32-year-old Colin Norris really, really disliked working with the elderly, which may have been a sign that maybe…just maybe…nursing wasn’t the right career field for Colin.
Colin Norris wasn’t really suited for mortuary work either, considering that he’d been disowned by his father after being caught stealing his dead grandparents’ jewelry off their corpses during their funeral.
But nursing was the field that Colin Norris chose, however, and after his 2001 graduation from nursing school, Colin Norris began work in the health care field, working at two hospitals in Leeds where he cared for…you guessed it…elderly patients.
As with most nurses, Colin Norris studied the characteristics of insulin, specifically how to manage patients who are diabetic and what to avoid doing to them.
High on the list of things to avoid doing to a diabetic patient is injecting them with massive amounts of insulin.
Why?
Because it kills them.
In May of 2002, Colin Norris found himself working with a patient that was especially old - 90-year-old Vera Wilby. Vera had just had a successful hip surgery and was recovering nicely until Colin Norris injected her with a shot of morphine and followed that with an insulin chaser.
She didn’t die, but it was a close thing.
Colin Norris considered it a practice run, and he got much better at it, injecting insulin into 80-year-old Doris Ludlum, 88-year-old Bridget Bourke and 79-year-old Irene Crooks, injections which killed all three.
Sadly, nobody figured out that those three women had been murdered, despite a trail of evidence that pointed at foul play - missing insulin from secure cabinets and the fact that each of the womens’ deaths had been due to a sudden and unexpected change in their conditions.
Oh yeah, and that Colin Norris had been working in the area on those nights. Nobody picked up on that.
Until Colin Norris pointed it out, that is.
Colin Norris had already chosen his next victim, 86-year-old Ethel Hall.
Undoubtedly feeling untouchable, Colin Norris pointed out the fact that whenever he worked the overnight shift, someone died.
Whenever I did nights, someone always died. It was always in the morning when things go wrong – about 5:15am.
Right. Do you think he winked when he said this?
Of course, Ethel Hall was found choking at about five in the morning on the 20th of November, 2002, quickly slipping into a coma and dying two weeks later.
Her doctor was puzzled, however, after blood tests revealed that Ethel Hall’s blood had insulin levels that were about 12 times what they normally would be - and that Ethel wasn’t diabetic so she shouldn’t have been injected with insulin, which she obviously had been.
The police were called and investigations led right to Colin Norris, who maintained his innocence to the last.
During questioning by police, he told officers:
I seem to have been unlucky over the last 12 months.
Yes, Colin. Yes you have.
There was a problem securing solid physical evidence to support accusations against Colin Norris, however. Mrs. Bourke’s body was exhumed, but Mrs. Ludlam and Mrs. Crooks had been cremated.
Fortunately, over 7000 statements that supported a case against Colin Norris were made by hospital staff that he had worked with, patients of his and relatives of those patients. There was also considerable circumstantial evidence - over 3000 pieces of evidence were brought to trial.
On the 3rd of March, 2008, Colin Norris was found guilty of four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
The judge didn’t seem to like Colin much, stating:
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. You were essentially lazy and saw elderly patients as needing too much care.
Colin Norris was sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole until 30 years pass.
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I’m over the fact that these people get off with such light sentences. 30 years is all he got after killing 4 people. Was it because they were old and “they were going to die soon anyways?”
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Meaghan reply on March 4th, 2008:
Well, this was in England. They don’t have sentences as long as in the US. Very few criminals in England get LWOP (life without parole), even serial killers. The only ones I can think off the top of my head were Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, the Moors Murderers who killed a handful of children back in the sixties.
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Sick fart, I tell ya..Needs some mental help..lets torture him!!
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Ohhh I know, I know. Lets shoot him up with massive doses of insulin and morphine and see how he likes it. Maybe he’ll go into a coma or something and then DIE and rot in hell. Stupid bastard.
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I hope he’s in need of a nursing home when he gets out. I really really do.
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Meaghan reply on March 4th, 2008:
He might need one before he gets out. I’ve always wondered what they did with geriatric prisoners.
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3 people voted no for hell. Wonder what their reasoning is.
We really don’t need people like Norris around. Can’t we just bury him alive? Give a bit of time to think about what he’s done and what’s happening on his way to hell.
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I have heard that it takes a certain kind of person to work at the SPCA and in old folk’s homes.’
I worked in a home for alzheimers in Santa Barbara. I only lasted a few months, as I went home every day crying. They drugged every one of them, to make them easier to handle. When I questioned this, I was let go.
I did not, however, kill any of my patients.
Must feel wonderful, being so god-like in that you can kill people any time you want.
Not.
c
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Kim - that’s what I call “sympathy therapy” sugar coats the “eye for an eye” into a nice pill thet the PC (Politically Correct) and other such types can swallow. We rally don’t need to kill him too dast - let him be a prisoner in hos own body for a while.
Hey - lets test other drugs on him as well or see if we can induce Alzheimer’s or other such dreaded diseases upon him. If we can inflict it then we may be able to better understand it, or at least get a great laugh at this POS’s expense!
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“Very few criminals in England get LWOP (life without parole), even serial killers. The only ones I can think off the top of my head were Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, the Moors Murderers who killed a handful of children back in the sixties.”
Mark Dixie is one of them, so were Harold Shipman and Fred West, but they are dead (as is Myra). Rose West is one also, she still lives.
And to Brittany above, there was no mention of the length of his sentence being related to the victims being old and ready to die soon. Read what the judge actually said.
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Meaghan reply on March 5th, 2008:
Fred West hung himself before trial, I thought. But he probably would have been LWOPed if he had lived.
Myra Hindley was not, technically, LWOPed. I believe when they first sentenced her they allowed for the possibility of release someday, but later on they were like “no way in hell are we letting you out” so that counts as LWOP in my book.
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the worst thing is, for every one guy they catch, there’s at least ten more of those sick bastards running around free.
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I would personally like to see him when he’s released, old and frail like the people he killed. Then maybe we can strap him to a hospital bed, and pay some deranged looking nurse to inject him with all sorts of random chemicals and see how he likes it.
Or maybe we can get someone that looks like his grandfather and let him inject him!
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The sentence was life in prison with no parole until 30 years pass.
So we fulfill the sentence as it is written. Life in prison means until you die. So 30 years must pass after he serves his life in prison before the guards release his body. Sounds good to me.
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