Killers - The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time (26 page)

A sufferer from cerebral palsy, Susan Garfitt had been admitted to Pontefract General Infirmary on 11 October 1972 with pneumonia. Her mother, Ann Garfitt, recalled Dr Shipman telling her in a soothing voice that the child was going to die and that further medication would only prolong her suffering. After asking him to be kind to the child, Mrs Garfitt went for a cup of tea. When she returned, a nurse told her that Susan had died. Looking back, she wondered whether Shipman had taken her request for kindness as tacit consent to performing euthanasia on her child. In the circumstances, the inquiry decided that Shipman had probably given the child a lethal injection. Other serial killers who have worked in health care often warn that a patient is going to die before killing them.

In three cases – 86-year-old Butterfield Hammill, 57-year-old Cissie MacFarlane and 49-year-old Edith Swift – Shipman had administered inappropriate treatment injecting ‘dangerously large doses of a sedative drug’.

‘There is some evidence that he liked to test the boundaries of certain forms of treatment,’ said Dame Janet. ‘It is quite likely that some of the deaths Shipman caused resulted from experimentation with drugs.’

In her opinion many of these patients would have died anyway, perhaps within a few hours, but Shipman’s drug experiments hastened their deaths. These deaths usually occurred during the evening shift when there were fewer medical personnel around to see him at work. Then he made unusual entries in their medical records, including strange comments on their deaths. There were also notations that were similar to those seen on the notes of patients he was convicted of killing. Shipman mocked his patients, dismissing them with the abreviations FTPBI (Failed To Put Brain In) and WOW (Whining Old Woman).

In all, Dame Janet positively identified 218 victims, though 45 cases might merit further investigation, making a total that could exceed 260. However, the final report has discounted the claim of former prisoner Jonathan Harkin that Shipman confessed to 508 murders while he was held in prison in Preston.

The report also criticised the Greater Manchester Police, saying that ‘three of Harold Shipman’s victims could have been saved if police had investigated properly’. An internal inquiry was also found to be ‘quite inadequate’. The police later apologised to the families of Shipman’s last three victims.

Dame Janet also criticised the coroners, saying that, in future, they ‘would be backed by a team of expert investigators to ensure that a homicidal doctor such as Shipman would not be able to exploit the system again’.

The enquiry also found that the post-mortem examination of 47-year-old Renate Overton, who lingered in a coma for over a year after Shipman gave her a lethal injection in 1994, was inadequate and there should have been an inquest. Dame Jane said: ‘Had the circumstances of her admission to hospital been fully investigated at that time, there is a real possibility that it would have been appreciated that Shipman had deliberately administered a lethal dose of morphine – it was a missed opportunity.’

Shipman claimed over a hundred more victims after Mrs Overton died on 21 April 1995.

Shipman maintained his innocence to the end, though he enjoyed being the star turn at his trial. At 6 a.m. on 13 January 2004, he was found hanging in his cell at Wakefield jail. An inquiry found that he had committed suicide using bed sheets tied to the bars of his cell window. He was not on suicide watch, though he had been at Durham jail beforehand. He had been moved to Wakefield the previous June to make it easier for his wife to visit him.

It was said that Shipman was ‘obnoxious and arrogant to the prison staff. Just before Christmas his enhanced status was reduced to basic. He was deprived of the television set in his cell and had to wear prison uniform rather than his own clothes’. However, some privileges had been restored shortly before he died.

‘He was showing no signs whatsoever of pre-suicidal behaviour at all,’ said a spokesman.

Shipman’s wife and four children never accepted that he was guilty. They even believed that he had been murdered in his cell.

With Shipman dead, the reason he killed will never be known. The murders seemed to provide no sexual thrill. There were no signs of violence, no hint of sadistic excitement. And, except in the case of Kathleen Grundy, there was no apparent motive. Serial killers often like to toy with their terrified victims, to glory in their power over them. But Shipman’s victims did not know what was happening to them. They all seem to have died peacefully, often in their own homes in surroundings where they felt safe.

Some psychiatrists speculate that he hated older women, often saying that the elderly were a drain on the National Health Service. Others feel he had a deep masochistic need to re-create the scenario of his mother’s death – though an unshakeable belief in their own superiority is not usually a trait found in masochists.

Dr Richard Badcock, a psychiatrist at Rampton High Security Hospital, spoke at length with Shipman after the conviction. He believed that ‘Shipman’s choice of career might have been influenced by his developing tendencies towards necrophilia, perhaps originally triggered by the death of his mother from cancer when he was 17’. Having complete control over life and death ‘can give a sense of power and omnipotent invulnerability in itself’, Dr Badcock theorised.

The fact that he left so many clues have led some to believe that Shipman wanted to be found out and stopped, as if he was fighting a compulsion he could not control. On the other hand, his sense of superiority may have led him to believe that he could do whatever he wanted without fear of discovery. But there is a contradiction inherent in that too. He must have known that he was not as clever as he made out as he had already been caught forging prescriptions and stockpiling drugs.

South Manchester coroner John Pollard speculated that Shipman ‘simply enjoyed viewing the process of dying and enjoyed feeling the control over life and death’, while the official report simply stated that he was ‘addicted to killing’ in the way he was addicted to painkillers around the time the murders started.

Chapter 19

Columbine

Names: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

Nationality: American

Age: 19 and 17

Reign of terror: 20 April 1999

Number of victims: 13 killed, 23 injured

Favoured method of killing: shooting

Final note: ‘Good wombs hath borne bad sons’

At 11.10 a.m. on 20 April 1999, 19-year-old Eric Harris drove into the student car park at Columbine High School in Littleton, a suburb of Denver, Colorado and parked his 1986 grey Honda Civic in a space assigned to another student. Harris, who avowedly hated Jews, gays and blacks, together with his co-conspirator 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, had chosen that day deliberately because 20 April was Hitler’s birthday.

Soon after, Klebold arrived in his 1982 black BMW and parked in a space assigned to another student in the south-west senior car park. Their two cars flanked the lower level of the school cafeteria. This was their target.

Harris got out of his car and spoke to a fellow student, telling him to flee the school because he liked him. The student took his advice. He was the only person they would willingly spare that day.

A few minutes later Harris and Klebold walked into the school cafeteria, carrying two large duffel bags containing enough explosives to kill most of the students who would be arriving for lunch. They put the bags on the floor beside two lunch tables where they did not look out of place among the hundreds of other backpacks and bags scattered around the cafeteria. Each the duffel bags contained a 20lb propane bomb timed to explode at 11.17 a.m. At that time there would be 488 students in the cafeteria.

The two would-be assassins then returned to their cars to watch the explosion. According to their home-made videotapes, they planned to shoot down anyone who escaped the blast. Their cars were also fitted with bombs and timers set to explode when, afterwards, the two had gone back into the school on a further killing spree.

Around the same time, there was a small explosion in a field on the east side of Wadsworth Boulevard three miles from the school. Harris and Klebold had left two backpacks there, filled with pipe bombs, aerosol canisters and small propane tanks. These were diversionary devices, aimed to keep the police and the fire department from tending the devastation at the school. However, only the pipe bombs and one of the aerosol canisters exploded, but this had set the grass on fire. The couple, it seems were inexpert bomb-makers and, fortunately, the devices in the cafeteria failed to go off. But that did not mean that those at Columbine High School would get off scot-free.

At 11.19 a.m. Harris and Klebold were seen standing together at the top of the west steps, the highest point on the campus. Both were wearing black trench coats, which hid 9mm semi-automatics, and were carrying a duffel bag and a backpack. A witness heard one of them say: ‘Go! Go!’

Then they pulled shotguns out of their bags and began shooting at the other students around them. The first shots killed Rachel Scott and injured Richard Castaldo who were eating their lunch on the grass outside the school library. Lance Kirklin, Sean Graves and Daniel Rohrbough were hit by gunfire as they came out of the side door of the cafeteria. Five other students, who had been sitting on the grass to the west of the stairs, tried to run and were shot at. They made for the outdoor athletic storage shed. Michael Johnson suffered gunshots wounds, but managed to take cover there with the others. Mark Taylor was gunned down.

Klebold then descended the stairs to the cafeteria and shot Daniel Rohrbough again at close range, killing him instantly. He also shot Lance Kirklin a second time, again at close range, but Kirklin miraculously survived.

After entering the cafeteria briefly, perhaps to ascertain why the bombs had not gone off, Klebold rejoined Harris at the top of the stairs. Meanwhile Harris shot at Anne Marie Hochhalter, hitting her numerous times as she sought cover in the cafeteria. Then the two gunmen were seen lighting explosive devices and throwing them into the car park, onto the school’s roof and onto the grassy slope outside.

Witnesses then heard one of the gunmen shout: ‘This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome!’

By then, the police had begun to get calls. The cafeteria supervisor called Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Neil Gardner – the community resource officer at Columbine High School – on the school’s radio, saying he was needed in the rear car park of the school. And a student called 911, reporting that a girl was injured in the lower south car park of the high school.

‘I think she’s paralysed,’ the caller said.

This message was conveyed to Deputy Paul Magor, who was on his way to the grass fire on Wadsworth. Deputy Gardner was pulling onto Pierce Street and heading south to the student car park when he heard the call ‘Female down in the south lot of Columbine High School’ and switched on his siren. Motorcycle patrolman, Deputy Paul Smoker also heard the call and radioed in that he was on his way.

At 11.24 teacher William ‘Dave’ Sanders and staff members Jon Curtis and Jay Gallatine went into the cafeteria and told the students to get down under the lunch tables. Meanwhile teacher Patricia ‘Patti’ Nielson saw two male students outside the west entrance of the school carrying what she thought were toy guns. She assumed that they were being filmed as part of a school video production. As it was they were making a bit of a commotion and she was on her way to tell them to knock it off when Harris fired into the doorway. Nielson was showered with shards of glass and metal fragments, cutting her knee, forearm and shoulder. Student Brian Anderson was also injured by flying glass when he was caught between the inner and outer doors and Harris fired at the doors in front of him. Although injured, Nielson and Anderson managed to flee into the school library. At the time Harris and Klebold were distracted by the arrival of Deputy Gardner, who pulled up in the lower south car parks with his lights flashing and siren wailing.

As Gardner stepped out of his patrol car, Harris fired about ten shots at him before his rifle jammed. Gardner returned fire. For a moment, Gardner thought he had hit Harris. But seconds later Harris was firing again, spraying bullets around the car park, before he retreated into the school through the west doors.

In the cafeteria, the students were painfully aware that they were involved in something much more serious than a school prank. They fled up the stairs to the second level with Sanders directing them to safety down the hallway to the eastern exits. Hiding under the counter in the library, Nielson made a 911 call to report that shots were being fired. Smoke began wafting in through the doorway and she yelled at students to take cover under the tables.

At 11.25 Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office put out a general alert: ‘Attention, south units. Possible shots fired at Columbine High School, 6201 South Pierce, possibly in the south lower lot towards the east end. One female is down.’

Gardner also called for back up.

‘Shots in the building,’ he radioed. ‘I need someone in the south lot with me.’

Then he sent a ‘Code 33’. This means ‘officer needs emergency assistance.’

Jefferson County Deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker soon arrived at the west side of the school and began to attend to two wounded students lying on the ground near the sports fields. Then Smoker saw Gardner down the hill to his right, brandishing his service revolver. A gunman carrying a semi-automatic rifle appeared inside of the double doors and Smoker yelled a warning to Gardner. Harris then leant out of a broken window and began shooting. Smoker returned fire and Harris disappeared, but Smoker could still hear gunfire from inside the building.

By this time, Harris and Klebold were in the main north hallway and began firing at students there. They were laughing.

Student Stephanie Munson and another student walked out of a classroom into the hallway. A teacher yelled at them: ‘Run! Get out of the building!’ They fled towards the eastern exit. Stephanie was hit in the ankle, but both managed to escape, finding safety across the street in Leawood Park.

Klebold chased some other students down the hallway, stopping near the phone booth in the main lobby. A student on the phone with her mother looked to see the sleeve of a black trench coat and a 9mm pistol shooting towards the main entrance. She dropped the phone and hid in a nearby restroom. Klebold then ran back towards the library. When she could hear no more commotion from the hallway, the girl went back the phone. She whispered to her mother, telling her to come pick her up, then escaped through the east doorway.

Dave Sanders was on the second level outside the library when he saw a gunman coming down the hallway. He had turned to run away when he was shot. However, he managed to crawl to the science block where teacher Richard Long helped him into classroom SCI-3. There, two Eagle Scouts, Kevin Starkey and Aaron Hancey, gave him first aid. Despite their efforts, Sanders died.

Outside Deputy Magor set up a road-block on Pierce Street where a teacher and students told him that someone was patrolling the school with a gun. Then he received a report that hand-grenades had gone off at the school. These were, in fact, pipe bombs which Harris and Klebold had set off in the hallway. They threw two more down the stairwell into the cafeteria and fired into the hallway outside the library.

Students were now running from the school, seeking safety behind Taborsky’s patrol car on the west side. They told the police that gunmen were inside the school randomly shooting at people with UZIs or shotguns and throwing hand-grenades. The younger of the two gunmen was of high school age. The other was ‘taller, a little older’. Both were wearing black trench coats.

By this time, deputies were ringing the school and more reports of injuries were coming in. Deputy Gardner was requesting emergency medical help to the west side when he came under fire from a large calibre weapon.

Harris and Klebold then walked into the school library and told the students to get up. When Harris shot up the front counter, one student, who was hiding behind the photocopier, was injured by flying splinters of wood. Another student was killed before Harris and Klebold began a gunfight out of the windows with the police. Then they turned their attention back on the students in the west section of the library, killing four and injuring four more. They shot out the display cabinet near the front door before firing their guns into the east section of the library, injuring five and killing three. Reloading, they went into the centre section where they killed two more students and injured another two. One gunman yelled: ‘Yahoo.’

In the seven-and-a-half minutes the gunmen were in the library they killed ten people and wounded 12 more. Those who survived did so only because they hid until they were evacuated later by a S.W.A.T. team: Patti Nielson managed to hide in a cupboard; another teacher hid in the periodicals rooms; and two of the library staff sought refuge in the library’s TV studio. At 11.30 Jefferson County Patrol Deputy Rick Searle began evacuating the students, some of them wounded, who have taken cover behind Taborsky’s patrol car. He moved them to a safe location at Caley Avenue and Yukon Street south-west of the school where a triage point was set up. At the south end of the student car park Deputy Kevin Walker provided cover for the students fleeing from the cafeteria. Through the windows on the upper level, he saw one of the gunmen wearing a ‘white T-shirt with some kind of holster vest’ leading to speculation that there were three gunmen. They didn’t know that by this time, Harris had discarded his black trench coat.

Fearing the situation was escalating, Deputy Magor radioed the Sheriff’s Office that more help was needed. However, the Denver Police Department was already on its way as one of its officers had a son who a student at Columbine and had called his father.

Minutes later, the Jefferson County S.W.A.T. team, led by Lieutenant Terry Manwaring, was on the way to the high school, and they quickly established a command post at the corner of Pierce Street and Littlewood. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office also requested assistance from other agencies. Soon after the Colorado State Patrol turned up and took up positions on the north-east side of the school by the tennis courts. Firefighters from Littleton’s fire department also arrived on the scene.

At 11.35, the gunmen shot their last victim. Then they made their way down the hallway to the science block. On the way, they peered in through the windows of the classrooms, making eye contact with some of the students. But they made no attempt enter the classrooms or harm anyone. However, several students saw Harris and Klebold shooting into empty rooms. Then they taped an explosive device to the door of a storage room. But they did not appear to be particularly eager to get into any of the locked classrooms. They could easily have shot the locks off. But, by this point, the gunmen seemed to have run out of steam. Their killing spree was over. Now their behaviour appeared directionless.

They rained down more pipe bombs into the cafeteria from the library hallway above – but everyone who had been there had already either been killed, escaped or taken cover.

As explosions that blew out windows of the cafeteria, several students run out and took cover behind cars, while Deputy Walker covered them with his gun. He radioed in that he had students with him, but he did not have any safe route to get them out of the car park. Meanwhile a 911 call was received from 17 students hiding in the kitchen who feared that the gunmen were closing in on them.

Around 30 students who had been in the library made their escape out of the west doors and took cover behind patrol cars. Deputy Taborsky, who was with them, reported that he had been told the gunmen were wearing bullet-proof armour and that one of them was probably ‘Ned Harris’. His informant had more than likely said ‘Reb’, which was Harris’ nickname.

Harris and Klebold went down into the cafeteria. On the stairs, Harris knelt down with his rifle resting on the banister and loosed off several shots into one of the large 20lb propane bombs hidden in a duffel bag in an attempt to set it off. He failed. Klebold then walked over to the bomb and fiddled with it.