Colin Campbell Norris (born 12 February 1976)[1] is a Scottish serial killer and former nurse convicted for the murder of four elderly patients and the attempted murder of another in two hospitals in Leeds, England, in 2002.
Norris, who self-admittedly disliked elderly patients and had previously stolen hospital drugs, was the only person on duty when all the five patients inexplicably fell into sudden hypoglycaemic comas, despite the non-diabetic women only being in minor injury wards with merely broken hips. Suspicions were raised when Norris predicted that healthy Ethel Hall would die at 5:15 am one night, which is when she fell into a catastrophic arrest, and tests revealed that she had been injected with an extremely high level of man-made insulin. Insulin was missing from the hospital fridge and Norris had last accessed it, only half an hour before Hall fell unconscious.
Subsequent investigations would find that the unnatural hypoglycaemic attacks followed him when he was transferred to a second hospital, and hospital records revealed that only he could not be eliminated as a suspect. Detectives believed that Norris was responsible for up to six other suspicious deaths where only he was always present, but a lack of post mortem evidence and other factors meant that investigators and the Crown Prosecution Service could not pursue convictions for these deaths. The murder inquiry was led by Chris Gregg and the investigation was praised for its thoroughness.
Doubts were later raised about his conviction by, among others, Professor Vincent Marks, an expert on insulin poisoning, who concluded from his own studies that there was a 1 in 10 chance that each patient's arrest could have happened naturally. However, others have pointed out that C-peptides are produced in hypoglycaemic attacks caused by insulin produced naturally in the body, and these were not detected in any of the blood tests of the victims, indicating that the insulin had been introduced to their bodies externally and artificially. Norris lost an appeal against his conviction in 2009. In February 2021 the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal.
Norris is believed to have been inspired by Jessie McTavish, a fellow Scottish nurse who was convicted of murdering a patient with insulin in 1974 before having her conviction quashed in 1975. The incident had happened at Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow, less than a mile from where Norris grew up. Shortly before he qualified as a nurse he had learned about McTavish.[2]
Background
The Milton area of Glasgow, where Norris grew up and where he lived up until the trial. Ruchill Hospital, where the infamous Jessie McTavish incident took place which Norris learned about at university, can be seen in the distance at the top left-hand corner of the image (the building with the tall brick tower).
Norris was born and brought up in the Milton area of Glasgow, Scotland.[citation needed] He originally worked as a travel agent after leaving college, but after a few years in this role decided to retrain as a nurse.[1] Friends described him as someone who loved being centre stage, and said he enjoyed amateur dramatics.[3] His academic record was average, but he became known for being quick to anger and his aggressive confrontations with tutors and, later, employers.[1] His behaviour towards university lecturers at the University of Dundee was described as "unacceptable".[4] He constantly argued with his tutor, and he later said of her: "my tutor and I didn't exactly see eye to eye. I had a personality clash, basically 'cos I had one and she never, and she was my personal tutor."[1] Shortly before he qualified, this tutor was known to have taught Norris about Jessie McTavish, a nurse convicted of murdering a patient with insulin at Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow, less than a mile from where Norris grew up. McTavish's conviction was overturned on appeal.[5] Norris was tasked with "reviewing" her conduct by his tutor.[5] Learning about McTavish would later be regarded as a likely inspiration for Norris, and he would have learned at this point that insulin is the perfect weapon for murder because it leaves the blood very quickly.[5]
Norris began working in Leeds after qualifying in June 2001, but quickly fell out with experienced authority figures, finding it difficult to be told 'no' or what to do.[1][6] Colleagues recounted him saying that he didn't like working on minor injury wards or with old people and wanted to work in the emergency department because it was more 'exciting' for him.[7] He said he "wasn't put on this earth to sit in an office."[1] The hospital later found out that he had been secretly working as a nurse in other hospitals on occasions when he claimed to be off sick or attending a training course.[8]
His former partner said after his conviction that Norris had once hit him during an argument, bruising his head and once threw a bottle at him, which caused him to break up with Norris.[9][10] He also said that, around the time of the murders, Norris had become engrossed by a storyline in Holby City, in which a serial killer nurse played by Rachel Leskovac killed patients with insulin before eventually being uncovered as a murderer.[9] This same storyline is believed to have inspired another UK nurse, Benjamin Geen, to kill his patients.[11] In the month in which he began killing patients with overdoses, Geen appeared in an edition of the Banbury Citizen which featured an interview with Leskovac.[11] Norris's partner also revealed, after Norris's conviction, that Norris had experimented on his cat Casper before he began killing patients, injecting it with a lethal dose of insulin.[12] The partner had reported him to the police but Norris claimed the cat had died from hitting its head on a wall.[12]
Dislike of elderly
As a trainee nurse Norris often refused to work with elderly patients, saying he "didn't want to be working with that type of person".[13] He admitted to police he found elderly patients challenging.[1]
Police would later discover that Norris had repeatedly mistreated elderly patients in the early months of his nursing career at the same Leeds hospitals in which he would later go on to murder patients. In one instance, an elderly man asked Norris to empty his catheter bag, only for Norris to flatly refuse and insist he do it himself, before going off duty.[1] The elderly man then collapsed after trying to reach the bathroom by himself.[1] Other patients stated that Norris had treated them in an offhand and callous manner, and that Norris had an apparent dislike of old people.[1] Two elderly ex-patients said that Norris had verbally abused them after they rang an emergency buzzer on a ward when an elderly patient climbed out of bed, with Norris then saying to them "I hope you suffer" and "rot in hell".[14]
Murders
Ethel Hall
At the time of the murders, Norris worked at Leeds General Infirmary and St James's University Hospital in Leeds, having qualified as a nurse only a year earlier.[6][14][15] Suspicions were raised when Norris predicted the death of one patient, Ethel Hall, saying to a fellow nurse hours before: "I predict 5:15a.m. as being the time Ethel Hall will become unwell" since he "had a feeling about her".[1] He said that he thought Hall was "going off tonight" and that he was a "jinx" on the hospital.[16][17] This was despite there being no medical indications of an impending illness, and Hall being on the ward only for a fractured hip.[6] Norris complained that he would have to fill out the paperwork for her death.[1][18] Hall duly fell catastrophically ill that morning around 5a.m. and she died some weeks later. When nurses including Norris came to tend to her, he tapped his watch and said to the nurse he had predicted Hall's illness earlier: "I told you".[1] A doctor later recounted feeling "annoyed" at Norris's slow reaction to the collapse.[19] An anonymous male nurse called Hall's son from the hospital at 5:30 a.m. that morning telling him that she had taken a "turn for the worse", and it was not established who this man was.[20][21] The next night, Norris specifically called the ward to ask what had happened to Hall.[22]
A blood sample was taken from Hall after a doctor raised concerns and ordered blood tests, and her blood was found to contain an inexplicably massive amount of insulin – 1000 units in just one sample – and this became the main hard evidence in the police case.[1][18] The doctor who had ordered the tests was a diabetes expert who specialised in insulin and hypoglycaemic episodes, and she had believed the incident to be suspicious.[13] No doctor or medical staff member had prescribed her this drug, and she had no condition that required it to be issued.[13][23] The amount of insulin in Hall's blood was about 12 times the normal level, and it had been injected into her system.[24][25] The insulin was manufactured and not produced naturally in the body.[21] It had been injected into her abdomen, as indicated by the fact that a bulge was found under her skin there that was consistent with a large injection of fluid.[7][26][27] Doctors believed it was done by someone with nursing or medical experience.[7][27] The results of the tests led the hospital to contact the police.[28]
It was discovered after Hall's death that insulin had also been taken from the storage fridge, and Norris later admitted that he was the last person to have accessed this fridge before Hall had been injected with insulin.[1] Two vials of insulin were found to have been taken from the fridge, which had to have been taken by someone during the night shift which Norris was working when Hall became unwell.[13] Norris had on a previous occasion been caught stealing drugs from the hospital.[13] Norris also admitted that he was the last person to see Hall at 4.30a.m., half an hour before she fell into the coma at around 5a.m.[1]
Previous cases
Leeds General Infirmary and St James's University Hospital, where Norris worked and where the murders were committed. Norris was the only member of staff who worked on the wards at both hospitals where the murders occurred.
Norris immediately came under suspicion and was questioned by police about Hall's murder.[1][16] It was further decided to investigate the deaths of 72 people who had died on the ward while Norris was working, and a special medical panel decided that 18 of the 72 deaths should be reviewed by independent medical experts.[1] The experts confirmed police suspicions that the deaths of three women were as a result of lethal injections of insulin, which causes hypoglycaemic attacks, but they also identified two more victims, one who had also died of insulin poisoning and another who had survived a massive injected overdose.[1][29] Along with Ethel Hall, none of these women were diabetic (nor was anyone else on the ward), and all of them had been admitted to the wards simply suffering from broken hips.[6][27] In any case, the amount of insulin Hall had been injected with was far in excess of what a diabetic patient would need.[16] They were also all murdered while in non-emergency orthopaedic wards, where only minor, non life-threatening things such as broken bones are treated.[30] When questioned about the cases Norris said "he seemed to have been unlucky over the last 12 months."[31]
The first three incidents occurred at Leeds General Infirmary.[32] They began in May 2002, which also notably happened to be when the detailed probationary monitoring of Norris's early progress as a newly qualified nurse ended.[8] On 17 May 2002, Norris injected patient Vera Wilby with an overdose of the painkiller morphine to make her drowsy (as recorded in the hospital notes and later admitted by Norris[33]), despite the fact that she was in no pain and needed no morphine.[6][8] He then administered insulin before going off shift, for no apparent medical reason.[6] Ninety minutes after he went off shift, Wilby was found to be semi-conscious and suffering from a sudden hypoglycaemic attack, but she survived.[6] Wilby had dementia and had been seen as a "difficult" patient by Norris.[34] On 12 June, another patient, Doris Ludlam, was admitted to Norris's ward with a broken hip.[6] On 25 June, she was also given an unnecessary injection of morphine (as recorded in the hospital notes and later admitted by Norris[33]) followed by an overdose of insulin, and Norris then again went off shift.[6][34] She was discovered in a coma 40 minutes after he went off shift.[6] 88-year-old Bridget Bourke, who had been admitted to the ward on 16 June also with a broken hip, was then discovered at 3:10a.m. on 21 July (by Norris) suffering from a hypoglycaemic attack; she died the next day.[6][34]
Norris was then transferred to St James's University Hospital, and on 10 October 2002, 79-year-old Irene Crooks was admitted to Norris's new ward with a broken hip.[6][32] Despite Norris recording that her condition was improving, he supposedly found her "totally unresponsive" just before 6a.m. on 19 October, having suffered a hypoglycaemic attack.[6] She died the next day.[6] It was deemed significant[by whom?] that the bizarre cases of hypoglycaemia appeared to follow Norris when he transferred to the new hospital - especially since he was the only staff member who had been transferred.[32] He was the only staff member who worked on both the wards in the two hospitals where all the hypoglycaemic incidents were occurring.[35] A colleague later stated that Norris had shown no desire to revive Crookes after she fell into a coma.[36] Another colleague also later testified that Norris had watched in "detached amusement" after one of the victims had fallen into a coma.[37] She said that "everything he did that night had to be prompted".[38] Significantly, it was discovered by a member of staff that they had suddenly run out of insulin after Crooke's hypoglycaemic attack.[38]
It is believed that by the time Hall was killed, Norris had become confident he could carry on killing without being caught, since no blood tests for insulin had been done.[39][34][28] He would not have expected, therefore, a blood sample to be taken from Hall and sent to a specialist laboratory as it was, which finally led to him being caught,[28] expecting the death would be considered due to natural causes.[23]
None of the patients had been prescribed insulin by any doctors or medical staff members in the hospital.[13] All the victims were considered somewhat "difficult" patients, which likely irritated Norris with his dislike for elderly patients.[34][13] One of the women had been throwing her bedclothes off just before he killed her.[40] Bourke was on Norris's ward at the same time as Ludlam and Wilby, meaning he had contact with all three at the same time.[32] In each case, the fatal dose of insulin had been administered at night, when Norris worked.[34] At the time of Hall's death, Norris suspiciously said to colleagues: "it is always in the morning when things go wrong" and "someone always dies when I do nights".[31] He also would have known doctors were not on duty overnight at the hospitals, so they couldn't help the patients when they all collapsed during Norris's night shifts.[28] Amongst the things the victims all had in common was that they were all frail women and that they all died after suffering broken hips.[28]
Investigation
It was found that the only nurse that had cared for all five of the patients and had been there within 2 hours of them becoming catastrophically ill was Norris.[1] Norris had been one of the few who was on duty at the time of Hall's deterioration in health.[1] Police analysed medical staff rotas, phone records and personnel files to determine who had access to the wards, insulin and who was on the wards at the time of that incident, and it was found that all staff members except Norris could be ruled out as it was only Norris who was on duty when all the incidents occurred.[1][13] He was also the only staff member who worked on both the wards where the incidents occurred.[35] Norris admitted predicting the time of Hall's death to his colleague but said it was because he had a "black sense of humour".[1] Investigators ordered the exhumation of the body of Bridget Bourke, which, significantly, revealed that she had been given large amounts of insulin.[38] The other two patients who had died had their bodies cremated, so could not be tested.[38]
Norris was suspended from his job (on full pay) while the police investigation was carried out.[8][41] After he was first arrested, Norris immediately left Leeds and went back to Scotland, before then leaving the UK eight times to go abroad, including to Tenerife for a six-month holiday.[41][42] After his conviction his partner recounted an incident around this time when Norris became violent and drunk, and wouldn't stop crying because he said he was scared of going to prison.[10] Norris's mother defended her son's trips around Europe, saying he was "trying to live his life the best he could while under the pressure of a police investigation".[42]
When police questioned Norris about the fact that the vials of insulin, the murder weapon in Hall's case, had gone missing from the fridge that morning when Hall was killed, he responded by saying: "obviously if someone was to kill someone, they wouldn't leave their signature would they? To say that they were there."[1] He denied ever injecting Hall with insulin.[23] The police were dismissive of Norris's claim that an intruder must have come in during the nightshift through the fire escape while nurses were having a cigarette before injecting Hall.[43] Norris said this despite revealing he had never once seen an intruder on the ward.[43] Detectives believed this suggestion that an intruder had sneaked onto a bay at night to inject a patient before sneaking away without anybody realising (since no other staff member could have been responsible) was highly implausible.[1]
Norris behaved bizarrely in the interviews he had with the police.[13] Throughout the interviews he acted notably aggressively and arrogantly, challenging detectives, and became physically angry at times to the point where he had to be restrained.[13] Investigators stated that Norris did not seem to be explicitly denying the murders, but insisting that they could not be proved, demanding officers told him how he did it and saying that he didn't think their facts were "good enough" to prove he had killed them.[1] Criminologist Jane Monkton-Smith said it was particularly unusual that Norris didn't behave as if he wanted to defend himself in interviews, but instead challenged the police and acted evasively.[13] Norris later admitted that he was trying to show how much more he knew than the police in interviews.[13] In 2004, during the investigation, he walked into the offices of the Yorkshire Evening Post and declared that the police had "nothing on him" to reporters.[44]
Chief superintendent on the case Chris Gregg, holder of the Queen's Police Medal and who caught David Bieber, 'Wearside Jack' and the killer of Leanne Tiernan, said that Norris's prediction of Hall's illness showed that it wasn't just a spontaneous incident where a criminal nurse at work had, for whatever reason decided to kill someone, saying "he actually premeditated this, hours before". Gregg said: "I think he was cocky; I think he was over-confident. He was showing off".[1] A criminal psychologist stated that, despite Norris's prediction, it was unlikely that he wanted to get caught, rather that he merely wanted to demonstrate a sense of superior knowledge.[1] Police noted that, in interviews, Norris showed no empathy for the women who had died or for their families, and claimed he couldn't remember any of the women.[1]
Trial
Norris, recorded as being of Egilsay Terrace, Glasgow,[45] went to trial in 2007 at Newcastle Crown Court. Norris's father did not object to the decision to charge his son, whom he described as "scum".[46] At trial Norris denied ever having predicted Hall's death, despite having admitted this in police interviews.[43] He admitted giving Vera Wilby and Doris Ludlam overdoses of morphine on 17 May and 25 June 2002 respectively (police had found these injections recorded by him in the hospital records).[33] He had given Ludlam twice the allowed dose of morphine.[47] It was highlighted that, when police first interviewed him, Norris had not mentioned the cases of Ludlam, Bourke and Crookes when he was asked if he had ever had experience of patients falling into hypoglycaemic comas, even though that is what they had experienced when Norris was on duty.[48] Police said they believed this was done on purpose so he didn't arouse suspicion about those cases at that stage, since they had not yet been uncovered by investigators.[48] It was also brought to the jury's attention that documents had been found at Norris's home detailing a less painful way of injecting morphine.[49] Norris claimed, despite the blood test evidence, that none of the patients had been injected and if they were then an 'intruder' must have done it (since records showed no other staff member could have been responsible).[48] This is despite the fact that the insulin fridge, where the drug had apparently been taken from, had a coded access and only medical staff could access it.[44]
Norris was convicted by an 11-1 majority verdict[1] on 3 March 2008 for the murder of four women, and the attempted murder of a fifth (Vera Wilby, aged 90).[24] He was sentenced the following day to life imprisonment, and ordered to serve a minimum term of 30 years in prison.[50] Norris had acted particularly aggressively throughout the trial, banging on the windows of the judge and attacking members of the press when departing the court, shoving two against a wall.[1][51] Pictures of these attacks were not shown on television for fear of influencing the jury.[51] The judge told Norris when sentencing:
"You are, I have absolutely no doubt, a thoroughly evil and dangerous man. You are an arrogant and manipulative man with a real dislike of elderly patients. The most telling evidence was that observation of one of your patients, Bridget Tarpey, who said 'he did not like us old women'. My view is you did not like them because they required too much nursing and were too demanding of your time. You are in my judgment essentially lazy as evidenced by your absences from student placements and work."[29]
Norris's mother June Morrison said she was "so proud of him".[42]
Referred to in the British press as the "Angel of Death", Norris was convicted of killing his victims by injecting them with high levels of insulin.[31] The four victims were:[6]
Doris Ludlam, died 27 June 2002.
Bridget Bourke, died 22 July 2002.
Irene Crooks, died 20 October 2002.
Ethel Hall, died 11 December 2002.
All of these victims had been killed in Norris's first year of working as a nurse.[1] Hall was a mother of one and a grandmother of two.[52] Ludlam was a mother of two, a grandmother and great-grandmother who had worked as a nursery school teacher and fostered children for the charity Barnardo's.[52] Wilby was a vulnerable widow.[52] Crooks died on her 79th birthday, unable to ever open her cards or presents.[35] Hall's son Stuart expressed his relief at Norris's conviction, stating: "I think he needs to be kept inside".[1] He added: "He has got the knowledge to kill people and to do it discreetly. That makes him a danger to society and he must be kept inside. We hope Colin Norris never leaves prison and can never harm anyone else again."[10][12][19]
After the verdict was announced, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust apologised to the victims' families for Norris's "disturbing" crimes, subsequently describing him as an "extremely dangerous criminal".[24] In 2009, the Nursing and Midwifery Council struck off Norris from the medical register, taking just five minutes to come to a decision on the matter.[53]
After the trial, Chris Gregg revealed that he and the other detectives believed Norris had been responsible for up to six other deaths at the hospitals.[55][56] He was the only nurse on duty when three other suspicious deaths occurred, but police felt there was not enough evidence to pursue convictions for them.[57] Norris had also been arrested for another death of a patient, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him in this case because of "complicating factors".[58] In two other suspicious cases, the fact that there had been no post-mortem examinations prevented enough evidence being accumulated to charge Norris for their deaths.[58]
The site of the former Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow in 2021 (today only the water tower remains), which is where the Jessie McTavish incident infamously occurred. Norris lived in Milton on the left of the image.
Jessie McTavish, a nurse convicted and then controversially cleared of the 1974 murder of an 80-year-old patient with insulin, has been identified as the likely inspiration for Norris.[14] She had worked at Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow, less than a mile from where Norris grew up.[59] She had been released on appeal after her defence team successfully argued that the trial judge had inadvertently misled the jury in his final summing up, even though the appeal court judges said that it was something a "few words could have cured" and that there was enough evidence to support the prosecution.[14] Norris's personal tutor at university gave a specific talk to him and other students on her case on 11 January 2001, a year before Norris committed his first attack, in which Norris used the same method as McTavish had been accused of using.[6][60][14][61] Norris was tasked with "reviewing" her conduct, and in doing so, he would have learned that insulin is the perfect weapon for murder because it leaves the blood very quickly.[5][61] Just like Norris, McTavish had 'predicted' the exact time when a healthy patient would die.[62][full citation needed] She was able to continue her career in nursing after she was released on appeal.[59] Norris had notably also attended lectures in 1999 on diabetes and the treatment of diabetic patients with insulin, where he learned about the consequences of blood sugars being too high or too low.[6][63]
Forensic psychiatrist Sir Richard Badcock, the only psychiatrist to formally assess the serial killer doctor Harold Shipman, stated his belief that Norris was a psychopath, who killed elderly patients simply because they got in his way.[1] Just like Norris, Shipman's motive was not immediately clear.[51] Chris Gregg said that he believed that Norris decided to poison the women simply because he found elderly patients irritating.[1] Psychologist and senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University Dr David Holmes concluded that Norris was searching for a sense of power, since a medical staff member like him "administers literally life and death to affirm their own status or self-appointed status".[64] High-profile criminologist David Wilson commented on the case of Norris and other recently convicted serial killers by saying: "What's happening at the moment is that new groups are emerging as being vulnerable to attack".[65]
Aftermath
Failed 2009 appeal
Norris appealed against his conviction in 2009.[66] Originally, Norris planned to appeal on the grounds that the trial judge had shown a "lack of balance", but then scrapped these plans and sacked his legal team.[66][67] He subsequently appealed on the grounds that the judge had "misdirected" the jury in his final summary but he lost this appeal, with judge Lord Justice Aikens ruling the convictions were "safe" and saying that the case against Norris was "very strong indeed".[66] The appeal court rejected both grounds of the appeal, saying that the judge's directions "cannot validly be criticised" and that there was no misdirection to the jury.[66] The appeal court instead said that the judge's summary in the original case was an exemplary "tour de force".[13] The judges also refused to believe that the deaths were "coincidental".[68] Norris's defence team had argued that the deaths could have been the result of 'naturally' raised insulin levels caused by severe spontaneous hypoglycaemia, but the judges rejected this possibility.[68]
Inquiry
In 2010, an independent inquiry into Norris's murders was held.[69] The inquiry recommended the introduction of 'student practice passports', which would report on the personality and integrity of students while they trained as medical professionals at university.[69] It was felt that this may have flagged up Norris as an issue earlier had they been in use at the time of his studying, since he had knowingly acted aggressively during placements, had a poor absence record and had clashed with tutors on numerous occasions.[1][69] These 'passports', it was argued, would allow universities to evaluate at the end of a student's course whether the individual was fit to join the medical register.[69] The inquiry found that the University of Dundee had not identified Norris's difficulties in its reference to employers, and the inquiry concluded that organisational, systems and cultural factors provided an opportunity for Norris to murder the four women in 2002.[69] Nurse managers had already been urged after Norris's conviction in 2008 to take greater care when recruiting staff, and NHS employers had introduced new guidance on pre-employment checks.[37]
Claims of innocence
On 4 October 2011 the BBC reported that retired Professor Vincent Marks – a leading expert on insulin poisoning – was concerned about Norris's conviction. He had been asked by the Norris family to find evidence in the case.[70] He claimed the jury at Norris's trial was wrongly led to believe by experts that a cluster of hypoglycaemic episodes, among people who were not diabetic, was sinister. After carrying out his own studies, he said: "Looking at all the evidence, all I can say is I think Colin Norris's conviction is unsafe".[70][71] He claimed that his own studies had shown that up to 1 in 10 of hypoglycaemia episodes in elderly people were caused naturally.
Marks said the four patients picked out by the experts after Mrs Hall's death "were all at very high risk of developing spontaneous hypoglycaemia" because they had risk factors such as malnutrition, infection and multi-organ failure.[72]
In 2011 Louise Shorter, the former producer of BBC's Rough Justice, and journalist Mark Daly produced the documentary A Jury in the Dark, arguing that there were logical, non-criminal explanations for all the deaths.[73] They and Marks claimed that Ethel Hall's hypoglycaemic arrest could have been caused naturally by 'auto-immune syndrome'.[70] The possibility of auto-immune syndrome having caused the women's arrests had also already been considered and rejected at the trial.[70] During research for the film, Daly discovered an additional death at Leeds General Infirmary which police had initially been investigating as a potential murder carried out by a male nurse, however; the death "went from suspicious to non-suspicious", when police learned that Norris was not on duty at the time.[74] Norris's mother has tried to prove her son innocent, saying: "Either I am the mother of Scotland's worst serial killer or mother to the victim of the country's most terrible miscarriage of justice".[75][76] After watching the BBC programme the sister-in-law of victim Bridget Bourke said that she was still convinced of Norris's guilt.[76]
In May 2013 the Criminal Cases Review Commission confirmed it was re-examining the Norris case in the light of new medical and scientific evidence contradictory to that submitted to the jury during the original trial.[74] However, in 2014, the son of victim Vera Wilby, John Barrie Wilby, said that he was "sad and upset" about the claims that Norris may be innocent, and said that he was still convinced of his guilt.[77] In the same year there was outrage amongst elderly residents when a benefit concert was held for Norris in Dundee, with a spokesperson of the Dundee Pensioners' Forum stating: "Having a party for someone convicted of murdering all these elderly, vulnerable people is disgraceful. It's a slap in the face doing it, with all those families still grieving their loved ones".[78]The Times declared he was one of "the 11 most evil staff in the NHS".[79] In January 2015 the foreman of the jury that convicted Norris, after being shown the evidence in the BBC programme, said that he now believes him to be innocent; apparently the second member of the jury to do so (although this would still leave enough jury members to convict him, 10).[80][81] He said that "the evidence shows a murder wasn't committed at all" (although in 2021 the CCRC concluded that Hall's case at least was indeed a clear murder).[82][81]
2021 CCRC referral to Court of Appeal
The Criminal Case Review Commission was given scientific information that the test which had established that Ethel Hall's blood was full of insulin was inaccurate, and that it was therefore not possible for her to have been murdered by an overdose of insulin.[83] In 2021, the Criminal Case Review Commission discounted this claim when they said that there was "no dispute" that Hall was "murdered by the injection of insulin". The CCRC considered that Norris' conviction for Hall's murder relies on support from the other four convictions and the Crown's claim that no one else apart from Norris was responsible. The commission was "satisfied" that the claim that Norris was solely responsible is "less secure" with the new expert evidence.[82]
In February 2021 the CCRC stated that after a "detailed review of this complex and difficult case" they had decided to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.[82] It was said there was a serious possibility that the conviction was unsafe.[84] As to Ethel Hall, the CCRC said that "there is no dispute that she was murdered by the injection of insulin".[82] The experts who advised the CCRC said that it was not possible for a natural hypoglycaemic episode to have caused Hall's death, but could not exclude it being a possibility in the other four cases.[82] Norris's defence team stated that Hall's case was a case of natural death, as with the others.[76][13] The CCRC said that, in reaching the decision, they had been "greatly assisted" by the evidence of the experts employed by Norris's defence team.[82]
In popular culture
In 2008, Norris's case was the focus of an ITVReal Crime documentary.[1] In 2014, Norris was the subject of the BBC Panorama documentary "The Innocent Serial Killer?"[85]
Harold Frederick Shipman, known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English doctor in general practice and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 284 victims over a period of roughly 30 years. On 31 January 2000, Shipman was convicted of murdering fifteen patients under his care. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. Shipman hanged himself in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire, on 13 January 2004, on the day before his 58th birthday.
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Charles Edmund Cullen is an American serial killer. Cullen, a nurse, murdered dozens—possibly hundreds—of patients during a 16-year career spanning several New Jersey and Pennsylvania medical centers until being arrested in 2003. He confessed to committing as many as 40 murders at least 29 of which have been confirmed, though interviews with police, psychiatrists and journalists suggest he committed many more. Researchers who are intimately involved in the case believe Cullen may have murdered as many as 400 people. However, most murders cannot be confirmed due to lack of records.
Kristen Heather Gilbert is an American serial killer and former nurse who was convicted of four murders and two attempted murders of patients admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Northampton, Massachusetts. She induced cardiac arrest in patients by injecting their intravenous therapy bags with lethal doses of epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline, which is an untraceable heart stimulant. She would then respond to the coded emergency, often resuscitating the patients herself. Prosecutors said Gilbert was on duty for about half of the 350 deaths that occurred at the hospital from when she started working there in 1989, and that the odds of this merely being a coincidence was 1 in 100 million. However, her only confirmed victims were Stanley Jagodowski, Henry Hudon, Kenneth Cutting, and Edward Skwira.
Beverley Gail Allitt is an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering four infants, attempting to murder three others, and causing grievous bodily harm to a further six at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire, between February and April 1991. She committed the murders as a State Enrolled Nurse on the hospital's children's ward.
Benjamin Geen is a British repeat murderer and former nurse who was convicted of killing two of his own patients and committing grievous bodily harm against 15 others while working at Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire in 2003 and 2004.
The Lucia de Berk case was a miscarriage of justice in the Netherlands in which a Dutch licensed paediatric nurse was wrongfully convicted of murder. In 2003, Lucia de Berk was sentenced to life imprisonment, for which no parole is possible under Dutch law, for four murders and three attempted murders of patients under her care. In 2004, after an appeal, she was convicted of seven murders and three attempted murders.
An angel of mercy or angel of death is a type of criminal offender who is usually employed as a medical practitioner or a caregiver and intentionally harms or kills people under their care. The angel of mercy is often in a position of power and may decide the victim would be better off if they no longer suffered from whatever severe illness is plaguing them. This person then uses their knowledge to kill the victim. In some cases, as time goes on, this behavior escalates to encompass the healthy and the easily treated.
Jessie Gordon, formerly McTavish, is a Scottish retired nurse who was convicted in 1974 of murdering a patient with insulin, and of administering a variety of substances with intent to cause harm. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 1976. She was dubbed the "Angel of Death" by the press.
Christopher Adam Gregg is a former Detective Chief Superintendent and was head of West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET). Gregg joined the force in 1974 and as a constable was put on front-line duties in the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry in the Helen Rytka murder incident room. He left the force in 2008 to take up a senior position as an adviser to a forensic service provider company, LGC Forensics. In 2010 Gregg, together with Lord Stevens and Dr Angela Gallop, founded Axiom International Limited.
In 2011, deaths occurred at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. After suspicions were raised concerning the similarities of the deaths, a murder inquiry was launched. Nurse Victorino Chua was found to have poisoned several patients with insulin. He was convicted of murder in 2015 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Kimberly Clark Saenz, also known as Kimberly Clark Fowler, is a former licensed practical nurse and a convicted serial killer. She was convicted of killing several patients at a Texas dialysis center by injecting bleach into their dialysis lines.
Elizabeth Tracy Mae "Bethe" Wettlaufer is a convicted Canadian serial killer and former registered nurse who confessed to murdering eight senior citizens and attempting to murder six others in southwestern Ontario between 2007 and 2016. With a total of 14 victims either killed or injured by her actions, she is described as one of the worst serial killers in Canadian history.
Niels Högel is a German serial killer and former nurse who was sentenced to life imprisonment, initially for the murders of six patients, and later convicted of a total of eighty-five murders. Estimates of Högel's alleged victim count have increased since his first conviction; as of 2020, he was believed to have claimed 300 victims in just over five years, making him the most prolific serial killer in the history of peacetime Germany, and possibly the world.
Lucy Letby is a British former neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting the murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby came under suspicion following a high number of infant deaths which occurred at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital shortly after she began working with children in the hospital's intensive care unit.
The Good Nurse is a 2022 American thriller film starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, about the serial killer Charles Cullen and the fellow nurse who suspects him. The film is based on the 2013 true-crime book of the same name by Charles Graeber. It is directed by Tobias Lindholm and written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns. The film also stars Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, and Noah Emmerich.
Vickie Dawn Carson Jackson is an American serial killer who killed at least 10 patients at the Nocona General Hospital in Nocona, Texas between 2000 and 2001, using the muscle paralytic drug mivacurium. Despite protesting her innocence, she was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Reta Phyllis Mays is an American serial killer who murdered at least seven elderly military veterans over a span of eleven months, between July 2017 and June 2018, by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin while she was employed as a nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Medical Center, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. On May 11, 2021, Mays was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences for the murders, plus 20 years for one count of assault with intent to commit murder.
Frans Hooijmaijers, known as Fat Frans, was a Dutch serial killer and former nurse who was convicted for killing five patients at a hospital in Kerkrade from 1970 to 1975, but was suspected to have killed approximately 259 people. After serving 18 years for his confirmed murders, he was released in 1987 and lived as a free man until his death in 2006.
↑ Burns, Janice (4 March 2008). "Trapped by Arrogance; 'Decent Young Man' Was Serial Killer Who Showed No Remorse for His Murder Spree: Evil Norris thought he would never be caught". Daily Record. p.6.
1 2 3 4 Howie, Michael (17 October 2007). "Scots nurse accused of murder by insulin". The Scotsman. p.1.
1 2 3 "I was only trying to ease their pain". Yorkshire Post. 5 February 2008.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Heffernan, Catherine (17 October 2007). "Ward nurse accused of killing four patients: Murders committed using insulin, court told: Victims 'could be regarded as burden to staff'". The Guardian. p.13.
1 2 3 "On her 79th birthday, patient's cards lay unopened". Yorkshire Post. 4 March 2008.
↑ "Accused nurse predicted patients' time of death". Nursing Standard. 22 (7): 6. October 2007.
1 2 Harrison, Sarah (March 2008). "Tougher pre-employment checks not expected to prevent murders". Nursing Standard. 22 (27): 10.
1 2 3 4 Stokes, Paul (18 October 2007). "Nurse 'amused' by patient's coma". The Telegraph. p.19.
↑ Thornton, Lucy (17 October 2007). "Someone Always Dies When I Work Nights; Murder trial is told of nurse's claim". Daily Record. p.7.
↑ "Nurse convicted of killing four patients". UPI. 3 March 2008.
1 2 "Glasgow Nurse, 29 Charged with Killing 4 Patients; Man appears in court over deaths of frail pensioners in hospital". Evening Times (Glasgow). 13 October 2005. p.1.
1 2 3 MacAskill, Grace (9 March 2008). "I Was So Proud; Exclusive: Mum on Perfect Son Turned Mass Killer". Glasgow Mail. p.4.
1 2 3 "Murder accused nurse: 'I wouldn't put lives at risk'". Yorkshire Evening Post. 19 October 2007.
1 2 "Evil killer gets 30 year minimum sentence". Yorkshire Evening Post. 4 March 2008.
↑ "Nurse charged". Liverpool Echo. 13 October 2005. p.8.
↑ "Dad slams his murder accused son". Evening Times (Glasgow). 14 October 2005. p.2.
↑ "Murder accused nurse denies becoming confident". Yorkshire Evening Post. 8 February 2008.
1 2 3 "Nurse refutes killing patients". Yorkshire Evening Post. 6 February 2008.
↑ "I have never killed anyone, nurse tells jury". Yorkshire Post. 8 February 2008.
1 2 "Legacy of a lecture on Sister Jessie; The Inspiration 'Decent Young Man' Was Serial Killer Who Showed No Remorse for His Murder Spree". Daily Record. 4 March 2008. p.7.
↑ Stokes, Paul (4 March 2008). "Nurse murdered elderly patients who were a nuisance on the night shift". p.8.
↑ "Nurse 'didn't like geriatric patients'". Yorkshire Post. 19 October 2007.
↑ McDonald, Barry (17 October 2009). "'Serial Killers? We're Making It Easier for Them' Mass murderers always target the same five types of people , says Professor David Wilson. So why do we still not see them coming? Interview". The Herald. p.20.
1 2 3 McGivern, Mark (26 January 2015). "My Son Is Not the Angel of Death My Son; Breaking Her Silence Scots Nurse's Shattered Mum". Daily Record. p.6.
↑ Beatson, Jamie (15 March 2014). "Killer Tunes; Outrage over city benefit concert for serial murderer nurse dubbed the Angel of Death". Daily Record. p.31.
↑ Kennedy, Dominic (8 January 2014). "Revealed: the 11 most evil staff in the NHS". The Times. p.15.
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