Husband says he'll 'never know why' his relatives were killed by Harold Shipman

13 January 2024 , 08:23

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Phil Woodruff and his late wife Angela Woodruff (Image: Press Association)

A man whose mother-in-law was a victim of Harold Shipman has told how he came to the chilling realisation two other relatives were also killed by the evil doctor.

With his wife Angela, Phil Woodruff looked into the death of her mum Kathleen Grundy in 1998. Kathleen, a former Mayor of Hyde, died aged 82 and was found sitting upright in her chair “still reading a newspaper”, Phil said.

Speaking to the Mirror, he added: “Angela said to me ‘people don’t die like that’ and I said ‘they do – Aunty Elsie died like that’. And then at some point those two pieces of information struck us and made us realise maybe there was a connection.

“We suddenly thought, I bet Aunty Elsie had been killed by him.” Elsie Platt, 73, was among victims later confirmed by the inquiry into the killings. And Phil, now 79, only realised his cousin’s mother-in-law had also been killed by Shipman when they arrived for his trial. Irene Turner lost her life aged 67.

Killer doctor Harold Shipman (Daily Mirror)

Phil’s wife Angela died from Alzheimer’s aged 73 in 2018. Two decades after the murderer hanged himself rather than face life in jail, Phil said: “The finality of the suicide meant we would never be able to find out from him why he did this. I think that is what upset Angela the most.”

Quiet Sunday school teacher with 13 kids became UK's first serial killer

The dad of two added: “It’s important that the truth comes out. There was clearly a need for change so nothing like this could ever happen again.”

Kathleen Grundy is the mother of Angela Woodruff (Manchester Evening News)

It comes as the family of Harold Shipman’s first victim fear there are hundreds more yet to be identified, 20 years after the sadistic doctor’s suicide. The medic made a late-night house call in 1975 to give cancer patient Eva Lyons, 71, a fatal dose of diamorphine, before asking for a cup of coffee. Moments later, he brazenly told her unsuspecting husband, Richard: “I’m sorry to say she’s dead.”

The pensioner’s family only learned she was a victim of one of Britain’s worst serial killers more than 25 years later. In 2002, a £20million inquiry laid bare the true scale of Shipman’s depravity naming 215 victims, including Eva.

Hollie Bone