Colin Norris
Colin Campbell Norris (born 12 February 1976) is a British nurse convicted of murdering four elderly patients and attempting to murder another at two hospitals in Leeds, England. He is suspected to have killed at least six other patients but has never been charged with these deaths. He maintains his innocence and was supported by the 2011 documentary A Jury in the Dark, which suggested that there were natural explanations for all the deaths, but attempts to appeal against his conviction have failed.
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Biography edit
Norris trained as a nurse at the University of Dundee, where he was known for his aggressive behaviour towards lecturers. Shortly before he qualified as a nurse his tutor was known to have taught him about Jessie McTavish, a nurse convicted of murdering a patient with an insulin overdose only for her conviction to be overturned, charging Norris with "reviewing" her conduct. This is regarded as a likely inspiration for Norris' later crimes, in which he killed patients by overdosing them with insulin, and would have been where he learned that insulin is a near-perfect murder weapon because it leaves the bloodstream quickly. Another possible inspiration was a storyline in the soap opera Holby City concerning a serial killer nurse who killed patients with insulin, which Norris' boyfriend reported he had been following intently at the time of the murders. This storyline is believed to have inspired another British serial killer nurse, Benjamin Geen.
As a nurse Norris regularly refused to work with elderly patients and expressed his hatred of them. During the investigation into his crimes, Norris admitted to police that he disliked working with elderly patients, particularly elderly women who had trouble washing themselves. He repeatedly refused to help patients change their soiled clothes or bedding, and often flew into a rage at something as minor as geriatric patients throwing off their bedding. He was accused of abusing elderly patients at one of the hospitals in which he would go on to commit murder, once forcing an elderly man to empty his own catheter bag in the bathroom before going off duty; the man collapsed on the way to the bathroom and got no help from Norris. Two elderly women claimed that Norris had yelled verbal abuse at them after they rang an emergency buzzer, telling them "I hope you suffer, rot in Hell!".
In 2002 Norris worked at two hospitals in Leeds, the Leeds General Infirmary and St. James' University Hospital. On 20 November, Norris was working the night shift at St. James' when he suddenly predicted that one of the patients, 86-year-old Ethel Hall, would become ill and die, commenting that "Whenever I do nights someone always dies" and complaining that he would have to fill out paperwork for her death. This was despite Hall only being at the hospital for a broken hip, which should not have proven fatal. Norris further predicted that she would fall ill at around 5:15 am because it was always around that time that things went wrong. At around 5 am, Hall indeed became catastrophically ill and fell into a hypoglycaemic coma with no prior medical warning and Norris and other nurses went to tend to her, with Norris tapping his watch and telling another nurse "I told you so". Hall's condition deteriorated further and she died on 11 December.
A doctor at St. James' became suspicious and ordered blood testing performed on Hall. A blood sample was taken and was found to contain a fatal dose of insulin, over 12 times the normal dosage. Hall had not been prescribed insulin and had no medical condition that would require it. It was determined that the insulin was manufactured and had not been produced in the body, meaning that it must have been injected. Two vials of insulin were found to have gone missing from the storage fridge on 20 November and suspicion immediately fell on Norris, who was the last person to access the fridge before Hall fell ill and had previously been caught stealing drugs from the hospital. Norris was suspended with pay and interviewed by police, telling them that the insulin had likely been taken from the fridge by a non-existent intruder; however, the fridge was code-locked and could not have been accessed by anyone other than medical staff. He also told police that he had never seen patients fall into a hypoglycaemic coma before.
Unknown to Norris, several other deaths on medical wards while he was on duty were under investigation. Several of these cases involved patients suffering hypoglycaemic comas, which Norris had denied encountering before. The investigation concluded that the deaths of 80-year-old Doris Ludlam and 88-year-old Bridget Bourke at Leeds General Infirmary and 79-year-old Irene Crookes at St. James' were suspicious. Ludlam had fallen into a hypoglycaemic coma on 25 June 2002 after being given an unnecessary injection of morphine and insulin by Norris and died two days later. Bourke had inexplicably suffered a hypoglycaemic attack on 21 July and died the following day; Norris had claimed to have discovered her in that state. Norris had then been transferred to St. James', where he had been assigned to care for 79-year-old Irene Crookes. Norris recorded that her condition was improving, only to supposedly discover her in a hypoglycaemic coma on 19 October. She died the next day, with colleagues reporting that Norris had made no effort to revive Crookes and had looked on with "detached amusement" as she fell into the coma. It was also discovered that while Norris was working at the General Infirmary, 90-year-old Vera Wilby, a dementia sufferer who Norris viewed as a "difficult" patient, had suffered a hypoglycaemic attack but survived after Norris injected her with morphine and insulin for no apparent reason at the end of his shift. None of the women were diabetic or in hospital for life-threatening conditions.
The bodies of Irene Crookes and Doris Ludlam had been cremated and could not be exhumed, but Bridget Bourke was exhumed and was found to have suffered an insulin overdose. Norris also admitted when questioned that he had injected Doris Ludlam and Vera Wilby with overdoses of morphine which they did not need. Norris' ex-partner told police that shortly before the first suspicious case at the General Infirmary Norris had experimented on and killed his cat with insulin in an apparent test of how to kill with insulin. Norris behaved oddly during the investigation, bragging that he knew more than the police interviewing him and they had "nothing on him" and going on holiday to Tenerife shortly after being arrested the first time. He was the only person who had worked at both the Leeds General Infirmary and St. James' Hospital, and no mysterious hypoglycaemic attacks had occurred at either hospital once Norris had left.
Norris was found guilty of four counts of murder and once count of attempted murder by a majority verdict of 11 - 1 on 3 March 2008. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve at least 30 years at HMP Frankland. Norris appealed his conviction in 2009 arguing that the judge at his trial had misdirected the jury and that the deaths could have been coincidental or caused by another nurse, but the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction. He continues to claim his innocence and insulin poisoning expert Vincent Marks has supported Norris, arguing that 1 in 10 of all hypoglycaemic episodes in elderly patients occur naturally and that all five victims were at high risk of suffering natural hypoglycaemic attacks. However, the insulin in the bodies of Hall and Bourke did not contain c-peptides, which is contained in all naturally-produced insulin, and for five non-diabetic elderly people to suffer hypoglycaemic attacks in the same two hospitals within a few months is considered statistically unlikely. The 2011 documentary A Jury in the Dark also supported Norris and suggested that the victims had died from auto-immune syndrome, a claim conclusively discounted by medical experts during the investigation. The Criminal Case Review Commission investigated Norris' claims of innocence in February 2021 and concluded that, while it was possible for most of the victims to have experienced natural hypoglycaemic episodes, "there is no dispute that [Ethel Hall] was murdered by injection of insulin". Norris remains imprisoned at HMP Frankland.
External Links edit
- Colin Norris on Wikipedia
- Colin Norris, 'Angel of Death' nurse, convicted, The Daily Telegraph
- Nurse guilty of killing patients, BBC News