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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Euro Edition: Morning Papers

Aired January 14, 2004 - 05:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time to check on what's making headlines overseas this morning in this morning's 'Euro Edition.' Becky Anderson live for us in London.
Good morning -- Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very good morning to you.

And certainly, as I suggested yesterday, the papers in the U.K. and elsewhere today running a fairly disturbing, a truly disturbing story, the story of Britain's most prolific serial killer who hung himself, it appears, in his prison cell in the north of England yesterday just a day before his birthday.

Serial killer had been planning his suicide for weeks, says the "Daily Mail." Dr. Death has the last laugh. He made a six-minute farewell call to his wife, Primrose Shipman. This, of course, is Harold Shipman, one of the world's most prolific serial killers, jailed for the murder of 15 of his patients.

He was a doctor in the north of England, preyed on the very vulnerable women, generally between the age of 75 and 90. Women who were not ill, it appears, and may never have succumbed at the age that they did...

COSTELLO: Becky.

ANDERSON: ... were it not for a lethal heroine injection that this doctor gave them.

Yes.

COSTELLO: I just wonder, does it say in there what he said in that six-minute call to his wife?

ANDERSON: It doesn't. What it says is that he made the conversation. The conversation was taped. It hasn't been released as of yet. But he was pleading for a visit from his wife on his birthday, which would have been today. Apparently that visit was to be approved.

Really, the travesty of this story has been the fact that he wasn't on suicide watch. And that the members of the families of these victims, relatives of these victims, and it now appears after an inquiry, which is still ongoing, that it wasn't just 15 women that this man murdered, it was more than 215. He never admitted to any of these deaths and indeed goes to his grave never admitting to them and never explaining why he did it. And he said he'd do it, but they believe Primrose's love would stop him. That's the front page of the "Daily Mirror." We reveal the shocked prison report. And there were reports, as I say, that they did make this telephone conversation. It was taped. We are, as I say, as yet to hear the substance of that call.

Prison authorities now starting an inquiry immediately into why this prisoner, who was on a life sentence, of course, wasn't on suicide watch. He had been in the past. He had been allowed to come off suicide watch. He had been conducting himself fairly normally in prison. There are those who say that he -- there was evidence that he would commit suicide at some stage if indeed he was allowed to do it. That prison authorities really under the kosh (ph) in the U.K.

The story isn't necessarily the story that Shipman killed himself, it's more the story of these grieving relatives who right bang in the middle of an inquiry into why Shipman did what he did. And as I say, the story is very much that of the relatives on the papers and playing out in the papers and in the press across the radio and TV in the U.K. today. The fact that this man goes to the grave without letting these victims and their relatives really know what went on.

And Shipman's final plea was to see his wife. Serial killer found hanged after begging for a birthday wish. And this a picture on the front of "The Times" of one of his victims, and the line from his family, we used to go out dancing every day. Lots of these people really weren't ill at the time that they saw their GP Harold Shipman. And as I say, for the families, this has been a terrible, terrible story.

COSTELLO: Can't even imagine.

Becky Anderson live from London this morning.

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