Introduction

Mrs Kathleen Grundy died on 24^th June 1998 at the age of 81. Shipman certified her death as having been due to old age but scientific analysis of body tissues following exhumation of her body in August 1998 showed that she had died of morphine poisoning.

Personal Background

Mrs Grundy was a widow and lived alone. She was in remarkably good health for her age. She led a busy social life and worked for many charitable organisations, including Age Concern and Werneth House, a day centre for the elderly. She spent the evening before her death with a friend and was in normal health when she went home.

The Circumstances of the Death

In the few days before her death, Shipman had inveigled Mrs Grundy into agreeing to take part in a research project into the ageing process, supposedly to be conducted by Manchester University. This was a ruse by which means he obtained a sample of her signature (which he used in an attempt to forge a will) and also created an excuse to visit her at home. She visited him on 23^rd June, to have her ears syringed, and he told her that he needed a blood sample, for the research project, which must be taken early in the morning. He arranged to visit her at about 8.30am the next morning.

The next day, she was due to attend Werneth House but she did not arrive. Friends and colleagues there became concerned and two of them, Mr John Green and Mr Ronald Pickford, went to her house at about midday. They found her, lying on the sofa, fully dressed. She was dead and her body was cold. The door to the house was unlocked. They summoned Shipman to the house. Following a perfunctory examination of the body, he said 'cardiac arrest'. He had a brief discussion with someone in the coroner's office, in which it was agreed that a certificate, which stated the cause of death to be 'old age', would be acceptable. No record was kept of the conversation with the coroner's office.

When Shipman had left the house, Mr Green informed the police, as he was unable to contact Mrs Grundy's daughter, Mrs Angela Woodruff. The officers concerned (PCs John Fitzgerald and Neil Phillips) spoke to Shipman later. Shipman told them he had called on Mrs Grundy earlier that day because she had been unwell. He did not say he had called to take a blood sample. He said he had spoken with the coroner's office and he was going to issue a certificate stating that Mrs Grundy had died of natural causes. The police officers took a quick look at the body and, on seeing nothing suspicious, took no further action.

The day after the death, Shipman spoke to Mrs Woodruff. He told her that he had seen Mrs Grundy on the day before her death, just for 'a routine thing'. He was vague and mentioned chest pain, possibly due to indigestion. He said he had arranged to collect a blood sample the next morning. When he arrived, she was not yet dressed. He then said that some old people complain of feeling unwell a few days before they die and then just die. He implied that this had happened to Mrs Grundy. He handed Mrs Woodruff the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) and said that he had certified the death as being due to old age.

The Defence Case

Shipman's account of this death, which the jury must have rejected, was that for some time he had suspected that Mrs Grundy might be abusing drugs. He claimed that he had become concerned about her general health. He decided he would like to take a blood sample in order to check for diabetes and anaemia and suchlike. When she came into the surgery on 23^rd June, he thought she looked in poor health and he decided to do extensive tests. He arranged to visit her the next morning to take a blood sample. This had to be available for collection before 11am, so he visited at 8.30am. She was dressed in her housecoat. She looked old and moved slowly. He took the sample and left. That morning he was so busy he forgot to send the sample for testing. He threw it away, thinking that he would have to obtain another. (It should be noted that in interview with the police he claimed that he had sent the sample to the laboratory but they had lost it.) Soon after midday, he was summoned to Mrs Grundy's house, where he did a full examination of the body and found she was dead. She was wearing different clothes from when he had seen her earlier, implying that she must have dressed herself after he left. He thought she had been dead since about 10am. When confronted with the results of the forensic tests following the post-mortem examination, Shipman suggested that Mrs Grundy must have administered the morphine to herself.

Neighbours and relatives gave evidence that Mrs Grundy would never have left the door unlocked. She was very conscious of the need for security. If she had not left the door unlocked herself after letting Shipman out, the inference was that Shipman must have let himself out of the house after killing her and had been unable to lock the door behind him.

There was no record of a blood sample being received at the pathology laboratory.

The Expert Evidence

Dr Rutherford, the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem examination, found no natural explanation for Mrs Grundy's death. She had been in good health. Scientific analysis of the body tissues revealed levels of morphine consistent with the administration of a fatal dose.

Dr John Grenville said that there were a number of false entries in the medical records. These had been created after the death to give credence to Shipman's stories first that Mrs Grundy was under the weather when he saw her on 23^rd June and second that Mrs Grundy had been abusing drugs and might have administered the morphine herself. These false records comprised veiled expressions of his supposed suspicion that Mrs Grundy was taking drugs and of his supposed decision not to confront her with his suspicions.

The Forging of the Will

Shipman's attempt at forging Mrs Grundy's will was crude and hopelessly incompetent.

First, he sought to obtain the whole of Mrs Grundy's substantial estate, leaving nothing to her well-loved daughter and grandchildren. Second, he chose to forge the will of a woman whose daughter was a solicitor, who might therefore be expected to know something about her mother's previous testamentary arrangements. Third, he drafted the will using his own old-fashioned Brother portable typewriter. When the police came to Shipman's premises and took possession of the typewriter, the will was immediately linked to him. The product looked thoroughly unprofessional and it was wholly foreseeable that it would arouse suspicion.

Fourth, Shipman forged Mrs Grundy's signature and dated the will 9^th June 1998. On that day, he staged a 'signing and witnessing' event in his consulting room. He must have prepared a document for Mrs Grundy to sign, which purported to provide for her consent to take part in some medical research supposedly to be conducted by Manchester University. This document required that Mrs Grundy's signature should be witnessed by two others, who also had to sign and provide their names, addresses and occupations. While Mrs Grundy was at Shipman's surgery on 9^th June, Shipman appears to have obtained her signature on this document and then called two patients from his waiting room into the consulting room where they completed and signed the witnesses' part of the document. Shipman must then have copied the three signatures as well as he could. The forgeries were obviously poor and would have aroused suspicion even from a non-expert. Expert evidence soon proved them to be forgeries.

Fifth, Shipman delivered the forged will with a covering letter to a firm of solicitors in Hyde with whom Mrs Grundy had had no previous dealings. The solicitor who opened the letter was very puzzled and put it to one side. He had received it on 24^th June 1998. Only six days later he received another letter, apparently signed by someone called Smith, who did not exist. This had been written by Shipman on his own typewriter. It informed the solicitor of Mrs Grundy's death and advised him that her daughter could be contacted at Mrs Grundy's house. The solicitor contracted Mrs Woodruff and sent her the will. She was immediately suspicious and set in train the investigations which led to the detection of Shipman's crimes.

Comment

This was a clear case of morphine poisoning, proved by the post-mortem results. Even leaving that evidence out of account, there are a number of noteworthy features:

• This was a very sudden death of an elderly person in good health. It was discovered shortly after a visit from Shipman during which he was alone with her.
  
  
• Shipman claimed or implied that Mrs Grundy must have left the door unlocked after letting him out. This is a feature of other cases where Shipman has been unable to leave the security system in the condition in which relatives would have expected.
  
  
• The medical records had been falsified to show that Mrs Grundy was unwell just before her death and that Shipman had suspected her of drug abuse. Even so, they still showed that Mrs Grundy had been in good general health and had no potentially fatal conditions or increased risk factors.
  
  
• The cause of death, 'old age', was quite inappropriate for a person who had been in such good health.