Harold Eddleston, a seventy-seven-year-old from Greater Manchester, was still reeling from a cancer diagnosis he had been given that week when, on a Saturday morning in February, 1998, he received the worst possible news. He would have to face the future alone: his beloved wife had died unexpectedly, from a heart attack.
Eddleston’s daughter, concerned for his health, called their family doctor, a well-respected local man named Harold Shipman. He came to the house, sat with her father, held his hand, and spoke to him tenderly. Pushed for a prognosis as he left, Shipman replied portentously, “I wouldn’t buy him any Easter eggs.” By Wednesday, Eddleston was dead; Dr. Shipman had murdered him.
Harold Shipman was one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In a twenty-three-year career as a mild-mannered and well-liked family doctor, he injected at least two hundred and fifteen of his patients with lethal doses of opiates. He was finally arrested in September, 1998, six months after Eddleston’s death.
More here – The New Yorker
