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Opiate most likely killer

15/11/2001

WINIFRED Healey's death was 'consistent with the injection of a lethal dose of an opiate'.

That was the opinion of expert GP, Dr John Grenville, who was giving medical evidence about a number of suspicious deaths.

The 82-year-old was found dead in her Brunswick Street, Dukinfield home in February 1998, after her close friend Ernest Stafford - who knew her as 'Winnie' - contacted the police.

Shipman recorded she'd died from congestive heart failure, but as far as her family were aware, she'd only ever been told she had angina.

Dr Grenville said Shipman was 'more likely to diagnose congestive heart failure than many other doctors'.

He said the possibility that Mrs Healey died of natural causes could not be 'conclusively ruled out', but said there was no evidence to suggest that she did.

"There is certainly no basis on which Shipman could have certified the cause of her death as congestive heart failure due to ischaemic heart disease," said Dr Grenville.

"The death is consistent with the injection of a lethal dose of an opiate."

The expert witness also gave evidence on a number of other deaths including those of Samuel Mills, who died in his Ogden Court flat in Hyde, in November 1996, and Margaret Waldron who died, aged 65, at her home in Woodend Lane, Hyde, in March 1998.