Britain's 'Doctor Death'

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By Newsweek Editors

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Harold Shipman, a bespectacled small-town doctor with a charming bedside manner, made at least two mistakes when he committed his last murder. First, he tried to steal Kathleen Grundy's fortune by typing his own crude version of her will. The forgery left Grundy's entire $600,000 estate to the trusted family doctor, and nothing to her relatives. Second, he killed his 81-year-old patient with a lethal dose of diamorphine, the medical term for heroin, traces of which were found in Grundy's exhumed body. "My mother thought he was wonderful," says Grundy's daughter, Angela Woodruff. Many others made the same fatal misjudgment in the English town of Hyde. At the end of a 59-day trial last week, Shipman emerged as one of Britain's most prolific killers. The charge sheet listed 15 middle-aged or elderly victims. But police have opened investigations of more than 120 other deaths.

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