Harold Shipman
English doctor and serial killer (1947-2004)
Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English doctor in general practice and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 250 victims over roughly 30 years. On 31 January 2000, Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients under his care. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. On 13 January 2004, one day before his 58th birthday, Shipman committed suicide by hanging in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The Shipman Inquiry, a two-year-long investigation of all deaths certified by Shipman, chaired by Dame Janet Smith, examined Shipman's crimes. It revealed Shipman targeted vulnerable elderly people who trusted him as their doctor, killing them either with a fatal dose of drugs or by prescribing an abnormal amount.
As of 2026, Shipman, who has been nicknamed "Dr. Death" and the "Angel of Death", is the only British doctor to have been convicted of murdering patients, although other doctors have been acquitted of similar crimes or convicted of lesser charges. Shipman's case has often been compared to that of doctor John Bodkin Adams.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q310260. VIAF identifies the subject as 70887358. The Library of Congress control number is nb99080599. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2004, 2000 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harold Shipman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.