The Doctor Who Killed Over 200 People

The revealment of Harold Shipman's heinous crimes committed as a serial killer operating over the course of two decades deeply shocked the people of Britain, with the press furious that the killer had not been stopped sooner. It emerged that another investigation had been instigated against Shipman in the months before his arrest, according to the Guardian. But again, authorities believed Shipman forged paperwork.

However, following Shipman's botched forgery of Grundy's will, her body was exhumed for analysis, and after examiners found abnormally high levels of diamorphine in the deceased woman's system, Shipman was charged with her murder and the forging of her will, per the Guardian. 

With the killer in custody, authorities began investigating the deaths of other Shipman patients. Within months it became clear that the family doctor had been systematically administering lethal doses of painkillers to his patients, after the exhumation and analysis of the bodies of Joan Melia, 73, who died in June 1998, Winifred Mellor, 73, who died in May 1998, Bianka Pomfret, 49, who died in December 1997, according to the Guardian. Shipman was subsequently charged with their murders in October 1998.

Shipman was eventually charged with the murders of 15 women, some of whom had been cremated at the doctor's behest — yet another way he hoped to avoid detection, according to Biography.

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