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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019
| Contributor Information
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
It is rare for doctors and health professionals to commit murder but when they do, the cases are high profile. Medical murders have been termed 'clinicide' with some theories suggesting a 'god complex' is involved with a thrill from ending suffering and deciding when a patient will die. But how do they get away with it for so long? And how are warning signs missed by colleagues?
These cases can lead to major changes in the law and medical practice. Medscape UK looks at medical murders in the UK and around the world and the lasting impact of the crimes. Sometimes procedures, policies, or laws are tightened. In other cases awareness is raised about what a colleague might being doing undetected.
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Dr Harold Shipman
Wakefield Prison
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Dr Harold Shipman
Dr Harold Shipman was an English general practitioner but also a prolific serial killer of an estimated 250 patients in his care using painkillers. In 2000, a jury found him guilty of 15 sample counts of murder. He killed himself in prison 4 years later. The patients were mostly elderly, and usually women. He was caught because he had forged a victim's will. An official inquiry into the killings by 'Dr Death' resulted in restrictions in GP prescribing and dispensing, more safeguarding over suspicious deaths, and fewer single-handed practices like Shipman's.
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Nurse Beverley Allitt
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Nurse Beverley Allitt
English nurse Beverley Allitt was known as the 'Angel of Death' by the press. She murdered four children and injured nine others over 59 days while working as a State Enrolled Nurse (SEN) on a children's ward in 1991. She used potassium chloride to cause cardiac arrest or insulin to induce hypoglycaemia. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in a secure hospital. She never explained her motive but a factitious disorder was suspected. An inquiry into her murders highlighted understaffing and hospital management failings and urged ";heightened awareness"; of ";malevolent intervention"; in unexplained clinical events.
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'Dr' Crippen
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
'Dr' Crippen
Medical murders are nothing new. 'Dr' Hawley Crippen was hanged in London in 1910 for murdering his wife Cora using poison. He wasn't actually a doctor but an American homeopath and medicine dispenser. New technology at the time - the wireless telegraph - lead to his arrest on a ship in the mid Atlantic. Theories for the reason for the murder include an accidental aphrodisiac overdose or anger at his wife's syphilis diagnosis. Modern, but disputed, DNA analysis of what were believed to be Cora's remains found the body was a male. An attempt by a relative to get Crippen's conviction quashed posthumously was rejected in 2009.
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Niels Hoegel
FOCKE STRANGMANN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Niels Hoegel
Niels Hoegel was a former German nurse jailed for life for murdering 85 of his patients. His 2019 trial followed continuing investigations into earlier convictions. The final death toll could be more than 200, with ages ranging from 34 to 96. He used lethal injections on patients but then appeared to become a hero by trying to revive them. He was caught in 2005 while injecting unprescribed medication. Boredom was offered as a possible explanation for the crimes. Some experts criticised hospitals' security measures and ignoring possible warning signs.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer
GEOFF ROBINS/AFP via Getty Images
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Elizabeth Wettlaufer
Elizabeth Wettlaufer was a nurse convicted of murdering patients at several long-term care homes in Ontario, Canada, using insulin overdoses. She was only caught when she confessed to her therapist in 2016. A report into the killings by a judge made 91 recommendations about what was called a "strained but not broken" system. The recommendations included better oversight of nurses and raising awareness of the risk of serial killings in healthcare.
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Dr William Husel
Mount Carmel Health
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Dr William Husel
Dr William Husel from Ohio in the US is due to face 25 counts of murder in June 2020 for killing sick patients with high doses of opioids. Thirty-five deaths were investigated but charges were only brought where opioids were given 5-10 times greater than normal pain relief dosage. The cases also led to 23 nurses, pharmacists, and managers, who were involved at some level with administering doses, being fired. Additional training was given to others and the Mount Carmel Health System President and CEO, Ed Lamb, resigned. Large compensation payouts have also been made to victims' families. The case highlighted the need for better prescribing guidelines.
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Expert Insight
Dr Caoimhe McAnena
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Expert Insight
So how do they get away with it undetected for so long? Medscape UK asked Dr Caoimhe McAnena, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychology, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London. "Medical professionals are among the most trusted group in society, more than other authority/trusted roles. There is also a huge power imbalance between healthcare professionals and patients which can allow for harmful activity to go overlooked/unnoticed, more so than in other professions. People simply don't question caregiving professionals in the same way."
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God Complex?
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
God Complex?
Is it a 'god complex' or other motivations? Dr McAnena says: "Psychologists don't think about things in terms of 'god complex' but in the underlying psychological mechanisms. I'm not sure how you would define god complex but I might hypothesise that it includes things such as craving control which is often underpinned by feelings of powerlessness.
"Vulnerability of victims is often a factor in violence and abuse – this can elicit feelings of hostility in the killer, perhaps because of how it makes the perpetrator feel, [it] makes them aware of their own vulnerability or a way of distancing themselves from that. So it could be that individuals who begin work in a healthcare setting for other reasons respond emotionally to the vulnerability of those in their care and act out in a cruel or violent way, maybe discovering a pleasure from the abuse and escalating to greater and greater harm, eventually murder."
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Missing Warning Signs
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Medical Murders and Crimes Slideshow
Tim Locke | November 7, 2019 | Contributor Information
Missing Warning Signs
Are there ever personality or behaviour warning signs colleagues may have missed? Dr McAnena says: "Usually [there are] underlying personality traits which contribute to serious offending eg, antisocial (this refers to someone who lacks respect for societal rules and norms, impulsivity, craving stimulation etc rather than being a loner).
"There has been research looking at healthcare killers as 'con men', which found that this is often a significant factor in healthcare killings. This suggests a tendency to deception and manipulation, maybe a pleasure in 'pulling the wool over people's eyes' or getting away with something shocking. These are aspects of psychopathy, which is a constellation of antisocial and narcissistic traits along with cruel and sadistic behavioural tendencies. The key traits are lack of empathy, superficial charm and pathological lying, which may be common in all serial killers, and maybe particularly so among medical serial killers."
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Tim Locke
UK Editor, Medscape
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