Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Working Late Pt. 6: Medical Professionals

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

In this chilling conclusion to our Working Late series, we're diving into the frightening world of medical professionals who killed again and again. And this wasn't just malpractice — these healers from hell delighted in their power, and got away with it for years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode features discussions of murder, medical malpractice, mental health conditions, addiction, and the misuse of prescription drugs that may be upsetting. We advise extreme caution for listeners under 13. No one likes going to the doctor, but there's a strange solace in the bare white walls and pressing silence of the waiting room. Soon you hope you'll find the answers you're looking for. If you're a new parent, these visits can be especially nerve-wracking.

The tiniest cough or sniffle from the baby sets off a cascade of panic. That's one of the reasons you make the appointments in the first place, to calm your raging nerves. When your name is finally called, you stand up and gather the diaper bag, along with the pacifier, your baby let slip to the floor. In just a few moments, you think everything's going to be okay. A nurse leads you to the exam room. You remember her from your last visit. She's kind and efficient. You don't bat an eye when she asked to take your baby for a couple of routine tests.

As she lifts the child from your arms, cooing to them in a soft, teary voice, you wave from your seat in front of the doctor's desk. What you don't realize is that you've just handed your child to a predator, a monster masquerading as a healer, and now she's got her next victim. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. Welcome to the sixth and final episode of Working Late, our special series on some of the most popular jobs held by serial killers. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Typically, we dive into the minds and madness of a single killer and track their progression from childhood into violent adulthood. But this series is a little different. We're diving deep into the science. psychology behind six vocations that serial killers are drawn to and looking at chilling examples of the psychology in action. Today, we're focusing our attention on perhaps the most disturbing

field a serial killer can work in, medicine. We'll dig into what drives some doctors and nurses to kill and how they're able to hide in plain sight. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring you, for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So if you're hiring, I've got news for you. You can skip the lengthy investigation and the tiresome process of sorting through hundreds of resumes. Just use ZipRecruiter. Try for free.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava. Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. So far in this series, we've looked at the wide range of popular careers that attract serial killers.

Some jobs invite or even encourage violence, while others seem more or less harmless from the outside. But today, we're taking a look at an industry tasked with saving lives, not taking them. We trust doctors, nurses, and paramedics to take care of us, to heal us. We literally put our lives in their hands. For a soulless killer, the medical field must feel like an open invitation to indulge their darkest desires. Before we continue with the psychology for this episode, Please keep in mind that neither Vanessa nor I are licensed psychologists or psychiatrists, but we've done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

At the heart of medicine is an implicit bond between patients and doctors. A 2020 Gallup poll found that nurses and medical doctors were the two most trusted professions in the United States. The results marked the 19th consecutive year that these jobs topped the list. But this trusting relationship doesn't always find. feel like a fair exchange. A doctor has to have faith that their patient is willing to tell the truth about their medical history and will follow through with the treatment. But the patient is asked to trust that their doctor is honest, understands the medicine they're prescribing,

and that they really want to heal in the first place. We often take it for granted that medical professionals are who they claim to be. That's certainly easier today, with governing bodies around to ensure, at least theoretically, that impostors don't slip through the cracks. But that wasn't always the case. In the past, anyone could say they were a medical professional, then used the prestige as an excuse to kill with impunity. Like Linda Hazard, who called herself a doctor, then purported to have discovered a miracle cure-all. In the early 1900s, Hazard published a book called Fasting for the Cure of Disease. The effects were deadly. Desperate people flocked to Hazard for a chance to be cured of chronic conditions, and she put them all on

horrifying fasts. Usually her patients were only allowed to drink tiny amounts of tomato juice with the occasional teaspoon of orange juice thrown in. All the while, Hazard subjected these people to, quote-unquote, massages, which were more like brutal beatings that left bruises. She also insisted they endure painful enemas to flush so-called toxins from their bodies. Hazard attracted scores of patience and loyal followers, but in the end, she was connected to the starving deaths of more than a dozen people. Her excuse was that every death had been due to illnesses or pre-existing conditions the patients had concealed from her. Under the umbrella term of clinocide, hazard falls into the category of treatment killers. According to psychologist Robert M. Kaplan,

these are medical killers who appear to be inept rather than malicious. Despite a clear lack of skill in their field, they're usually too arrogant to acknowledge their mistakes. However, like many serial killers, Hazard didn't fit neatly into one category. A treatment killer typically presents no clear motive, but Hazard stole from some of her patients. She even made her wealthy victims change their wills to make her the sole beneficiary of their estates. That's certainly more sinister than a doctor who's just bad at what they do. No matter the underlying motivation, what doesn't seem to change when it comes to these angels of death are their victims. They're almost always patients. And while other killers we've covered sometimes use their jobs to find easy

targets, medical murderers almost always prey on the people they're paid to save. They don't just do their jobs and kill on the side. They use their professions as a mask to hide the monster lurking within. Why that is varies, but it's typically a combination of several factors. The most obvious is that many patients under medical care are too frail, old, or weak to raise the alarm. Even when they do suspect their doctor or nurse of trying to harm them, there's every chance they won't be believed. The insidious problem of being ignored by doctors is one women experience more often than men, and it isn't restricted to serial murderers.

When asked about gaslighting in health care, Dr. Jennifer Hermina Mierrez suggested that perhaps some doctors and nurses inadvertently misinterpret context. clues that lead to mistakes. At the same time, some chronic pain conditions are written off as psychosomatic. So if a patient who have spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals, starts complaining about their treatment, the staff might assume paranoia is just another symptom of their illness. From 2007 to 2016, Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wetloffer relied on exactly this tactic to murder

undetected. While working in nursing homes, she injected 14. patients with insulin overdoses, killing eight of them. Crucially, Wetlofer mostly targeted patients with dementia. She knew that if they survived the overdose, any accusations they made were more likely to be dismissed. That's just one example of how and why patient concerns are tossed aside, and for the worst medical murderers, the blind trust we place in doctors is nothing more than a license

to slaughter. For example, Marcel Petio used his status as a doctor. doctor in Nazi-occupied France to lure in unsuspecting victims. He posed as a member of the French resistance, claiming that he could help Jewish people escape Paris for a price. Once his customers paid him whatever they could, Petio sat them down to administer a vaccine before they left for a tropical climate. But his syringe was filled with poison. The terrified customers died right there in Petio's basement, and the devious doctor pocketed their money, along with whatever valuables they'd packed for the journey.

Some estimates suggest that as many as 150 people died at Petio's hands, desperate to escape Nazi persecution. They placed their faith in his reputation as a physician and his promise to help. But it wasn't just profit that drove Petio's killing spree, perhaps even more than the money, he was attracted to the feeling of power. It's common to hear people say that those in positions of power have God complexes, and that's a fairly apt description for some working in the medical field. Typically, the term describes someone who views others as lower than themselves.

They rarely, if ever, accept responsibility for their blunders, mostly because they don't believe it's possible they ever could make a mistake. In that way, it's easy to see people like Linda Hazard as likely having, a god complex. But other killers, like Marcel Petio, have a slightly different mindset. They just don't care if their slip-ups cost lives. Viewing themselves as deities who deigned to share their gifts with the world, people like Petio love to feel unrivaled power of taking a life. Some choose knives or guns, others choose syringes. Whatever the weapon of choice, it usually comes back to the same thing. Though not specifically defined by the DSM-5, a gun

God complex closely aligns with the term familiar to longtime listeners of this show, narcissistic personality disorder. This officially recognized condition is hallmarked by a lack of empathy, a pattern of grandiosity, and a near constant need for admiration. If you take a person like that and give them unfettered access to helpless patients and lethal drugs, it's a recipe for disaster. It's also the thing health care regulations are designed to prevent. But unfortunately, things don't always work the way they're supposed to.

Sometimes hospital bureaucracy gets in the way, and other times, simple negligence allows murderers to go unchecked. We'll spend the rest of this episode looking at two trained healers who killed their patients for years or even decades before the truth finally came to light. Coming up, the ICU nurse in charge of her very own death shift. Once upon a time I thought I met Mr. Wright. The only problem, he was a huge liar. You were going out of your mind because you couldn't figure it out. I'm Abby Ellen.

Join me as I tell the story of one con man who entangled his lovers, friends, coworkers, family, and me in an identity fraud scheme that stretched all the way to the Pentagon. Season two of Impostors, The Commander, a Spotify original from Parcast, premieres Monday, September 13th. Follow and listen exclusively on Spotify. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now a horrifying news story. When medical professionals get away with murder, we often assume that they're deliberately gaming the health care system to work for them. And sometimes that's exactly the case.

But occasionally, a killer gets away with their crimes for so long because the system is already rigged in their favor. They don't need to be cunning, only cold and merciless. Both of those words might have described Janine Jones as a teenager. At least, that's what some of the students who went to school with their thoughts, thought. She worked at the school library and had no qualms about calling other kids out when they weren't doing things just right. And it seems that lust for control carried over into her adult life. After she married her high school sweetheart, 18-year-old Jones took a job as a beautician at San Antonio's Methodist Hospital Beauty Parlor. It's possible that this was her way of correcting the mistakes

she saw in the women around her. With her practiced hand, she could paint their faces just as she wanted to get them right. As far as we can tell, Jones didn't have direct contact with patients at the hospital, though it's possible her time there inspired her later career. In the late 70s, she enrolled in a vocational nursing program, where she excelled. She earned high grades across the board, and at the end of the year, she passed her exam to become a licensed vocational nurse, or LVN.

There are several differences between an LVN and a registered nurse, or RN, But in general, LVNs go through a less rigorous training program and must work under the supervision of a medical doctor or an RN. So despite her propensity for directing others, Jones was facing a career of taking orders. By the time she started working in the pediatric intensive care unit of a hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Jones was a mother to two young children. It's possible she gave off a more maternal vibe to some. But then again, maybe not. In the year since she'd graduated from nursing school, Jones had burnt bridges at two previous jobs.

This was her third. These days, the facility is known as University Hospital, but when Jones joined the staff in late 1978, it was the Bayer County Hospital. While some of her colleagues admired her nursing skills and intelligence, others described Jones as loud and overbearing. She certainly made a strong first impression in the ICU. According to an RN who worked with her, Jones broke down on her first day at the hospital when a six-day-old baby died following surgery. After a histrionic outpouring of grief, Jones apparently pulled a stool into the child's cubicle and stared at the dead body. Though it was a bizarre reaction, no one dreamed it was a sign of anything more troubling

than an overly emotional woman. As a nurse, compassion is definitely an asset, but in this case, it might have been a sign that Jones wasn't cut out for such a high stakes role, not when there were at least seven other children who needed around-the-clock attention and time-sensitive care. The major problem was that Bear County was a teaching hospital. This meant a large number of doctors were recent graduates, and that none of them worked full-time in the pediatric ICU. The nurses were left as the most consistent staff in the ward. And Jones was proud to be among their number. She was a curious, determined woman with an impressive knowledge of anatomy and physiology. She even had a reputation for being able to insert IVs into any

patient, a skill not every nurse and doctor masters. In fact, she was famous within the hospital for it. But that wasn't all she got a reputation for her. After a while, the doctors came to resent Jones for the sheer number of problems she found with her patients. Sometimes she was right and the doctors had missed something. Other times, she wasn't. One resident said it felt like Jones just wanted attention. When she didn't get the result she wanted, Jones made veiled threats to the hospital's rotating cast of doctors and interns. She'd predict that if her instructions were ignored, the child in question would surely die. Then at the end of her shifts, she would repeat similar warnings to her fellow nurses, preparing them for a rough eight hours ahead. Eventually, Jones directly sought out the most difficult patients.

She demanded she be assigned to the sickest of the ICU's children. seemingly confident that she alone could keep them alive. At the same time, she forced herself into emergency situations and seemed an ever-present figure when a patient was in a life-threatening episode. Her intrusions were all the more unbearable whenever a young patient died. Each and every time, Jones was inconsolable. She'd wait with the dead children until the parents arrived, cradling their lifeless forms, singing and talking to them,

Just like during her first day on the job, people found her behavior a little unusual, though not too troubling. But there was something going on at Bear County that no one could see. In 1981, 10 children died after, quote, unexpected events. That's a term used in reports to describe unpredictable emergencies that aren't in line with a patient's condition. These deadly incidents seem to come from nowhere, leaving the ICU's staff at a low. Eventually, those sorts of events became commonplace, occurring every day or two throughout much of 1981 and 1982, though not all proved fatal. Through it all, there were whispers about Jones.

Some people suspected she had something to do with the unexplainable emergencies and tragic deaths. Nurses would finish their shift and leave behind a stable patient. The next day, after Jones intervened, the child was dead. In fact, a lot of children seemed to die while she was on duty. Many of the deaths had troubling similarities, too. Children would bleed from healing wounds, needle punctures, even their mouths and rectums. It caused their blood pressure to drop severely, leading to sometimes fatal cardiac arrest.

Despite the suspicious circumstances, the ICU's head nurse, Pat Belko, initially dismissed her colleague's concerns. Jones was too caring a person, too good a nurse, to have any person. anything to do with the deaths. But eventually, the coincidences were too much to ignore, and the ICU's administrators launched a quiet investigation. Some of the doctors suspected that someone in the unit was administering too much heparin, an anticoagulant used to stop blood clotting at the site of IV lines. An overdose of the drug could explain the phantom bleeding.

However, there was no hard evidence of any wrongdoing, until a doctor decided to test the theory When a child showed signs of the bleeding that had plagued the ICU for months, they tested the boy for heparin, and the results proved he had a large dose in his system. The child was moved out of the ICU and made a full recovery. Even with their suspicions confirmed, no one knew what to do. In January of 1982, a meeting between hospital administrators and a malpractice attorney was held to discuss Jones. They decided that firing her without hard evidence could potentially open them up to a lawsuit, and going to the district attorney would invite more legal fights with the parents of the dead children. So they opted to continue investigating, but didn't remove Jones from the ICU.

Well, not at first. But that March, a decision was made to remove every LVN from the hospital's pediatric ICU and replaced them with registered nurses. Afraid of the repercussions of singling out Jones, the hospital's they were upgrading the unit. All the LVNs were promised other jobs at the hospital and good recommendations should they choose to move on. And that's how medical murderers can get away with their crimes. In an industry increasingly plagued by legal battles and rising insurance premiums, some hospitals choose to brush suspected killers aside to protect themselves. They pass the buck, afraid of getting caught in the fray, and sometimes allowing murderers to continue. their crimes unimpeded.

Which was exactly what happened with Janine Jones. Soon after hearing the news about the ICU, she accepted an offer to work at a new practice in nearby Kerrville. The wealthy town had a largely aging population, with little pediatric care, but that didn't deter Jones. She seemed determined to prove her worth to the small community when she started her new job in August of 1982.

When one of the practices' first patients came in, Jones offered to look after the 14-month-old girl so her mother could speak to the doctor in peace. But just minutes later, little Chelsea McClellan stopped breathing and had a seizure. Jones called the doctor for help. They stabilized the infant and got her to the hospital, where she made a full recovery. From that moment on, Jones was a savior. Even when Chelsea died, about a month later,

after Jones injected her with what she claimed were routine vaccines, no one seemed to bat an eye. Sure, it was tragic, but not all bad things have an explanation. Chelsea McClellan wasn't the only young patient who needed emergency help from Jones, however. Over the next several months, multiple children exhibiting few or no signs of distress, experienced sudden seizures or stopped breathing, while Jones administered IVs or drugs. The pattern was alarming, especially to the local hospital staff who saw every patient Jones brought in, No one could find an explanation for the seizures, breathing issues, or cardiac arrests, but people eventually started putting things together.

After the local hospital started asking questions about Jones, the Board of Vocational Nurse Examiners was the first to take meaningful action to stop her. They called in the Texas Rangers. Eventually, Jones was investigated and indicted by a grand jury. She was charged with the murder of Chelsea McClellan, as well as several counts of injury to a child. Soon, her chilling methods were revealed. According to testimony from one eyewitness,

Jones injected some of the curvil patients with a drug succinicoline, a muscle relaxant that leaves humans conscious but unable to breathe. The drug was believed impossible to detect an embalmed body tissue, so there was little chance of anyone linking physical evidence to Jones' crimes. But just a year later, in May of 1983, A Swedish physician used a novel method to find traces of the drug in dead bodies. The breakthrough gave authorities a reason to exhume Chelsea McClellan. The test was positive, sealing Jones's fate.

In all, it's believed that Janine Jones was responsible for upwards of 60 deaths during her time as a pediatric nurse. However, few records remain that could conclusively tie her or her employers to most of them. Still, after her conviction in 1984, she was sentenced to 99 years behind bars for the murder of 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan. In 2020, she pleaded guilty to the murder of a patient in Bear County Hospital and was given a life sentence. Jones was a murderer who was enabled by an industry designed to protect her patients. But at her first murder trial, prosecutors argued that Jones injected her patients with life-threatening and fatal drugs for a noble reason. They claimed she was trying to demonstrate an urgent need for a pediatric ICU in Kerrville. Others theorized that perhaps the nurse wanted to create medical emergencies so that she could

swoop in and save the day, thus making herself the hero of the story. Experts on medical serial killers might label Jones a malignant hero. This particular breed of medical murderer seeks attention or may try to benefit from their actions and earn glory for themselves. But not every serial killer who dawns scrubs wants the same things Janine Jones did. Some claim they want to ease their patient suffering, whether they're asked to or not. These killers are called angels of death. Coming up, the worst serial killer the UK has ever known. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglis, a once-monthly treatment for moderate-tissaphyr Exema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four and seven people taking

Ebbglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Ebglis, Librikizumab, LBKZ. A 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Epglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if

you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epgless. Before starting Epglus, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebglis.com or call 1-800 LilyRx or 1-800-545-9. Now murder most foul. Two hundred of them. In his paper, the clinicide phenomenon and exploration of medical murder, Dr. Robert Kaplan writes, many clinical doctors have extreme narcissistic personalities, a grandiose view of their own capability and an inability to accept that they could be criticized or need assistance from other doctors. Such doctors get a vicarious thrill out of ending suffering and by determining when a person dies.

That statement could have been written about Dr. Harold Shipman, also known as England's Dr. Death. Shipman's career began in 1970 when he graduated from Leeds University Medical School. That same year, the 24-year-old took a job as a pre-registration house officer at Pontefract General Infirmary, basically a junior doctor position open to new graduates. It seems Shipman was keen to get hands-on experience as quickly as he could, though it's possible that desire wasn't restricted to just his medical training. Like so many medical killers, the problem with tracing Shipman's murders is that by the time anyone noticed what he'd done, it was too late to find supporting evidence.

But Shipman's former colleagues noted an unusually high number of deaths during his tenure at the infirmary. One nurse recalled seeing empty injection packets in some of the dead patient's rooms, though she didn't think anything of it at the time. But given what we know about Shipman's M.O., there's a good chance at least some of these people were early victims of Dr. Death. You see, Shipman was potentially motivated by the concept of mercy, at least early on. Mercy killing is when a doctor, nurse, or carer helps a patient pass on, usually by using large doses of pain-killing drugs. When this is done with the patient's full understanding and consent, it's typically known as euthanasia.

but not every doctor is worried about the wishes of their charges. That's why, when talking about killers known as Angels of Death, mercy is the furthest thing from our minds. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carol Lieberman suggested that some angels of death may be acting out trauma from their childhood, such as a parent who lingered for months before they died. That perfectly described Shipman's experience as a teenager when his mother, Vera, slowly died from lung cancer.

Following her diagnosis, local doctors regularly stopped by the Shipman home to check on Vera and sometimes offer her drugs for her pain. Shipman watched as his mother, who usually struggled to breathe, grew calm and peaceful once the morphine hit her veins. It's likely this was a defining moment in his life and helps us understand why he might have started killing his patients. It's entirely possible that Shipman started using pain killers on his early patients at the infirmary, hoping to ease their suffering in the same way village doctors had done for his mother.

But if this was the case, it would seem the young doctor got doses wrong, or found some kind of pleasure in controlling his victims. In 1975, just five years after he left medical school, Shipman worked as an assistant general practitioner in the small town of Todd Morden. That was when he decided to commit his first confirmed murder. His victim was Ava Lyons, who was living with cancer. Shipman stopped by her house to check on her the night before her 71st birthday. He decided to administer some painkillers to help her rest.

Except he didn't stop when he should have. He intentionally gave Eva an overdose of opiates, then joined her husband for a nice cup of coffee. He returned to Ava's room a short time later and announced that she was dead. Because she'd been suffering from cancer, everyone attributed Ava's death to the disease, exactly as Shipman intended. He certified her death without ordering an autopsy, and that was the end of that.

He'd gotten away with murder, and it was far from the last time. Shipman's second known murder was about three years later. By 1978, he moved to the village of Hyde and built a reputation as a reliable, friendly doctor. It was just a facade. In August of that year, Shipman murdered 86-year-old Sarah Marsland during what he claimed was a routine visit. Sarah's sister had recently died, and Shipman explained that her grief was causing her physical pain, so he helped her move to the bed in the hopes she would be more comfortable. As soon as she lay down, however, she passed away.

At least, that's what Shipman said. At the time, the story sounded plausible enough, especially from the village's beloved doctor. But now we know that Shipman administered what was likely a fatal dose of opiates. Then he documented her cause of death as coronary thrombosis and moved on. Here's where we start to see the gradual shift in Shipman's initial M.O. Though Ava Lyons didn't ask her doctor to assist her death, it's clear that she was suffering physical pain. With Sarah Marsland, however, it's likely that Shipman decided that emotional pain was enough of a reason to administer his brand of mercy.

For years, Harold Shipman followed the same casual, seeming undetectable M.O. He visited patients in their homes and gave them an injection of pain killers to make them more comfortable. Then he hung around as they died, making sure it looked like a peaceful, natural death. He carefully selected victims who had some kind of terminal illness and always made sure he'd built up a level of trust before going in for the kill. Because not only did his patients need to trust him to come into their homes, their families needed to believe him once the murder was complete. Despite this careful planning, not all of Shipman's victims fit as usual mold. Moira Fox was a 77-year-old resident of a small retirement community, and besides the occasional

complaints of aches and pains, she was in perfect health. But in June of 1983, Shipman decided it was Moira's time to go. In the clinicide phenomenon, Dr. Robert Kaplan writes, quote, when doctors turn on patients because they derive some perverse pleasure from the act of killing, they tend to be prolific murderers, not surprising in view of their access to both trusting victims and the easy means to dispatch them. In other words, it's possible that Shipman was no longer killing patients out of mercy

and was instead simply indulging an impulse he'd long since come to enjoy. And with each murder, it only became easier. Though he preferred victims who were already terminal, Shipman easily covered his tracks when they weren't. For patients like Moira Fox, he returned to their files and falsified records of some kind of illness or condition that would make their death less suspicious. The apparently peaceful deaths of Shipman's victims

also helped him avoid suspicion. There were no signs of struggle and no injuries to document. It seems nearly every one of them was found dead in an armchair or lying in bed, the picture of someone who just slipped away when their time came. But someone as careful as Harold Shipman didn't stop his scheming after the murders. Once that part was taken care of, he recommended his late patients be cremated. The reason he gave to the families isn't clear, but his own reasoning is easy to spot. He was literally incinerating the evidence.

By following his tried and true methods, Shipman carried on killing for more than 20 long years. It wasn't until 1998 that other doctors, in tandem with the local few, funeral director, brought their concerns to the police. But someone tipped Shipman off to the fact that he was being investigated, so he laid low. For several months, he refrained from killing any more patients, essentially starving the authorities of fresh evidence. Without that, the investigation stalled and was closed. Less than a month later, in the summer of 1998, Shipman returned to his old ways, free to kill with impunity. But that same year, he also finally made a catastrophic mistake. He decided it was time

to profit from his crimes, and he set his sights on a wealthy widow, 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy. Shipman forged a new will for Kathleen, who was healthy, active, and much-loved in town. Then he went to Kathleen's home and injected her with a fatal dose of morphine. In trying to cover his tracks as usual, shipmen backdated notes in Kathleen's file to document a false opioid addiction. That way he'd be in the clear if anyone ever smelled trouble. But his method of murder was just one of many red flags his actions raised. He was getting sloppy. He told Kathleen's loved ones that she had died of a heart attack,

but on her death certificate, he attributed her passing to old age. Then, when he tried to execute the forged will, Kathleen's daughter, a lawyer, raised the alarm. A new investigation was launched, and in August, Kathleen's body was exhumed. Tess confirmed she died of a morphine overdose. Meanwhile, investigators found the typewriter Shipman used to create the forged will, as well as Kathleen's faked medical records. The jig was finally up.

Though it took authorities some time to realize Shipman was responsible for more than one murder, they got there eventually. In the end, he was linked to at least 218, deaths, though it's estimated he killed as many as 250 patients during his medical career. That disturbing total made Shipman England's most prolific serial killer, and to think, he masqueraded as a doctor the entire time. When he sentenced Shipman to life imprisonment, the judge said, None of your victims realized that yours was not a healing touch.

None of your victims realized that you brought her death, death which was disguised as the carrying attention of a good doctor. And that's the part that makes serial killers in the medical field so terrifying. When you go to see the doctor, you expect that what they're telling you is built on sound evidence and truth. You trust that they genuinely want to help you, and most of them do. But there's a bad apple in every bushel. The same applies to each of the careers we've discussed in this special.

Not every police officer, truck driver, laborer, entrepreneur, or soldier is a lot of the a serial killer. But each of those jobs offers opportunities for monsters to hide in plain sight. Part of what allows serial killers to remain undetected for so long are our unconscious biases towards certain career paths. Earlier we pointed out that nurses have typically been the most trusted profession in the United States, but we know people like Elizabeth Wetloffer and Janine Jones exploit that trust for their own gain. In our episode on Laborers, we explored how those working in underappreciated professions can easily slip through the cracks unnoticed. It's all too easy for someone to sneak up on their victims and hide the evidence when everyone

else is averting their eyes. It's important to look at stories from every angle, to think critically about the different experiences of others, and to listen when you hear things that challenge your bias. If this series has taught us anything, it's that we should always be looking closely at the people we work with, work for, or employ. workplace safety isn't just about wet floor signs and proper lighting. Too often, it's a matter of life and death. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

We'll be back next time with a brand new story. For more information on Janine Jones, amongst the many sources we used, we found Peter Alkind's reporting for Texas Monthly, extremely helpful to our research. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify, original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Carrie Murphy,

with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, Joshua Kern and Aaron Larson. This episode of serial killers was written by Joel Callan, with writing assistance by Terrell Wells and Kate Gallagher, fact-checking by Bennett Logan, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial Killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hixed. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat.

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