Harold Shipman (Part 1)

In the winter of 1998, a general practitioner in Manchester, England, noticed that one of her colleagues, Dr. Harold Shipman, appeared to have an unusually high death rate among his elderly female patients. An inquiry was opened into the matter, but it went nowhere and was quickly closed with no finding of wrongdoing. Then, in August, another accusation was leveled at Shipman: he was responsible for killing more than twenty of his patients. This time, the inquiry was taken more seriously and the reality was far worse than anyone could have imagined.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Streaming on Paramount Plus, Dexter Morgan is back. And this season, he's facing the scariest threat yet, middle age. A lifetime of blending in gets to you. And now Dexter is up against two rival killers stealing the spotlight. Taking them down means changing his MO and things are gonna get messy. Starring Michael C. Hall, Uma Thurman, Dan Stevens, and Brian Cox. Dexter: Resurrection, new season now streaming on the Paramount Plus Premium Plan.

• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:24Ash Kelley?

  Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  And I'm Elena. And this is Mobbed.

• 1:42Ash Kelley?

  This is Mobbed, everybody.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  If you're listening to this, I think it's Monday.

• 1:47Ash Kelley?

  So Halloween has happened.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  That's the thing I was gonna say, I hope you had a happy Halloween.

• 1:51Ash Kelley?

  I hope it was spooky and oaky.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  But that means it's November.

• 1:54Ash Kelley?

  I know.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  And I know that it's even right now, one to two days away, but it makes me so sad.

• 2:02Ash Kelley?

  October went by too fast.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  I wasn't, I wasn't spooky enough.

• 2:05Ash Kelley?

  No, I don't think I spooked to my fullest potential.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  I didn't spooky to my fullest potential.

• 2:10Ash Kelley?

  It was a great month.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, awesome, like really cool month.

• 2:13Ash Kelley?

  Sorry, I was really just burping through my life right there. Awesome month, lots of fun shit that we did and like cool people that we met. And like, yeah, but.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  But damn.

• 2:23Ash Kelley?

  Not enough spooky, I think.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  No, we didn't go to one fucking haunted house this year.

• 2:26Ash Kelley?

  I know, it just ended up being.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Can we even qualify as spooky people anymore?

• 2:30Ash Kelley?

  I know, I feel like really, I feel, I feel remiss here. But I did watch like a lot of spooky stuff.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I did too.

• 2:39Ash Kelley?

  When I got the chance to.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  I watched my Halloween baking championship.

• 2:42Ash Kelley?

  So there you go.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  And the girl that I wanted to win, won.

• 2:44Ash Kelley?

  There you go.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it, the girl wins.

• 2:47Ash Kelley?

  The girl wins.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  There's two girls at the end, so you're fine.

• 2:50Ash Kelley?

  The girl.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  The girl.

• 2:51Ash Kelley?

  That's how your youngest would say it.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  It's true. So Halloween was awesome and in the future, it was awesome.

• 2:59Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  But you know what? We'll look forward to the holidays and Thanksgiving and still, it's still fall.

• 3:04Ash Kelley?

  I'm gonna get so fucked up at your Thanksgiving.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 3:06Ash Kelley?

  And I mean on food alone.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Hell yeah, on food alone.

• 3:09Ash Kelley?

  So I'm getting fucked up on the turkey.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  On the turkey.

• 3:13Ash Kelley?

  Oh my God, and the streus.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  The streus.

• 3:16Ash Kelley?

  And the stuff.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  The sweet potato streus.

• 3:19Ash Kelley?

  And the regular potatoes.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? Tell me about it.

• 3:23Ash Kelley?

  Tell me about it.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Thanksgiving might be up there in my favorite holiday. I think it might be tied with Christmas and Halloween at this point.

• 3:30Ash Kelley?

  I mean, I love Thanksgiving as well.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I love it. I don't know how you do it. It's a lot of work.

• 3:34Ash Kelley?

  It is a lot.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  I never want to do it.

• 3:35Ash Kelley?

  And afterwards, I always say, glad that's done.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Ash Kelley?

  But I like to do it as well.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I get that. There's, there's like a, there's a fun feeling of satisfaction when you've like fed your whole family and like also hosted a party, like when you've done it all.

• 3:51Ash Kelley?

  And then afterwards, you're just like, okay, I could wait a year to do that again.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  You know what? It's like a sense of like Ina Garten.

• 3:58Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Martha Stewart realness.

• 4:00Ash Kelley?

  Exactly.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01Ash Kelley?

  That's exactly it.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:03Ash Kelley?

  Um, but yeah, I'm trying to think if there's anything else to update.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  You're just gonna tell us a horrible story?

• 4:10Ash Kelley?

  I am, I'm gonna tell you a British story today.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  British.

• 4:13Ash Kelley?

  Taking us out of the US for a little while.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 4:16Ash Kelley?

  A little vacation for us.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Oh, make sure you're registered to vote.

• 4:20Ash Kelley?

  Oh, yes.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Make sure you're registered to vote and go out and vote.

• 4:23Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, don't, don't be dumb.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26Ash Kelley?

  And not vote.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yep, you better go vote.

• 4:28Ash Kelley?

  Okay, if you are eligible to vote.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  If you are eligible, get out there and vote.

• 4:31Ash Kelley?

  Go vote, please.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  For the love.

• 4:34Ash Kelley?

  Thank you.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Of Jod.

• 4:35Ash Kelley?

  Appreciate it.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Serious.

• 4:38Ash Kelley?

  Now, today, we're gonna talk about Harold Shipman.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I've heard of this name.

• 4:43Ash Kelley?

  It's gonna be a toupata.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Oh, a toupata.

• 4:47Ash Kelley?

  The man, the man did a lot. He's known as England's most prolific serial killer.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Oh, damn.

• 4:53Ash Kelley?

  Uh, but it's not, it's, it's a different kind of situation, I would say.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Different kind of prolificity.

• 4:59Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. Uh, so let's talk about who Harold was.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Period.

• 5:03Ash Kelley?

  Harold Frederick Fred Shipman.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 5:06Ash Kelley?

  Was born January 14th, 1946.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Capricorn.

• 5:10Ash Kelley?

  Capricorn, oh no. Um, he was born in Nottingham, England. The second of two boys. His parents were Vera, Vera and Harold Shipman Senior.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Vera's a pretty name.

• 5:21Ash Kelley?

  Mom Vera was a homemaker and Dad Harold was a truck driver.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  We love a truck driver.

• 5:27Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, when, um, you know, young Shipman was born, England had just started its long recovery from the destruction that came on from the Second World War. So that was the situation.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:39Ash Kelley?

  Um, which again, it was a time where even like people who were super wealthy were affected by what was going on. Um, but the Shipmans were a solidly middle-class family who managed to avoid a lot of the harsh, like the really harsh, like hardships faced by other British people at the time. And they had very high standards for their children.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:01Ash Kelley?

  Now Fred, I'm gonna call him Fred, because that's what they used to call him.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:05Ash Kelley?

  Fred, and it's his mom, his dad is Harold too, so that's confusing. Uh, Fred Shipman's early life was mostly unremarkable. And that's not just me saying it, that's like people around him also saying he was pretty unremarkable.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 6:18Ash Kelley?

  Um, he was pretty ordinary. But there was one unexpected tragedy in his late teens that definitely like set him on a different path. In 1963, when he was just 17 years old, his mother Vera died from cancer at the age of 42.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awful.

• 6:33Ash Kelley?

  Uh, while the death of a parent is traumatic at any age, doesn't matter. Some, some have speculated that this period had a pretty profound influence on Fred, especially with regard to his later criminal activities.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 6:48Ash Kelley?

  Um, among other things, as Vera's cancer advanced, she became more reliant on injections of various pain management medications.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 6:57Ash Kelley?

  Um, which gave the impression that she was improving until she ultimately died in the summer of 1963, just weeks after Fred graduated from high school.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Oh, that's really awful.

• 7:08Ash Kelley?

  Now, what we're gonna find out, that is significant.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:11Ash Kelley?

  Because later Fred is going to become a doctor.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:15Ash Kelley?

  And he is going to kill people by injecting them with things. So that's just, I'm not saying that's the reason he did it. I'm just saying.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  It's just interesting.

• 7:23Ash Kelley?

  It's an interesting thing that happened. And it's things that people have researched and speculated into as possibly having an impact on him.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:32Ash Kelley?

  Now, in the fall of that year, Fred enrolled at, uh, university in Nottingham. And he studied his general courses there for two years and then transferred to Leeds University in 1965. Much like his earlier life, again, very unremarkable. Decades later, when asked about any memories of Fred during this period, Peter Costin, a former classmate, told a reporter, and a quote, "What I remember from, uh, what I remember about Fred was that he was just so ordinary. The thing I remember as remarkable about Fred was that he was unremarkable."

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Wow, that's rough. If that was my legacy, I'd be upset.

• 8:11Ash Kelley?

  That would be a bummer.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd be like, okay.

• 8:15Ash Kelley?

  In fact, what most people remembered of Fred at this time was that just one year into his medical studies at Leeds, he married his, his then-girlfriend. Her name was Primrose.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Oh, Primrose.

• 8:27Ash Kelley?

  I think that's the prettiest name.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Primrose Evadine?

• 8:29Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Um, and she gave birth to a baby not long after because she was pregnant at the time of the wedding. That's what most people remember, that's what I mean.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:37Ash Kelley?

  Fred being married made him an outlier among his peers, who were almost entirely focused on their studies and couldn't imagine being married at this point in their lives.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  They're like, damn, that's a lot.

• 8:48Ash Kelley?

  Um, one of his friends said, "Most of us were single at that stage, so we didn't really mix. Although I don't know him very well, he certainly did not stand out in any way. He was just an average person."

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Fuck, everybody is reading him to filth without even meaning to it, it seems.

• 9:02Ash Kelley?

  He's honestly remarkable for being so unremarkable. Like he, it's remarkable how ordinary he was.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:09Ash Kelley?

  That people noticed how ordinary he was.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  He's just like white bread.

• 9:13Ash Kelley?

  So he graduated in 1970 and he took a position at Pontefract General Infirmary, where he spent two years doing his residency before finally receiving his degree in child health.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  No, thank you.

• 9:25Ash Kelley?

  Which later, finding out who he is, I'm like, I'm sorry, what?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Fuck that.

• 9:28Ash Kelley?

  Despite his initial plan to focus on children, his residency had convinced him that he was actually interested in becoming a general practitioner, a GP. So he found work as a GP at the Abraham Ormarod Medical Center and started building a pretty good reputation there, actually. Finally, not unremarkable. Uh, one of the receptionists later recalled, "He was a smashing fella and a very good doctor."

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Smashing.

• 9:52Ash Kelley?

  He was smashing.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  That makes me think of, um, fucking Nigel Thornberry, Tim Curry.

• 9:56Ash Kelley?

  R.I.P. Tim Curry.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Smashing.

• 9:58Ash Kelley?

  Smashing. Now, after being super unremarkable his whole life, he was really coming into his own finally.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Finally.

• 10:05Ash Kelley?

  And it wasn't just his personality that his coworkers and patients appreciated. He was also a very skilled and reliable doctor. Dr. Michael Grieve said he was very good technically and very good clinically. He was brilliant and put a lot of work into the practice. Mothers thought the world of him, but he was good with everyone. There were chaps who thought he was absolutely fantastic.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Okay, we love a chap.

• 10:27Ash Kelley?

  So it's like, at this point, you're just like, why didn't you just continue doing that?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Stay on that path.

• 10:32Ash Kelley?

  Like being great and good at your job and helping people.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Ash Kelley?

  That would have got you a very good life.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  I would think.

• 10:40Ash Kelley?

  If you stayed on that track, I feel.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  When it's like, because again, so far, everything has been so unremarkable or inordinate. That I'm like, what breaks?

• 10:49Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Like what breaks in his brain that he starts killing people?

• 10:54Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I don't get it. Now, the Shipmans also seem to be thriving in their personal life. Once he was, once he was established at the medical practice, they were able to afford to buy a home in the Pennines, which is a region of Northern England, and they fit in there perfectly.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:09Ash Kelley?

  Now settled for what they planned to be a long stretch there. Fred and Primrose joined the local Conservative Party and the local church where Primrose became a member of the choir.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Gorge.

• 11:20Ash Kelley?

  As further evidence of their intent to like, really get themselves in this community. Fred even helped dig out the massive piles of silt to help restore the, I think it's pronounced Raunchdale canals.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Raunchdale?

• 11:32Ash Kelley?

  Raunchdale. It seems entirely likely that they genuinely intended to settle into their new community and build their lives there.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  That's what it sounds like.

• 11:42Ash Kelley?

  But things didn't turn out that way.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I guess not, because we're talking about about Morbid.

• 11:46Ash Kelley?

  It's not great. So in 1975, just one year after moving there, Fred was arrested and charged with three counts of obtaining a controlled drug by deception. Three counts of unlawful possession of a controlled drug and two counts of forging prescriptions.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Oh, well, that happened pretty quickly.

• 12:02Ash Kelley?

  It seems that despite his upstanding and highly professional demeanor, he had become addicted to Demerol.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 12:10Ash Kelley?

  Which is a powerful synthetic opioid. And when he couldn't get it legally, he started writing prescriptions for his patients for large amounts and then keeping the extra for himself.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 12:22Ash Kelley?

  When the case went to court in February 1976, Fred told the judge he'd begun taking the drug to stave off, quote, "depression caused by opposition to his ideas for improving the medical practice."

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:36Ash Kelley?

  So I started taking the drug because I got depressed because people wouldn't listen to my ideas.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:43Ash Kelley?

  Miraculously, Shipman managed to avoid serious consequences for his crimes and was ordered only to pay a pretty modest fine. And the General Medical Council declined to impose any punishment.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Hello?

• 12:58Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Although he'd gotten off with an incredibly light punishment for the drug charges, the arrest and court hearing were embarrassing, obviously. And yeah, reputation damaging.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say that.

• 13:10Ash Kelley?

  Prior to the hearing, he resigned from his position with the medical practice. And that winter, he began seeing a psychiatrist for treatment for his addiction.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:19Ash Kelley?

  Dr. Grieve recalled, he said in court that he did not get on well with the partners at the practice. But I think he felt like we had let him down by not standing by him after his addiction came to light.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:29Ash Kelley?

  Now, out of work and no longer possessing the same reputation he had when they first arrived in the area, Fred and Primrose decided to move the family two hours south to Durham to start over. Despite his documented charges of drug abuse and writing fraudulent prescriptions, he eventually was able to find another position in Greater Manchester as a GP.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  That's surprising.

• 13:50Ash Kelley?

  With the Donnybrook Medical Center, where he would remain for the next 15 years.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 13:56Ash Kelley?

  Dr. Jeff Bills told a reporter, "He was a very hard worker. Medicine was his whole life."

• 14:01Speaker 01

  All of it.

• 14:02Ash Kelley?

  Now, it literally all of it. Now, in the years that followed, Fred and Primrose settled into family life in Greater Manchester. By the mid 1980s, Primrose had given birth to two more boys and Fred went on to join the PTA at their school. When he wasn't home at work or at home, he filled his time as a volunteer with the St. John's Ambulance Brigade, serving as a divisional surgeon, like he's.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  He's like in the community, like enmeshed.

• 14:28Ash Kelley?

  And the thing is, it's like, you made a mistake.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:32Ash Kelley?

  It was a big mistake.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 14:34Ash Kelley?

  I'm not discounting that or like lessening it. You were dealing with your addiction.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:41Ash Kelley?

  You were trying to move on.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:45Ash Kelley?

  Why didn't you, why did you keep damaging your own shit? Like, it's just crazy to me. Because I'm like, yeah, that was a big deal, what you did. And it's like, yeah, you should have consequences for it. But you were going to a psychiatrist to try to deal with the addiction.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:59Ash Kelley?

  You were admitting that, like, there was a problem here.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  You were taking all the right steps.

• 15:03Ash Kelley?

  Taking the steps, doing the things that we ask people to do in these situations.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  And meshing yourself in the community, like during recovery.

• 15:09Ash Kelley?

  And getting yourselves involved with things that like would better the community. I'm like, I, it's a conundrum to me.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  It is a conundrum, because again, I'm like, what broke?

• 15:18Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And you said, sorry, you said he was in the PTA or she was?

• 15:21Ash Kelley?

  I think he was, actually.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  That's what you said. That's why I was clarifying.

• 15:24Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, he went on to join the PTA.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Like, where do you find the time to do all this shit?

• 15:29Ash Kelley?

  That's the thing. He was like very involved. It's like in Hamilton during the Reynolds pamphlet, where they say, "You ever seen somebody ruin their own life?"

• 15:35Speaker 01

  This is the third time you've brought up Hamilton today.

• 15:37Ash Kelley?

  Hamilton has been like a big deal in my life today.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It has.

• 15:40Ash Kelley?

  I don't know. It's just like, it's, it's, it's working.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I like the Reynolds pamphlet.

• 15:43Ash Kelley?

  But they literally say, "You ever seen somebody ruin their own life?"

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Many people. Thank you for asking.

• 15:48Ash Kelley?

  Like, and also.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  And hello, right here.

• 15:51Ash Kelley?

  This is literally him.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Prime example.

• 15:52Ash Kelley?

  Like, you're literally just ruining your own life.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  The Reynolds pamphlet.

• 15:55Ash Kelley?

  Exactly.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  I love when they say it like that.

• 15:57Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Have you read this shit?

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• 19:34Ash Kelley?

  Now during this period, Fred Shipman builds a large practice full of devoted patients who adored him. But behind the scenes, things at Donnybrook Medical Center were becoming increasingly tense between him and his coworkers. Sounds like he, he had trouble getting along.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Doesn't work well with others.

• 19:51Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Senior partner Ian Napier said, on the one hand, he was charming, urbane, and pleasant with patients, but he had another side of him, another side to him. And if crossed, he was capable of making people's lives miserable.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Capricorns don't fuck with being crossed.

• 20:08Ash Kelley?

  I literally said that today.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:11Ash Kelley?

  When I, when I, and I, in that same sentence, I was referencing him.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, this is a weird topical day.

• 20:21Ash Kelley?

  Full circle moment.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  This is a weird topical day.

• 20:23Ash Kelley?

  Literally saying, I'm slow to anger, but I toe the line.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's such Capricorn vibes.

• 20:28Ash Kelley?

  When you cross that line, I'll ruin your entire fucking life.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Ash Kelley?

  But I won't do that initially. It takes a lot.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  I've seen it.

• 20:36Ash Kelley?

  But cross that line.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  But you're not, you're not that bad at a group project. I was just saying Capricorns don't love group projects.

• 20:43Ash Kelley?

  Oh, I fucking hate a group project.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  But you're not bad at it. This entire show is a group project between me and you.

• 20:51Ash Kelley?

  I see, it is in a way.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Ash Kelley?

  But I think it's just because I like can work with you. If I find somebody I can work with, that's okay. I, I don't like a group project. I don't want to work with people.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  I personally hate a group project as well.

• 21:05Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I'd much rather isolate and just work by myself.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:09Ash Kelley?

  Like I, as soon as they're like, okay, you're all gonna figure this out. I'm like, no, I'm gonna figure this out. Like that's, everybody go home. I'll figure it out.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Everybody go home.

• 21:18Ash Kelley?

  I don't want to do that.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  I just don't really, yeah, that's not my vibe.

• 21:20Ash Kelley?

  It's no. Now, according to the same source, Fred had a volatile personality and was capable of holding grudges long after whatever slight, real or perceived head pass.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but that's also a Capricorn trait.

• 21:34Ash Kelley?

  I know.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  You guys, you.

• 21:36Ash Kelley?

  I'm realizing this right now.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  You know that woman who's like, I will literally open a professional grudgery and take on your grudges? Not a doubt in my mind, she's either a Capricorn or a Virgo.

• 21:45Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  That's funny though. I love it.

• 21:47Ash Kelley?

  I will hold a grudge against anybody.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm sorry to all my non astrology people. I'm really on an astrology kick.

• 21:53Ash Kelley?

  It's okay. But it makes sense.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll move on though.

• 21:56Ash Kelley?

  Um, no, because it's actually, as I'm reading this, I'm like, oh shit.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  You're like, ugh.

• 22:01Ash Kelley?

  I'm like, well, we do deviate at some point, so there's that. It says, when he became angry with the practice manager, he stopped talking to her entirely. It would only communicate with her in writing, and she was expected to do the same.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  I hate that. That's iconic.

• 22:15Ash Kelley?

  Even though they worked in the same building and he would see her every day.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  I love cutting people off. It's literally one of my specialties. So when I see other people cut people off, I'm like, do it.

• 22:25Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. And it's like, and right now you're like, dude, you just didn't have to go.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, right now I'm not mad at you yet.

• 22:33Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. And the same source said, I remember on one occasion, he reduced a drug company representative who had only been in the job for two weeks to years.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Okay, that's not nice. But I've seen you do the same thing.

• 22:43Ash Kelley?

  I was at the, I too, I too have made somebody cry. They deserved it.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  They did deserve it. Was it uncomfortable for everybody involved?

• 22:53Ash Kelley?

  Yes.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:54Ash Kelley?

  Not for me.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Did they, but other than Elena?

• 22:56Ash Kelley?

  I was the only one that wasn't uncomfortable.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 23:00Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, it was at a place we used to work. So they deserved it.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Figure it out.

• 23:04Ash Kelley?

  I'd do it again.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  I'd sit through it. Honestly, as much as I hated it, I'd sit through it again.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Did I want the earth to swallow me? Yeah, I sure fucking did. But I also was like, you deserved that. You had that coming.

• 23:19Ash Kelley?

  One thing I'm gonna do is stand on business. So put me in that situation again. I will do the same exact thing.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  I saw it coming too. I saw, I saw it coming down the pike.

• 23:30Ash Kelley?

  To be honest, they should have seen it coming as well.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  She very much should have.

• 23:33Ash Kelley?

  But you know, they can't anymore.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  So it was kind of a pussy, it was kind of a pussy move to cry.

• 23:38Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. Now, despite the outstanding reputation that Shipman had with his patients and somewhat begrudging respect, at least he'd earned from his peers, like they didn't really like hanging out with them.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  But they were like, he's a good doctor.

• 23:50Ash Kelley?

  They said he was good at what he was doing. It seems that his achievements were never enough for him, which is also very Capricorn.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  I'm trying not to like continue saying it.

• 23:59Ash Kelley?

  Honestly, you can't help it. He just, he didn't just want to be a well-respected general practitioner and reliable provider, which is a very great thing to be and like very successful.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  He didn't want to be a doctor. He wanted to be the doctor.

• 24:15Ash Kelley?

  He wanted to be at the top of the pile in the medical world.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:18Ash Kelley?

  A role that was not typically associated with general practitioners. Like usually like top of the, if you're like, you know, and I'm saying like, the, the achievements that a lot of people in medical professions are looking to get, a lot of times those are going to be found in like different specialties instead of general. You know, of course, there's like very high ranking.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're a fucking doctor.

• 24:41Ash Kelley?

  But forensic psychologist Paul Britton later told a court, Shipman is hugely arrogant. He believes that he has struggled and is struggling against the odds. He believes the main obstacle is all of those foolish people out there and around him. The people who really ultimately only have one value, and that is to provide fuel for the fire that he is burning. I mean.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 25:05Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, it's really textbook, to be honest.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 25:08Ash Kelley?

  It's really scary. Now, previously, when the pressure of life and his anxieties related to fears of like inadequacies would pop up, he would turn to narcotics to dull the pain that he felt. But once that strategy had been discovered, he'd been reprimanded pretty lightly and allowed to carry on his practice, you know.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  He wanted to move on from that.

• 25:29Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. But if he turned to opioids for relief again, and his use was discovered, it was pretty likely that he'd lose everything at that point. Like you're not going to get that twice.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 25:40Ash Kelley?

  What he needed in his mind was a new way to relieve the stress and frustration he was experiencing seemingly at all times. And by the early 18, 1980s, he felt like he found it. Now, my suggestion would be hang a punching bag in your garage or outside.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Ash Kelley?

  Hit it.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Take a boxing class.

• 26:00Ash Kelley?

  Go for a run.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Eat a moon pie.

• 26:02Ash Kelley?

  Eat a moon pie.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Quit murdering people.

• 26:04Ash Kelley?

  Drink a seven up. Quit murdering people.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Because here's my question too. Like obviously he is not a rational thinker because he goes to murder for relief.

• 26:11Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  But also, how are you going to get to the top of your field when your patients are dying?

• 26:16Ash Kelley?

  That's a great question.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  That doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

• 26:18Ash Kelley?

  As it shouldn't.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I don't think you're gonna get the accolades you're looking for when they're, when they're dying under your watch.

• 26:24Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I don't think they're like the top ranking medical officials are like, this one lost 700 patients last year. Like I don't think that's the, the barometer that they're going with.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  So my brother, I think you lost the plot.

• 26:37Ash Kelley?

  Now, years later, when Fred would like pass the 1980s, when he was arrested in the 90s, he'd be charged with a total of 15 murders committed between 1995 and 1998. But investigators very much believe that the number of victims is far greater than what they could prove and stretched back as far as the early 80s.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:59Ash Kelley?

  When he was working as a GP at Donnybrook. According to author Carol Peters, who wrote a book about Shipman in 2005, Shipman's murders can be traced back to as early as 1981.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:11Ash Kelley?

  When he was treating two elderly women diagnosed with terminal cancer. It would not have been uncommon for cancer patients to be treated with morphine for pain management. It also would, you know, it also wouldn't have been uncommon or entirely inappropriate for their physicians to reclaim a small amount of the unused drug when they died.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:32Ash Kelley?

  But according to Peters, Shipman would often over prescribe. And when a patient died, he would, he would reclaim whatever morphine remained, regardless of the amount. And he would like stockpile it.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  So he had a morphine surplus.

• 27:45Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, he himself had it. Yeah. And because he was over prescribing, instead of just using the amount that wasn't used, which they could document.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:55Ash Kelley?

  It was kind of untraceable.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  So hard to document.

• 27:57Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. So that year, Shipman was called to Bradley Green, and this is the real name of the place, Bradley Green Old People's Center.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  That's rude.

• 28:05Ash Kelley?

  Which is.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  You put me in Bradley, listen, future children. You put me in an old people's center.

• 28:11Ash Kelley?

  That is literally named Old People's Center. Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  That's fucked. Like an old folks home.

• 28:17Ash Kelley?

  Like literally called that. So that year, he was called there to tend to 84 year old Mary Sl- May Slater, excuse me. It was the practice of the center that whenever a physician came to see a patient, they would be accompanied to the patient's room by the warden, Doreen Lathwaite. On this occasion, Lathwaite did exactly that. But when she reached the room, she said, Dr. Shipman specifically asked the, or this is what she told someone later that they told to this author. Dr. Shipman specifically asked the warden to go and meet May Slater's son, James, who had also been called to see his sick mother and prevent him from coming to Mrs. Slater's bungalow.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  So he asked that the son be stopped from coming up? Okay.

• 29:00Ash Kelley?

  This left Shipman alone with the patient in her room for a significant amount of time.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  And no one thought that was weird?

• 29:05Ash Kelley?

  And when he emerged sometime later, he reported to the family and the warden that may have died.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That would be sus as fuck immediately.

• 29:14Ash Kelley?

  Now, according to the death certificate, which was prepared by Shipman, Slater's death was the result of congestive heart failure. At the time, the records of the deceased were destroyed not long after their death. Like that was a thing.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Like standard practice.

• 29:28Ash Kelley?

  So there's no way to confirm whether Mae Slater had been suffering from heart problems prior to her death.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  That's why that's a really stupid practice.

• 29:36Ash Kelley?

  But a public inquiry performed years later found evidence that suggested she had been. So there wouldn't have been any reason for them to suspect foul play.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:46Ash Kelley?

  Which may be the reason he chose that. Because like, if there's already that, then they're not going to question it.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:54Ash Kelley?

  Now, the scene repeated itself in August of that year when another of Shipman's cancer patients died, and he took whatever morphine remained after the death. The next day, Elizabeth Ashworth, another of his patients, became ill, and Shipman was called to the house. At the time, this next day.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say.

• 30:12Ash Kelley?

  At the time, Ashworth was living independently in her own home. It was generally believed to be in good health. She'd even been seen gardening on the day she was visited by Shipman. But just a few days after he visited the home and gave her an injection, she died.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  What the fuck?

• 30:27Ash Kelley?

  Between 1981 and 1984, there were a number of patients under Fred Shipman's care who died of what would, in retrospect, be deemed suspicious circumstances. They just can't prove them. Or those deaths were, at the very least, coincidental in the context of other deaths.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  But probably not.

• 30:45Ash Kelley?

  That Shipman was so, that Shipman was able to kill undetected is at least in part due to the victims he was choosing.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:52Ash Kelley?

  And the vast majority of the murders, his victims were elderly. They were in poor health, if not terminal.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58Ash Kelley?

  At that point. So despite the relatively high number of deaths among his patients, their death seems kind of ordinary or inevitable.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:06Ash Kelley?

  Uh, and didn't really cause anyone to suspect anything other than just unfortunately, nature taking its course. Also, in many of these cases, it would have been normal, if not expected, for the victim to have been administered pain medication.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:20Ash Kelley?

  So if anyone had conducted an autopsy, finding drugs like morphine in the person's body wouldn't set off any alarm bells.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  And if you're terminal, but those amounts can be pretty high.

• 31:29Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. While Shipman managed to kill undetected during this period, there were limits to what he could accomplish. Given that his preferred method of murder was to give the victim an overdose of morphine, he could only achieve his ends so long as he had an untraceable supply of the drug. And he could only obtain that if he had cancer patients who left behind unused quantities of the drug. Although it's unknown how many people he killed between 81 and 84, it seems as though he'd run out of morphine by 85.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 31:59Ash Kelley?

  Having had only one patient that year with terminal cancer.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:04Ash Kelley?

  Nevertheless, according to The Guardian, there was one patient death in 85 that was reported to the local police as a suspected murder.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 32:12Ash Kelley?

  It appears investigators interviewed Shipman and conducted a cursory investigation. But according to The Guardian, quote, "No further action was taken."

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Cause again, like you said, it's hard to prove.

• 32:21Ash Kelley?

  It's hard to trace.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:23Ash Kelley?

  But they, they thought.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  You can only get away with that for so long. That's the thing here.

• 32:27Ash Kelley?

  That's, and they suspected him, obviously.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it is pretty crazy. He wasn't caught until what, the 90s?

• 32:32Ash Kelley?

  But he's doing it in a way that is like.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  He's not really doing it slowly though either.

• 32:37Ash Kelley?

  Cause he doesn't really have to.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it, yeah, it's a, it's a perfect set of.

• 32:42Ash Kelley?

  Unfortunately, yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Circumstances, exactly.

• 32:44Ash Kelley?

  Now, that Shipman managed to run out of morphine at various points throughout the 80s and, you know, had to stop killing for some time, has become a subject of some debate as well. Those familiar with the case have suggested that if he needed more morphine, he would have simply stolen whatever necessary morphine his patients had on hand, leading them to suffer.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:05Ash Kelley?

  Like, just why would he care?

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:07Ash Kelley?

  This certainly seems like the kind of thing that a sociopathic killer would be capable of.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:11Ash Kelley?

  And it would have allowed for a larger body count that is already, than is already suspected. But Paul Britton, who was that psychologist, he dismisses that argument as too simplistic.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:22Ash Kelley?

  He said, "This is a very complex human being."

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:25Ash Kelley?

  "We tend to think of Shipman, the serial killer, as ruthless, emotionless, and all the rest of it." This is true, to an extent. But this is also a man who believes that he is a great savior.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:35Ash Kelley?

  Bringing health and community benefit. He's also likely at a very important fundamental level to try to hold away the meaning of his killing. So he's trying to, he's, he's not looking at this as like, yes, I kill people because I want to. He thinks he's playing God. He is the person who gets to decide these things.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that wouldn't fulfill his God complex to let people suffer.

• 33:58Ash Kelley?

  And to simply steal medication from his patients, he would have to confront the cruel and criminal nature of his behavior.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:06Ash Kelley?

  Like upfront. Like, that would completely undermine what he believes about himself.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:12Ash Kelley?

  If he had to sit there and go, well, now I'm stealing and leaving them to suffer.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Right. That makes sense.

• 34:17Ash Kelley?

  That's just not who he sees himself.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Like we've had like.

• 34:19Ash Kelley?

  He is that person.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:21Ash Kelley?

  But he doesn't see himself as that person.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  I feel like that was like a Mindhunter moment.

• 34:24Ash Kelley?

  It was.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I'm rewatching Mindhunter right now.

• 34:26Ash Kelley?

  It's so good.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Give us a third season.

• 34:28Ash Kelley?

  Whoever didn't, like redo that, fuck you.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Seriously.

• 34:32Ash Kelley?

  Fuck you.

• 34:43Speaker 01

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• 35:26Speaker 01

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• 36:26Speaker 02

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• 36:54Ash Kelley?

  Rather than risk any blow to his ego by recognizing the complete callous wickedness of what he was doing.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:02Ash Kelley?

  He turned to a strategy that had worked for him in the past when he was in need of controlled drugs that couldn't be traced back to him.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 37:08Ash Kelley?

  According to Detective John Ashley, there was very little in the medical records that recorded diamorphine being actually administered to anyone who had a legitimate need. And the amounts on the prescriptions he submitted to the pharmacies did not match what he was administering. So it's believed that when he ran out of the stockpile of morphine he'd been collecting over the years, he just fell back on the tactic he'd used in the past to get drugs for himself. He would just overprescribe.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:35Ash Kelley?

  Cause before, he started doing the whole, I'll just take what they don't use. Like not give them as much as they need, take what they use.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Well, because he was so much closer to that previous charge. He was probably nervous to order, but now he's farther away from it.

• 37:46Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. So now he just falls right back into that, like, I'll just write prescriptions for it.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:52Ash Kelley?

  Um, which gave them a, he would give them a small amount, or in some cases, he wouldn't give them the morphine because sometimes they didn't need it.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:00Ash Kelley?

  But he would just, and that's how he kind of like, you know, like explained it away in his own mind.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:06Ash Kelley?

  And he would just keep the rest. Now, while no one at Donnybrook seemed to notice the large amounts of patients dying under his care, they did notice his increased irritability and stress as the years went on.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Well, they probably did notice the large amount. But again, these are terminally ill people that you're expecting to pass away.

• 38:22Ash Kelley?

  So I guess notice isn't the, isn't the word more like.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Suspect anything.

• 38:26Ash Kelley?

  Suspect anything nefarious going on.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  It's horrible, but it's.

• 38:30Ash Kelley?

  Unfortunately, just.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Kind of the perfect crime for him. Like it's awful.

• 38:35Ash Kelley?

  Now, one former staff member said, "No one else was up to his standard. You could not tell him anything, and he was never wrong." Which is, again, very capital.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  It's also very, I feel like he's like INTJ.

• 38:46Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Like personality type.

• 38:48Ash Kelley?

  Yes, which is also my personality type. So there's that. While it appears he saved the worst of his anxieties and frustrations for his unfortunate patients, those who worked around him weren't exactly spared his wrath either. Um, Dr. Napier said, "He was not violent in any physical sense. It was almost like a childlike temper tantrum." He would go completely over the top, and it was as if he had no control over it. He didn't do it with any of the partners. He would only talk like that to his subordinates.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 39:18Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Now, by January 1992, his personality and poor, you know, interpersonal skills had become something of a problem at work.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  I would think so.

• 39:28Ash Kelley?

  At the time, new policies related to the hospital and healthcare system in the UK were changing how patients could receive care from their providers, directly impacting which services the government would cover.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:40Ash Kelley?

  The changes prompted many of the partners at Donnybrook to leave the facility for private practices. Shipman later said in court, "The other doctors were not as committed as I would have been to make the changes work." So like that's

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Better than everyone.

• 39:54Ash Kelley?

  They just weren't committed.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:56Ash Kelley?

  Instead of continuing on at the center, he started operating his own practice because there was like no one left on the premises of Donnybrook. So he stayed just operating his own practice.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:07Ash Kelley?

  But within four months, he abandoned that plan and set up a completely new private practice, taking 300 of the center's patients with him.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:15Ash Kelley?

  And refusing to pay his share of the annual taxes.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 40:19Ash Kelley?

  Now.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  It's so interesting. He had to have had interpersonal skills on some degree.

• 40:25Ash Kelley?

  Oh, he did.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  To have that many patients.

• 40:26Ash Kelley?

  Because again, patients loved him.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:28Ash Kelley?

  Like, patients loved him because they had no idea what he was doing to them when they were, you know what I mean? Like, he could charm them.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  I do. I find it so fascinating when people like can't work with other people. But like, on a, on a smaller scale, like I've worked with people in the past, like in the hair world, where you're like, you have so many clients that love you, but like, you're a fucking demon.

• 40:48Ash Kelley?

  You're a nightmare to work with.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, on a coworker level, I always find that so fascinating.

• 40:53Ash Kelley?

  It's like two sides.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Ash Kelley?

  Of how people work. It's so strange.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:57Ash Kelley?

  Now, his new one man operation was located in an old insurance office on Market Street in Greater Manchester Shopping District.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:06Ash Kelley?

  Eventually, he bought the shop next door and expanded the size of the practice, enthusiastically involving himself in the renovation process. He was excited about this.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and of course, he's got his hands on everything.

• 41:16Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. He also inserted himself into the local community, chairing the local medical committee that oversaw GP practices in the region. And he joined the board of the Small Practices Association, which was responsible for reporting complaints about local providers, which was smart to do because now he's there. He can keep an eye on what's happening. And he can potentially put up a roadblock if something needs to be blocked.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  It's very like how serial killers will talk to the police about.

• 41:44Ash Kelley?

  Exactly.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  You gotta get information.

• 41:45Ash Kelley?

  You want to be in the know. You want to be able to like, get in front of stuff. Due to the new regulations around healthcare, patient bills were not always paid by the government in a timely manner. And money was often tight in the early days of the practice. So unable to afford a proper full-time assistant or nurse to help with the workload, Primrose would regularly step in to help with the operation of the business. That's his wife, in case you forgot. Despite the hardship, Fred was determined to ingratiate himself with the new community and went out of his way to get to know his patients and their lives outside of the practice. He just really wanted to be a part of it.

• 42:22Ash Kelley?

  Local counselor John Bell said, "He was revered for his attention to detail, the way he talked to people and remembered things."

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Well, he also has to remember certain things about like their family.

• 42:32Ash Kelley?

  Of course he does.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Who's gonna miss them when they're gone?

• 42:34Ash Kelley?

  He's gotta know everything that's going on. And it's like, he has all these qualities that you're like, you could have made a great career for yourself. And you really did fuck up your own life.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Ash Kelley?

  Like, congrats.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Ash Kelley?

  Like, you idiot. Now, the problem was, his generosity and respect that he had for his patients wasn't something he tended to extend to those outside of the practice. And before long, he had found himself on the wrong side of the West Pennine Health Authority.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:04Ash Kelley?

  The organization whose job it was to monitor and regulate private practitioners in the region. So that wasn't good for him.

• 43:13Ash Kelley?

  The, so apparently, the thing that was the issue was the frequency with which Shipman prescribed drugs to his patients and how generous he was with the dosage and amounts.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:23Ash Kelley?

  You didn't think anybody was gonna catch on to that?

• 43:25Speaker 01

  It's interesting, though. I mean, obviously, it's a different country. Like, I feel like in America, that's been happening like forever.

• 43:31Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  And it's only really just become a thing where they're like, hey, stop doing that.

• 43:34Ash Kelley?

  They were on it way before.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  But yeah, they were on it way before us.

• 43:37Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Within just the first year of his practice in 1993, Shipman was among the top five prescribers out of the region's 230 general practitioners.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:48Ash Kelley?

  Causing many within the health authority to become a little suspicious. According to the agency's director of primary care, Jan Foster, Fred was, quote, "always defensive with them," but he had irrational arguments for his prescribing. So had he not been so well-liked by his patients and otherwise recognized as a good doctor, it's unlikely that he would have avoided trouble so easily.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:12Ash Kelley?

  It was on his side that he managed to maintain that reputation.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:16Ash Kelley?

  But as it was, he had 3,100 patients.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  How do you, is that typical?

• 44:23Ash Kelley?

  Far more than the average prescriber.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  I was like, that can't be typical.

• 44:28Ash Kelley?

  And they all appeared to think very, like, highly of him.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  3,000?

• 44:32Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Holy shit. How do you remember like details about that many people?

• 44:38Ash Kelley?

  I'm just Googling really quick how many patients a typical GP has. Conventional primary care, 2,000 to 2,500.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  So he was way above that.

• 44:45Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Still.

• 44:45Ash Kelley?

  He was still above it, yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had like, what, like almost 600 more than that?

• 44:49Ash Kelley?

  Well, and that's in a standard insurance-based model, it seems.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Wow, that's crazy.

• 44:54Ash Kelley?

  At a time when healthcare was undergoing, obviously, major state changes, such as, such a thing of this, like, was almost unheard of. So the authorities saw no reason to really shake things up at this time. They were like, he's got way more patients than the average GP. And they all fucking love him. So like, are we really gonna?

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Then when you have that money, like, that is gonna skew the numbers a little bit in your prescriptions.

• 45:19Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. And again, especially when he was able to kind of justify his heavy prescribing methods. So they had no idea that the doctor wasn't just prescribing medication for his patients. He was over-prescribing to replenish a stockpile to murder people.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:36Ash Kelley?

  Now, within the first two years of private practice, he wrote prescriptions for massive doses of morphine, relying on his tried and true method. You know, terminal patients, over-prescribing. For example, in 1994, he prescribed 1000 milligram vials of morphine for one of his patients.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 45:54Ash Kelley?

  Just one day before she died.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:57Ash Kelley?

  According to her medical records, the patient had never needed morphine in the past. And it's entirely likely that upon her death, he stole the remaining vials.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 46:06Ash Kelley?

  In 1996, he prescribed 2,500 millimeter, milligram, I don't know why I keep saying millimeter, milligram vials for another patient on the day that he died.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 46:17Ash Kelley?

  2,500 milligram vials of morphine.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 46:23Ash Kelley?

  Over the years, this became such a common practice that in total, he, quote, "procured 22,000 milligrams of morphine, the equivalent of 1,466 fatal doses."

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 46:38Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 46:40Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  When you put it like that.

• 46:42Ash Kelley?

  Incredibly terrifying.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Ash Kelley?

  Now, just a few weeks after his new practice opened, he paid a visit to the home of one of his patients, Monica Sparks. Monica was 72 years old and lived alone, and again, pretty good health.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:56Ash Kelley?

  In recent weeks, though, Monica had started having dizzy spells and had fallen on more than one occasion. So she made an appointment with Shipman, who offered to see her at home.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  This is so scary.

• 47:06Ash Kelley?

  It's so scary. That afternoon, Monica's sister-in-law, Phyllis Hoyt, called Sparks and was surprised when Dr. Shipman answered the phone. The doctor informed her that during their appointment, Monica had suffered a stroke. He claimed that he tried to call for an ambulance, but none were available. So he told Monica to lie down on her bed and wait for him while he ran to his office to get what he needed to tend to her until an ambulance could arrive.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  That's a whack story.

• 47:32Ash Kelley?

  But when he returned, Sparks was dead. Monica, yeah. Monica Sparks would be the only known murder that Shipman committed in 1992.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:42Ash Kelley?

  But the following year, once the practice was fully operational, it's, he's believed to have murdered 16 of his patients.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  In 1992 alone?

• 47:50Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 47:51Ash Kelley?

  All elderly. In some cases, Shipman is believed to have killed a patient, then written them a prescription for morphine after he killed the patient.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Stop.

• 47:59Ash Kelley?

  By the time the body was discovered the following day, the prescription had already been filled, and Shipman would simply adjust the death certificate so the timeline would make sense.

• 48:09Ash Kelley?

  And that's it. So nobody would ask questions.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 48:12Ash Kelley?

  It seems that as the practice became more successful, his need to kill grew along with that success.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:18Ash Kelley?

  At the same time, losing so many patients, even the elderly and infirm, did tend to raise some questions eventually, especially in cases where the patient wasn't terminal. Like, Monica Sparks was in good health. It was believed, again, to be in good health. Like, there was a lot of those.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:33Ash Kelley?

  In some cases, Shipman used his position of authority to fend off any questions or suspicions from the family, with his confidence and arrogance tending to kind of like deter any further questioning. While this may have been successful as a means of dealing with the families, he knew it wasn't gonna suffice for any authorities who may come around with questions. So he began editing his own records to support whatever cause of death he listed.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 48:59Ash Kelley?

  For instance, in the case of 82-year-old Amy Whitehead, a patient with no history of heart disease that, according to Shipman, died from a heart attack, he revised his records, adding an entry for a visit in which he treated her for. Coronary attack. By 1995, he had resorted to just burning or otherwise destroying the patient records immediately following their deaths. Making it difficult for anyone to argue with his assessments or claims.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  And that would look so suspicious, but because of the time, it was like,

• 49:31Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  considered somewhat standard.

• 49:33Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  He's like, what? Holy shit, dude. This guy is evil as fuck.

• 49:38Ash Kelley?

  It should be said that while Fred Shipman managed to get away with a staggering number of murders for a surprisingly long time, it was not like no one had concerns or suspicions of something nefarious was occurring in this practice.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've already said that.

• 49:51Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  But it's not like you can just blow up the practice on one suspicion.

• 49:56Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. Like you can't just on a hunch.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Unfortunately.

• 49:59Ash Kelley?

  In fact, there were many family members and even members of his own staff eventually, who were, if not suspicious of murder, at least concerned about the number of patients who were dying under his care. But during the inquiry conducted following his trial, one nurse after another explained that they were concerned that if they spoke out or questioned him, they might lose their job or even their ability to work in the field.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:23Ash Kelley?

  Members of the inquiry were told the nurses had not raised the matter with their managers because NHS culture was at the time dictated that doctors should not be challenged.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  I mean, it's still that way.

• 50:34Ash Kelley?

  And the nurses also believed that those above them were aware of the patient's circumstances and were, quote, "dealing with suspicions about the patient's death." So they were like, someone else is going to do this. Also, at the time the murders were occurring, there was no whistleblower protections in place.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 50:50Ash Kelley?

  So an employee who spoke out against someone as obviously, like petty or vindictive as Fred Shipman clearly displayed that he was, was risking way more, like way more. They were going to lose everything. Now, as for the grieving families of victims, they were much easier to dismiss in his mind. As the doctor supposedly trusted by their loved ones, Shipman was in a position of power and would often bully and berate anyone who questioned his treatment and expertise by asking how it was that their family member died from something they'd not shown any signs of in the past. And there's also the obvious fact that no one, even the most suspicious, would expect a general practitioner capable of committing multiple murders.

• 51:35Ash Kelley?

  Because also they'd be like, why?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:37Ash Kelley?

  Why did you do this? Like, what is the reason? Prosecutor Richard Henry said he took advantage of their grief and their lesser knowledge of medicine.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:47Ash Kelley?

  As they grieved, this piece of shit employed every device to make sure no postmortem examination would take place.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 51:56Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  To be in such a position of power like that, like, he really is playing god.

• 52:03Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, exactly. And he may have been able to put off grieving family members and conserve staff members, but his peers outside of the practice were something else, too. Like, he's, again, subordinates to him in his own mind are easy to control. He can fade that out. His peers and people above him are where he gets a little shaky. For the most part, the practitioners in the area were familiar with Shipman and thought him arrogant and quirky, often giving him a pass on any peculiar behavior.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're just like, he's a fucking weirdo.

• 52:35Ash Kelley?

  That's just who he is. In fact, it wasn't until a new provider in the area, Dr. Linda Reynolds, began asking questions, that others began to look closer at the number of deaths occurring among Fred Shipman's patients.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  I also love the correlation there, Reynolds, Reynolds pamphlet. It was like we foreshadowed.

• 52:54Ash Kelley?

  I didn't even mean to do that.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  I know you didn't, but.

• 52:56Ash Kelley?

  But that's poetic.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Check that out.

• 52:58Ash Kelley?

  And that's where we're going to end for part one.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm excited to get to part two because I love.

• 53:02Ash Kelley?

  We're going to get him caught.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  When a woman takes a man down.

• 53:03Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, we're going to get this motherfucker caught.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck this guy.

• 53:07Ash Kelley?

  We're going to get him caught, we're going to see him pay.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 53:10Ash Kelley?

  But it's a very interesting case just because of how strange it is and like, you're literally like, why?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, why?

• 53:17Ash Kelley?

  Why are you doing this? Like, again, why did you blow up your whole life and everyone else's?

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Because he thought he was smarter than everybody else. He never thought he was going to blow up his own life.

• 53:26Ash Kelley?

  That god complex will get you every time.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Ego will get you.

• 53:31Ash Kelley?

  Yep. And he is definitely one of those cases.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Well, let's do a fun fact because that is sad that people who were already suffering just died at his hands.

• 53:39Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  So I'm going to tell you that, you know how you feel more creative in the shower?

• 53:43Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  There's something to that. So it says, this is from Google, "Warm water in a quiet, distraction-free environment help lower your stress hormones and trigger relaxed alpha wave states in the brain, which make it easier to think laterally." And then on the same coin, warmth and light routine physical activities can cause modest feel-good releases of dopamine, which support positive mood and cognitive flexibility.

• 54:09Ash Kelley?

  Oh, shit.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  So that's why you're more creative in the shower.

• 54:13Ash Kelley?

  That makes so much sense.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I am more creative in the shower.

• 54:16Ash Kelley?

  I always come up with ideas.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Also, if I've gotten in an argument with anybody recently, I think of the sickest comebacks in the shower.

• 54:22Ash Kelley?

  Oh, my God, that happens to me all the time.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Like, why didn't I say that to their ass?

• 54:26Ash Kelley?

  I know, it pisses me off.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  I know. But that's fun that there's actually something to that.

• 54:30Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  It's fun.

• 54:32Ash Kelley?

  That is a fun fact.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 54:35Ash Kelley?

  You're welcome.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Happy post Halloween and we hope you keep listening.

• 54:39Ash Kelley?

  And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're a doctor with a god complex who kills his patients.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, truly get it together.

• 54:47Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, just like, quit murdering people.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Don't be dumb.

• 56:22Speaker 05

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