The cell where Harold Shipman was held in a top security prison was said to be 'haunted' after his suicide in the 'Monster Mansion'. Evil child killer Roy Whiting told prison warders he was too terrified to sleep in Shipman's old bed on Wakefield prison's D-wing because of the ghost of 'Dr Death'. Lifer Whiting, who murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne 25 years ago, was spooked by eerie noises and "strange goings on".
He had been moved into Wakefield Prison's cell D336, the place where serial killer Shipman hanged himself 21 years ago. Over many years of his career, Shipman had forged medical records to support the causes of death he recorded on death certificates. He then lied to the families when he said he had called ambulances for the women he had murdered. He was also found guilty of forging the £386,000 will of his final victim, but she was the only one who was significantly wealthy. Despite a public inquiry, no definitive explanation emerged as to why a GP with 3,100 patients turned into a serial killer.
Whiting complained about the 'haunting', with many in Wakefield convinced the cell was jinxed. Another inmate, Jasbir Singh Rai, 32, was found hanged there in April 1987. Whiting was hearing things that made him believe that Shipman's 'ghost' was in the cell with him. Staff told him that it was other prisoners trying to goad him, but he demanded a move. Inmates later left a hangman's noose for him to find on his bed.
Shipman had hanged himself on January 13, 2004, a day short of his 58th birthday. He was serving 15 life sentences. He had spent his time inside working on a biography of Napoleon. He stayed in his cell reading books and newspapers and writing his prison diary. It contained several entries about his suicide plans. An official inquiry found the once respected GP had killed 284 people in and around Hyde, Greater Manchester, from the 1970s to the late 1990s. Many victims were elderly women who died after he injected them with lethal doses of diamorphine.
