Death in the afternoon – the statistical ‘fingerprint’ of a mass murderer

In January 2000, Dr Harold Shipman, a former family doctor in Manchester, England was found guilty of murdering 15 of his patients. It is suspected that he killed more, possibly as many as 250.

Today he was found dead in prison.

Following his trial, the Chief Medical Officer for England commissioned an audit of Shipman’s clinical practice for the years from his appointment in 1974 to his arrest in 1998. That detailed review shows how the deaths of Shipman’s patients displayed a number of unusual characteristics with respect to time and place. Perhaps one of the most chilling was the early afternoon peak (during home visits) when the proportion of deaths for Shipman (14% at 2pm) was about 7 times higher than a comparison group of doctors.

To add to the tragedy for victims, their families and other professionals was the fact that this information was already ‘in the system’ all along but, of course, was not recorded, aggregated, tabulated or graphed in a way that might have compelled investigation.

The difference between life and death sometimes lies (continuously hidden) in the data.

The graph is Figure 5.2 on page 40 of the report.