A forged will leaving £386,000 to Dr Harold Shipman exposed Britain's worst serial killer

Kathleen Grundy, 81, a former mayoress of Hyde, died at home. Her GP, Dr Harold Shipman, signed the death certificate and gave "old age" as the cause. Her daughter, Angela Woodruff, a solicitor, then learned of a will that left Grundy's £386,000 estate to Shipman and nothing to her family. The will was badly typed and named only one of Grundy's two houses. The two witnesses denied witnessing a will. Fingerprint tests showed Grundy had never handled it. Woodruff went to the police. Grundy's body was exhumed on 1 August 1998, and tests found diamorphine. Police found a Brother typewriter in Shipman's possession. He was arrested on 7 September 1998 and tried at Preston Crown Court from October 1999. On 31 January 2000 he was convicted of 15 murders and one forgery and given a whole-life tariff. The Shipman Inquiry under Dame Janet Smith found in its final report, in January 2005, that he had killed about 250 patients. He hanged himself in HMP Wakefield on 13 January 2004. The inquiry found that a single doctor could certify a death as natural without challenge. Since 9 September 2024 every death in England and Wales not investigated by a coroner is reviewed by an independent medical examiner, a reform first proposed by the inquiry in 2003.