Is this nurse serving 30 years for murders that never happened? Compelling new evidence suggests 'Angel of Death' is innocent
To the judge at his trial, Colin Norris was an 'arrogant and manipulative man with a real dislike of elderly patients'. A cold-blooded serial killer, he had been convicted of murdering four elderly women – and almost killing a fifth – by injecting them with insulin.
For his crime he was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in jail. He is serving his sentence in the forbidding, maximum-security jail HMP Frankland, near Durham, alongside Soham murderer Ian Huntley.
Other inmates regularly contaminate his food with bodily fluids and sharpened foil from coffee jars that can be fatal if swallowed.
But now, compelling new evidence suggests not only that Colin Norris, the former nurse who was dubbed 'the angel of death', is innocent, it also hints that his 'victims' in two Leeds hospitals were not murdered at all – that they died instead of natural causes.
The prosecution at Norris's trial in Newcastle in 2008 said the women all died from hypoglycaemia, extreme low blood sugar, which causes the brain and other major organs to cease functioning.
It was claimed this condition almost never arises spontaneously – suggesting it was triggered by injections of insulin.
There was no direct evidence that Norris injected them with anything.
More... The kiss that caused 'bad vibes': Amanda Knox reveals kiss outside Kercher murder scene with former boyfriend led to perception of her as sinister seductress Couple who left baby to die of pneumonia during winter while they threw all night drunken party face jailBut it was argued that he was the 'common factor' in their deaths because he was looking after them all when they died. The odds against this happening by chance were therefore 'overwhelming'.
But now, a series of scientific studies has shown that hypoglycaemia often arises in elderly patients admitted to hospital for other reasons – in as many as ten per cent of cases.
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In the frame: Colin Norris, adamant that he has committed no crime, is interviewed by West Yorkshire Police
At the same time, an investigation by Paul May, the veteran campaigner against miscarriages of justice, and Louise Shorter, the former producer of the BBC Rough Justice programme, has revealed that at least six women who were never looked after by Norris at all died from hypoglycaemia in the hospitals where he worked in the same period.