The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (83 page)

rape (victimizing a spouse, relative, or household mem-See also
HOMOSEXUALITY; MOTIVES; PARAPHILIA ber),
entitlement
rape (with victims including acquaintances, employees or subordinates, medical patients, etc.),
anger
rape (a sexual expression of rage targeting
SHANKARIYA, Kampatimar

victims by age, gender, race, or some other specific crite-A naive of Jaipur, India, a 27-year-old Kampatimar ria),
sadistic
rape (specifically intended to cause pain Shankariya was convicted in early 1979 of using a ham-and fear),
abduction
rape (any case where the victim is mer to kill at least 70 persons during the previous two transported to another crime scene), plus various types years. In his detailed confession, Shankariya told police of sexual crimes against children.

that he had killed his victims for the pleasure it pro-Despite the numerous kinds of rape identified by vided. Hanged at Jaipur on May 16, 1979, the killer’s Bureau analysts, the FBI contends that there are only last words were a gallows lament. “I have murdered in four basic types of rapist. (In this context, “rape”

vain,” he declared. “Nobody should become like me.”

includes any form of aggressive sexual assault without
See also
RAGHAV, RAMAN

the limitations of restrictive legalese.) They include the
power-reassurance rapist,
whose crimes are “primarily an expression of his rape fantasies,” commonly includ-SHIPMAN, Harold Frederick

ing the delusion that his victims enjoy the experience The most prolific practitioner of MEDICAL MURDER

and will fall in love with their attacker; the exploitative since World War II was British physician Harold Ship-rapist,
with whom “sexual behavior is expressed as an man, who also holds the 20th-century record for serial impulsive predatory act,” typically devoid of any intri-murder in Europe. Official records show that 500

cate, long-running fantasy; the
anger rapist,
for whom patients died in Shipman’s care between 1977 and

“sexuality is in the service of a primary aggressive aim,”

1998, with at least 215 of those deaths now presumed frequently including misplaced notions of revenge to be homicides. Investigators admit that the full tally against a hated class of persons (women, a particular of Shipman’s victims may never be known.

race, some authority figure); and the
sadistic rapist,
Harold Shipman—more commonly known as

whose crimes are once again the expression of fantasy,

“Fred”—was the middle child of a working-class fam-this time fueled by the victim’s suffering rather than ily, born on June 14, 1946. Classmates recall him as an delusions of romance.

academic plodder and accomplished athlete whose We often hear it said that “rape is not a sex crime; superior attitude kept him from forging close friend-it’s a crime of violence,” a slogan initially adopted by ships. Shipman failed his first entry exam at Leeds Uni-feminists, perhaps in a laudable attempt to relieve rape versity, but succeeded on his second try and maintained victims of misplaced guilt or embarrassment. And, adequate grades to earn a medical degree. Contempo-while the statement is true
to a point,
its very abso-raries at Leeds remember Shipman as “pretentious” and lutism insures that it will often be wrong. There is, in

“a bit strange,” a loner who brought his sister to school fact, no division between “sex crimes” and “violent dances in place of a date. At age 19, he surprised crimes”; indeed, a sexual assault is violent by defini-acquaintances by embarking on a romance with Prim-tion—hence the term
assault.
Through the centuries, rose Oxtoby, three years his junior. She was barely 17, rape has been employed for many different purposes, and five months pregnant, when they wed in 1966.

including use as a weapon of genocide (in “ethnic Shipman’s daughter was born in March 1967, followed cleansing” campaigns), as a form of punishment by by a son in 1971.

gangs or individuals, even as a tool of police interroga-In March 1974, Shipman joined a medical practice in tion. (In one Latin American country, through the mid-Todmorden, Yorkshire. While polite and cheerful with 1970s, police dogs were specially trained to rape female his colleagues and patients, Shipman was frequently prisoners; the ancient Romans taught a wide variety of rude to subordinates on staff, whom he belittled and creatures, ranging from goats to giraffes, to perform dismissed as “stupid.” In summer 1975, Shipman suf-similar acts in the Colosseum.)

fered a series of blackouts, medically inexplicable until
239

SHIPMAN, Harold Frederick

1992, Shipman surprised his Donneybrook colleagues by quitting the practice to set up shop alone, abscond-ing with 3,000 patients in the process. The betrayal proved doubly galling when Shipman opened his new office within yards of the Donneybrook center.

Many patients who followed Shipman to his new

address were older women, who admired Shipman for his dedication, long hours, frequent house calls—and his generosity with drug prescriptions. Over time, Shipman ranked among the Tameside district’s top five doctors (out of 104 in practice) with respect to numbers of prescriptions issued. During his last six years in practice, patients cheerfully donated £19,200 to purchase new equipment for his office, confident that Shipman would employ the tools in their best interest. Naturally, some of his patients died from time to time. Who could expect a man of medicine to save them all?

One such patient was Kathleen Grundy, who died under Shipman’s care on June 24, 1998, eight days short of her 82nd birthday. Her death was not entirely unexpected, at that age, but her will took Grundy’s children by surprise. Crudely typed on cheap paper, it read:
All my estate, money and house to my doctor. My family are not in need and I want to reward him for all the
care he has given me and the people of Hyde. He is sensible enough to handle any problems this may give him.

My doctor is H. F. Shipman.

Dr. Harold Shipman (AP Photo/Manchester Police) While Grundy’s affluent family truly did not need the

£386,402 inheritance, they were suspicious of the will and her scrawled signature. Police shared those suspi-a partner in the practice discovered that Shipman had cions, heightened when a note arrived at her attorney’s consumed huge doses of pethidine—“thousands and office, typed with the same machine on identical paper.

thousands of ampoules”—which he charged to the It read: “I understand she lodged a will with you as I as practice. His subterfuge was uncovered on September a friend typed it out for her.” The note bore no return 25, 1975, and his partners fired Shipman on the spot, address, and it was signed “S. Smith,” a name unknown provoking a furious outburst. Shipman entered a drug to Grundy’s family and friends.

rehab center, emerging in early 1976 to plead guilty on The witnesses to Mrs. Grundy’s will were soon iden-eight charges of forging prescriptions. The court dis-tified as two of Dr. Shipman’s patients. Both had signed missed 67 identical counts and fined him £600. In retro-the document—folded to hide its text—while waiting in spect, authorities would question whether Shipman his office for appointments, on June 9, 1998. Further really used the vast amount of pethidine, a powerful investigation led to Shipman’s arrest on suspicion of narcotic, himself, or whether some was used to murder murder, on September 7, 1998. Over the next three patients in his care. The question is still unresolved.

months, 17 of Shipman’s former patients were exhumed Despite his recent scandal, Dr. Shipman found work for autopsy. All were women between the ages of 49

as a children’s physician for the South West Durham and 82 who had died in Shipman’s care between April Health Authority on September 12, 1977. Eighteen 1993 and June 1998. Post mortem examination

days later, he left that post to join a new medical prac-revealed that 15 of the 18 suspected victims had died tice, Donneybrook House, in Hyde. He bought a mod-from overdoses of morphine. Shipman’s trial on those est home in Mottram and sired two more sons, born in charges convened at Preston, in northwestern England, March 1979 and April 1982. Once again, partners and on October 6, 1999. On January 31, 2000, he was con-patients found Shipman cheerful enough, while staff victed and sentenced to life imprisonment for the mur-members complained of his rudeness and sarcasm. In ders of Sarah Ashworth (April 17, 1993), Marie West
240

SITHOLE, Moses

(March 6, 1995), Lizzie Adams (February 28, 1997), January 13, 2004, jailers found Shipman hanged in his Jean Lilley (April 25, 1997), Ivy Lomas (May 29, cell at Wakefield Prison. Death was formally pro-1997), Muriel Grimshaw (July 14, 1997), Marie Quinn nounced at 8:10 A.M., and the incident was recorded as (November 24, 1997), Kathleen Wagstaff (December 9, a suicide. Kathleen Wood, daughter of 83-year-old vic-1997), Bianka Pomfret (December 10, 1997), Norah tim Bessie Baddeley, spoke for most Shipman survivors Nuttall (January 26, 1998), Pamela Hillier (February 9, when she told reporters, “I am not sorry he has gone, 1998), Maureen Ward (February 18, 1998), Winifred but it brings it all back and it stirs it all up for us Mellor (May 11, 1998), Joan Melia (June 12, 1998), again.” Three months later, on April 12, Judge Smith and Kathleen Grundy.

announced that her inquiry would resume in order to That grim tally was only the tip of the iceberg, how-decide if Shipman had murdered any victims between ever. By the time he went to trial in 1999, police were 1970 and 1974 when he was a resident at Pontefract speculating publicly that Shipman might have mur-General Infirmary. In August 2004, Smith recom-dered 75 to 100 patients. Old colleagues from Todmor-mended creation of a “drugs inspectorate” to monitor den chimed in with accusations that their death rate the quantity of drugs prescribed and stored by British during Shipman’s tenure had numbered 30 to 40 above doctors and pharmacists. No progress had been made average, while Shipman’s signature appeared on 22

in that direction when this volume went to press.

death certificates. In July 2000, when Britain’s High Court banned a secret government inquiry on Shipman’s case in favor of public hearings, detectives sug-SITHOLE, Moses

gested that “Dr. Death” may have claimed 192 lives.

South Africa’s most prolific serial killer to date, Moses That inquiry examined 800 deaths and expected to Sithole stands convicted of 38 slayings in a series of report conclusions in 500 separate cases. In May 2001,

“ABC Murders” committed between January and

police said they had conclusive evidence of 23 murders October 1995. The crimes received their media nick-beyond the original 15, while speculating that Shipman name from the fact that they began in Atteridgeville murdered at least 297 victims and perhaps as many as (spawning ground for so many South African slayers), 345. Relatives of one dead patient reported that her continued in Boksburg, and claimed more lives in engagement ring was stolen, while another lost cash Cleveland. The victims, all female, were apparently and her dentures. (With regard to the missing teeth, lured or transported to outlying fields where they were Shipman remarked, “She’s probably swallowed

beaten, stripped, raped, and strangled with articles of them.”) Patient Kenneth Smith, lost in December 1996, their own clothing. Several victims were found with had begun calling Shipman the “Angel of Death” three hands tied behind their backs, and one still wore a weeks earlier, after neighbor Tommy Cheetham died in blindfold. Many were left with pieces of clothing Shipman’s care.

draped across their faces as if to prevent them from On July 19, 2002, High Court judge Dame Janet

staring at their killer in death.

Smith declared that Dr. Shipman had murdered no less South African authorities, virtually overrun by serial than 215 of his patients over a 23-year period; another killers in the wake of apartheid’s collapse, consulted ex-200 deaths were deemed “highly suspicious,” while FBI Agent ROBERT RESSLER in their search for the Smith harbored “real suspicion” in 45 outstanding

“ABC” killer. Working in conjunction with DR. MICKI cases. Of the 215 confirmed victims, 171 were women PISTORIUS, Ressler concluded that the murders in all and 44 were men, ranging in age from 47 to 93 years.

three communities were linked. President Nelson Man-Officially, his first victim was Eva Lyons, killed at dela was concerned enough about the crime wave to Todmorden in March 1975, but police harbored dark cancel a scheduled trip abroad, appearing in Boksburg suspicions in the deaths of 62-year-old Robert Lingard with high-ranking justice officials, where he appealed and 84-year-old Elizabeth Pearce, who died at Tod-for public help in tracking the strangler.

morden within a five-hour span on January 21, 1975.

Police got their break in early October 1995 when a Judge Smith charged that Shipman had murdered 71

Cape Town newspaper,
The Star,
received an anony-patients at Donneybrook House and 143 while workmous telephone call from the slayer. He identified himing alone in Hyde, during the period 1992–98. Smith self as “the man that is so highly wanted,” describing his called her report “as complete and accurate an murders as an act of revenge for a prior miscarriage of account of Shipman’s criminality as I believe it will be justice. As described by the caller, he had been arrested ever be possible for anyone other than Shipman himin 1978 for “a crime I didn’t do”—specifically, a rape—