An independent inquiry has found that Harold Shipman, a doctor who preyed on the elderly and infirm, killed at least 215 people between 1975 and 1992. The judge heading the inquiry has also speculated that the real total could be as high as 298, but that there is insufficient evidence to confirm that figure.
[nitpick]He’s not a serial killer, just a mass murder.
[/nitpick]
Don’t know why the media keep insisting on calling him that.
What’s the difference between a mass murderer and a serial killer, then? He killed lots of people, individually, and serially, and not for financial gain.
There was a shrink on TV this morning saying he got some kind of ‘autoerotic response’ from the killing, too.
What’s the difference?
OF course, thats a matter of definition.
Yes, and your definitions are?
Most experts believe that in order to qualify as a serial killer, they must have killed at least three times and the victims must be
unrelated in their place in the killer’s life.
-The official FBI definition for serial homicide is:
*"Three or more separate events with an emotional cooling off period between homicides, each murder taking place at a different location. *
Also, Serial killers are usually (more than 80%) white, male, in their twenties to early thirties, and kill within their own gender, etnicity and race.
Shipman would more or less fit the FBI’s definition, then. I really don’t see anything that would indicate the media are wrong to use that label.
Give us a cite for the “unrelated” part and I’ll believe you.
Well, I think Shipman clearly fits into the FBI definition of a serial killer. But no matter. It’s just semantics after all.
215 dead though. Wow. Wonder what he thought about at nights. It’s astonishing he got away with it for so long - our faith in doctors is sometimes frightening.
Ok, further reading of other definitions makes me retract my somewhat rash, initial response. Can you just forget all my posts in this thread to date? 
I guess Shipman fits many peoples current definitions, so its not quite clear cut. I have read lots of books before on this and the definition used to be solid, but the edges seem blurred now, looking at a few sites. Sorry. Retraction complete…
No worries Aro.
Aro, from that link, he exhibits elements of both really. Not entirely categorisable, though I’d say he falls more into the ‘serial killing’ definition. Whatever, he is a cruel and unusual man, with a clear God complex. He’s also the second most prolific serial killer ever (if that is indeed what he is).
Whos first?
Serial or Mass, one simple question… WHY??? What did he get out of it? What drove him?
He still denies all of it as well.
May he rot in whatever cell he ends up in.
Ok, got it. Pedro Lopez.
KILLER COUNTDOWN lists a few others in the 200’s though.
A thread I started a while ago about this has links about other high # killers
According to this site, it was/is Pedro Lopez of Columbia, at around 300. 