in town, highly regarded by patients and members of the medical community, you know, and it was like, bro, how dare you even ask that question? He would never do that. So police actually concluded that it was unlikely Harold was abusing drugs. So they made a note in their notes that they would do a follow up, but they never did. So people were catching on, or at least paying attention. I mean, something was off with Harold and they didn't know what, but something was up. I love shopping for makeup. I love makeup. 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And then get this, they do it all for free. Oh yeah, they shop, you save. Easy peasy. I mean, I never thought I'd be like sitting here excited to talk about life insurance, but you know, after diving into all these crazy like true crime cases and stuff, I've learned, you know, you've got to protect yourself and the people you love. And with select quote, I know I've got a plan that actually covers me. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com makeup. Save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com makeup today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com makeup. In September of 1975, the drug charade finally ended. Harold's partners figured out that the amount of Demerol coming out into their offices and the amount that was going out did not match their records. So they actually confront Harold about the drugs. Okay. And they're like, look, this is what's going on. Here's the data. Tell us what's going on. And Harold actually admitted to them that he was the one taking them and that he felt like he had a problem. He was addicted. Sorry, that foundation was way too dark. Let me try again. Okay. Harold actually confessed. Like, I Said he said, yeah, I was taking the drugs. And they ended up turning him into police. They had to, legally. He gets arrested, and he tells investigators that he had actually been addicted to demerol for about 18 months, and he was taking up to 700 milligrams of a day, which is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. He was fucked up. Some people say, like, he actually wasn't that great of a doctor. Like, the doctor side of things. He wasn't that great, but people just liked him. So I would imagine, like, he probably wasn't a good doctor if he's this fucked up, right? Well, obviously, he wasn't a good doctor, Bailey. He's killing people. So, you know, okay, he confesses, whatever. So, you know, like, when you get in trouble with drugs, a lot of the times, your lawyer or whatever will recommend that you go to a rehab before the court hearing, because then it will prove to the court that you acknowledge you have a problem and you're trying to get help. So that's what Harold did. He admitted he had a problem, and then he went right to a rehab. And this rehab was called Retreat. So he's there for, I want to say it was 90 days. The police would come and, like, pay him a visit, all that stuff, question him, check up on him, whatever. So Harold goes to the rehab. When he's done, he gets, like, officially arrested. And now he has to, like, go through with the court trial and all that stuff. So he gives, like, an official written statement. Harold does. And he writes out, like, everything that he done except for the murders up to this point. Harold stated that he had no intention of going back to work as a general practitioner or of, like, taking a job anywhere that would give him access to Demerol. As part of the agreement, he was advised to remain under psychiatric supervision for several years. And, yeah, I don't think he actually was, but that's what was advised. Harold gets charged for this whole situation with the Demerol. He pleaded guilty to eight drug charges and one count of forging a prescription. So he was given a fine, and the fine was, like, around $5,000 in today's money. And then it was up to the General Medical Council to decide whether or not they would revoke his or, like, lose his license. Right. And naturally to you and I were like, yes, he's going to lose his license. But the council reached a decision without even, like, calling the narcotics detective. Looking into his background. They didn't, like, do anything. I don't understand why this happened. But they essentially Let him keep practicing medicine with zero restrictions. So I don't know. I don't know whose dick he was sucking, but he got away with it. Okay? I don't know. I don't know. Did he pay someone? He didn't have money. I don't know. Maybe he had dirt on someone. I don't know. So got off scot free. Fast forward to the 1970s. Harold. Now he moves, right? You have to. He moves to a town called Hyde and joined the Donnybrook Medical Group and once again was working as a general practitioner. So once he started working here, this is when things just really, like, went off the rails. Harold would visit his patients again, mostly elderly women, and he would visit them at home, same thing as he did before. I think he just really needed friends, really. But, like, he would sit with them, he would chat, have a cup of tea, and then he'd kill them. Yeah. And like, here's the thing. He was really good at covering his tracks. He was a doctor. He would falsify the death certificates and make it look like that these people were dying of natural causes. And if a doctor says that they died of natural causes, that means that there's no autopsy. And no autopsies meant that no one knew that he was injecting morphine into the deceased. Mm. He also. It wasn't just morphine. There was also diamorphine, which is like, essentially heroin, but, you know, he was killing people with it. So in August alone, Harold had killed morph four patients. And no one thought anything because they were older. It was like, okay, I guess. Poor grandma, you know, Once he gave the news to the family, like, oh, your mother has passed on or whatever, he would convince them to cremate the bodies. So on top of that, no bodies, no evidence. Like, he was. Even though he was on a bunch of drugs, he was still kind of thinking. Harold had ended up spending about 314 years at Donybrook. Donnybrook. But while he was there, he had committed a total of 71 murders that we know of. The inquiry that I mentioned earlier found another 30 deaths that they believe he was connected to. But there's no evidence, you know, so they don't know for sure. But it's like, you know, this guy is a fucking lunatic. You know what's more annoying? That I wanted to know, like, what was up with his wife? What was she doing? Did she know? Did she think he was weird? Did he say anything? Did they have sex? He doesn't seem very sexual. Does he have a small wiener? Could Say a lot. I bet you he didn't. Was he close with his kids? Like, these are things I wanted to know. I couldn't find it. Did he beat that pussy up? Was he dicking her down? Was he buying her nice things? Or she at. So here's how Harold would essentially do it. I'll break it down for you. First, he would over prescribe pain medications to his, like, cancer patients. Then he would skim a supply of that morphine for his own personal stash. He also took any unused pain medications in the house after, like, he pronounced someone dead. So he would go through, like, their. Their cabinets and stuff. It's like, I don't know. This guy's a lunatic. You think he would steal jewelry and whatnot? But he did. He was just stealing drugs. What about the Fabrice eggs that everyone had in the house? The antiques? What about the antiques? So he would take the medications from the house, right? And he made it look like he was doing the, like, the family a favor. Like, don't worry, I'll dispose of these properly for you. You know, all that. I don't know, whatever. Harold would then use the drugs that he, like, took, right? To kill patients who were either, like, in good health or terminally ill, but technically nowhere near death. He often targeted, like, again, elderly women living alone. But none of the murders had, like, sexual overtones. He never messed with the bodies. As a matter of fact, families of his victims told investigators that Dr. Shipman seemed to avoid touching or like, even going near the deceased after they were pronounced dead. He, like, didn't even wanna look at him. Kind of weird, huh? What a weird guy. So Harold would usually visit a victim at home twice on the days that he murdered them. So he'd show up, like, the first time, and he would give them some kind of deadly injection. Then he would come back minutes or sometimes even hours later, and he would pretend that he discovered them dead. Oh. Oh, no. You know, he's like, oh, I just got here. This is crazy. She. I just showed up, died. She died. I was, you know. So let's say, like, if a family member happened to discover the body, then Harold would be notified because he was the family doctor. So he would rush over because he wanted to take charge of the paperwork. He didn't want anyone else doing that shit. Because the most important part to Harold was making sure that there were no autopsies ever, period. Again, we don't want autopsies because if they did an autopsy, they'd find drugs in the system. So he would make sure to be on top of that. Kind of fake the death certificate. Bada bing, bada boom, baby. Done, right? It turns out that Harold had elderly patients dying left and right of heart attacks, even when they had, like, no history of heart disease. So, like, there was this elderly man who actually requested Harold to come to his house because he had a cold. And, you know, he was complaining of his cold, right? And then there was, like, a woman who was complaining of a post nasal drip. Both of them gone without warning. Like simple little things. And then Harold would put heart attack as cause of death or natural causes or. You know, same for the lady who had, like, a simple upset stomach before Dr. Shipman dropped by. Kablam. Dead. She's like, my tummy hurts. And then she calls Dr. Shipman dead. Could you imagine? No. Cause you're dead. Yeah, I know. It's just bizarre to me that, like, no one really caught on. Eventually someone does, but, like, this went on for a little too long. Listen, listen. For the longest time, bras. Ugh. Arch nemesis. Honestly, bras. Who loves a bra? No one. Exactly. Right? It's so hard finding, like, the perfect bra bra that actually fits, right? And you have to do all these, like, different measurements and stuff. So you're just always, like, wasting money trying all these different bras. And then you get to them and they're, like, digging into your sides. You're getting spillage. There's. They're flimsy, your nipples are still popping through, and you're like, what's the freaking point? And then don't get. Don't even get Mr. On underwear. It's always doing its own thing, huh? But thankfully, I found skim. So skims is not just another basics brand. 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I bet you he worked at Kaiser and no one caught on for decades. You know, I was like, why? How? When? Why, why? I mean, first of all, it's gotta be hard to question a doctor, right? It's like, who the frick are you? If you're like, but my mom had a stomach ache and now she's dead. But a doctor's telling you, like, oh, no, no, no. Like, she, like, she died of old age. I would believe him because, like, I'm not a doctor. Oh, okay, right. I don't know. Again, I mean, the only answer I could find as to like, why nobody, like, suspected Harold was because he was charming, meticulous, and, well, again, a doctor. And people just trusted him. Of course, like I mentioned, some people did kind of have some questions. There was a local funeral director again, paying attention a little bit, and they noticed that Harold, you know, his patients were dying at a very unusually high rate. And he kind of raised a flag to some, some guy, like, isn't it kind of weird, right? You know, isn't that kind of weird to see if they agree with you? But he was kind of like on his own with that feeling. People just didn't want to believe that the good old, like, Dr. Shipman could be a cold blooded killer. There was a doctor who was working in a nearby practice. She was getting a weird feeling about Harold. So Harold used to have her countersign cremation forms. It's like a boring, like, notary kind of thing, but they kind of like need a witness to these forms or whatever. So she was there and she was concerned by just, again, the sheer number of cremations that Harold was doing and how many. How many of these cremations were elderly women. And she was like, this is kind of weird. So she flags it to authorities. And then at the same time, there was a local funeral parlor. So one of the funeral directors, he had flagged Harold's patient death rate as nearly 10 times higher than what seemed to be like, the norm for the area. Now with these two concerns, the authorities thought, okay, like, this is enough. This is enough information for us to do like an investigation, right? Okay, so police, they do some investigating, they do some questioning. And I was like, okay, great, this is it. They're gonna find everything they need to know. But police, they spent barely like a month on the case before closing it because they had lack of evidence. They didn't check his criminal records or, like, contact the General Medical Council. So they knew nothing of Harold's previous record, which is unfortunate because they probably could have found out a lot, huh? It wasn't until 1998 that Harold's reign of terror finally would come to an end. Thank God. I was like, does this story ever end? Because it was going on forever and ever and ever when I was researching it. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, he killed so many people. He's up there with what's his name? Goofball. What was his name? Jonestown Jim. He's giving Jim Jones. Jim Jones obviously killed a lot more people. He killed like 900 and something. I did an episode on it, remember? I know you saw it anyway, so. But he's up there with that. Like, he killed a lot of people. I couldn't get over it. How did he sleep at night? Like, I had so many questions. Anyhow, so 1998, 81 year old Kathleen Grundy was actually once the mayor of Hyde. She was in such good health that her daughter, Kathleen's daughter, said that she would walk five miles, like almost every day. She would come inside, ask like, okay, what kind of like, housework needs to be done, ironing, whatever. Like, she was a healthy, busy woman. Kathleen had a busy social life. And, yeah, so Dr. Shipman actually, like, approached her, went up to her home when she was alone, you know, and asked her to participate in a research study. And this study was focusing on aging and how do you age, like, gracefully and healthy and all that stuff. Kathleen, I guess she was like, sure, I would love to be a part of this. So she agrees. So Harold even had Kathleen sign a permission form with two patients that he called in from his waiting room to, like, counter sign as witnesses. So Harold made an appointment to stop by Kathleen's house on June 24, 1998, to take a blood sample for this quote, unquote study. Friends later that day found her dead on the sofa. So Harold returned to her house, you know, to sign her death certificate, and he put down that her cause of death was old age. He made no mention to anyone about his visit earlier that day. Her family, you know, super sad, obviously, but they held a funeral, and they ended up burying her. They did not have her cremated like Harold suggested. So afterwards, that's when Kathleen's daughter Angela, saw that just two weeks before her mother's death, her will was changed. Ooh, guess what. You'll never guess. I was like, this bitch. Turns out that permission for form, that was for study on aging, you know, that Harold put together, it was actually a will. Yeah. And he put together this will. He told her it was a permission slip, and in the will, it would make him, Harold, the sole beneficiary for her estate, which was worth around, like, I think, over a million dollars. So Kathleen, she signed it thinking, like she's a part of some health study. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. When Kathleen's daughter Angela saw this, she was like, oh, hell no. Cause Harold's name, like, what? What? She went to police, and they actually ended up exhuming Kathleen's body. So they exhume her body, you know, and sure enough, guess what? Hi. They find a lethal dose of morphine in her system. Uh oh. Uh. Oh. It's over. Harold. He's a very, very bad boy. So once investigators started digging, you know, it just all unraveled. They raided Harold's office, and they found medical records that he tampered with a stockpile of morphine. And, like, plenty of other red flags, I guess. He had stolen enough morphine off of patients both dead and alive to build a stockpile of authorities say was large enough to kill 360 people. He had plans. It seems Harold was arrested and being charged for 15 murders. Now you can actually watch videos of Harold being questioned by Police on YouTube. Hi. And some people are like, oh, it's fascinating. And I was like, it's kind of frustrating to watch. He denies everything, of course. He's very calm. And honestly, he seemed very, like. He seemed quite bothered by the major inconvenience that this arrest had had on his day. He was, like, just annoyed. They pull out, like, a picture. They're like, did you kill this woman? Did you kill her? And he literally would just, like, yawn. He just yawned. He said nothing. He was. He said nothing the entire time. It was like, give us something. Something, nothing. Oh, it drove me nuts. The whole reason I get into, like, why I started doing murder mystery makeup is the why of it all. Why, dude, why? And he gave us nothing. During his trial, Harold, so boring. Gave us nothing again. He sat there scribbling pages of notes, like, nothing. He's just doodling. And he never lost his composure, Denied everything. And you know who showed up for him? His wife, Primrose. And all four of their children sat in the front row of the courtroom, you know, to support him. I was like, I'm not sure if now's the time to bring the children, but. Okay. Ma', am, do you think he was abusive, controlling? Just want to know. Harold was found guilty on all counts and was sentenced to life in prison on January 31, 2000. In the year 2000. When did he start? In the 70s. He did a lot of damage. Sentenced, whatever. He gets arrested. Right. He showed no remorse. He didn't give a shit. But he didn't stick around long after that. In 2004, he hanged himself from the bars of his prison cell window. This was strategic. Okay? He ended his life a day before his 58th birthday. Birthday. And he timed it to make sure his wife, Primrose, would get his maximum pension benefits. Strategy until the end. Damn it, I'm changing my lip. Hold on. Yeah, so he killed himself and whatever. Lame, you know? Well, the inquiry answered just about every question about, like, Dr. Death's reign of terror. Really? Except for one that we all have. Why? Why? You know, many have wondered, like, if Harold Shipman, maybe he was just, like, plain addicted to killing, right? I don't know. Maybe it was just that. But I got to thinking. Remember in the very beginning when, like, his mom died? Now, idea. I don't know. Maybe. What if his mom was his first victim? Hmm? Hmm. I mean, there were references of him being her caregiver and the fact that he was fascinated by this drug called morphine at the same time. Maybe he saw, like, the relief it gave them and kind of got off on that, and then one day he pushed it too far and, like, killed his mom. Just something I thought about. There's no facts to. Like, there's nothing out there that suggests that other than me right now. Well, other people have thought so, too, but, like, you know, we'll never know, but maybe that's where it started. And if he didn't kill her, maybe he saw something, learned something, did something at that time, you know? Cause it always starts when they're younger, like. And he even said that had a very lasting impression on his life. But we'll never really know. Just a thought. The Shipman inquiry was led by Dame Janet Smith. They identified a total of 2218 confirmed victims. But again, they believe the number might be as high as 250 to 300. They don't know. Most of his victims were elderly women. And he killed them by administering lethal doses of drugs like morphine. And he killed a lot of people. Okay. I couldn't find anything about, like, where's Primrose now? You know, like, I wanted to know about. I couldn't find anything about the family. Not that it's our. I just want to know, though, you know, this Harold guy, he didn't talk. He was a big mystery, and he killed a lot of people. I wanted to know if maybe. Did he think he was doing good in a way? Do you think maybe he convinced himself that, like, he was putting them out of pain and misery? No, because he was killing healthy people, Bailey. I don't know. I think he just liked to watch people die. There must have been something there. Well, thanks for hanging out with me today. You know, it was kind of funny. It's not funny, but, like, when all the news came to light and, like, the media was, like, interviewing people in town. Are you familiar with Dr. Shipman? Whatever. And people in town said that Dr. Shipman actually had a nickname in town. His nickname was Dr. Death because everyone that saw him ended up dying. But it was like a joke between the community, like, oh, good luck with Dr. Death. But then when everything came out, it was like, oh, that was actually kind of spot on. You guys kind of nailed it. Kind of nailed it. Yeah. How many other doctors are there out there like this? I don't know. They're probably. I don't know. Anywho. Healthcare, huh? Great. I hope you have a good rest of your day. You be safe out there. I wish I could give you some life advice on what to look out for from bad doctors, but it's. Have a good day. Make your choices and I'll be seeing you guys later. Love you. Bye.
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