Associated Press (Jan 13, 11:41 AM)  A British family doctor blamed for killing at least 215 elderly patients over several decades hanged himself with bed sheets in his prison cell, a prison spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Dr. Harold Shipman was found hanging in his cell at Wakefield Prison in northern England at 6:20 a.m. He was pronounced dead about two hours later after attempts to resuscitate him failed, the Prison Service said in a statement.

Shipman, 57, labeled "Dr. Death" by tabloid newspaper, preyed largely on elderly women, killing them with lethal injections. But a trial and a later former investigation never determined why he committed the slayings that horrified the nation.

He was convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 elderly patients and sentenced to life in prison. The later investigation said Shipman murdered at least 200 other people since 1975 and raised questions about how he was able to evade detection for so many years.

After news of Shipman's death, the word "Justice" was scrawled 12 times across the metal shutters of his former office.

The daughter of one of Shipman's victims expressed regret that the doctor never acknowledged his crimes.

"I am not sorry he has gone, but it brings it all back and it stirs it all up for us again," said Kathleen Wood, whose 83-year-old mother, Elizabeth Baddeley, was murdered by Shipman in 1997.

"I just wish he had been forthcoming and admitted he had done those things - it would have put a lot of people's minds at rest."

Shipman, who maintained his innocence, hanged himself by using bed sheets attached to the window bars in his cell, a spokeswoman for the Prison Service said on condition of anonymity.

He had not been placed on suicide watch since arriving at the high-security Wakefield Prison in June and had followed a "normal regime," the Prison Service said.

"He was showing no signs whatsoever of pre-suicidal behavior," the spokeswoman said.

The Prisons Minister announced an investigation by the prisons ombudsman Stephen Shaw into the death.

Shaw said he would examine whether there were any "warning signs" from Shipman or lapses in procedure. But, he added, it was impossible to prevent all prisoner suicides.

"You have 70,000 people in prison. You do not have a situation, nor would you seek a situation, where they are all under 24-hour surveillance. That isn't possible, it isn't desirable, it isn't humane," Shaw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

High Court Judge Janet Smith, who investigated Shipman's activities after he was jailed, concluded in 2002 that he killed 215 of his patients, including 171 women and 44 men.

Smith said she also found a "real suspicion" that Shipman was responsible for 45 other deaths, and there was insufficient evidence to form any conclusion in another 38 deaths.

Shipman's motive was a mystery. In all but one case there was no evidence that he killed for money and "no suggestion of any form of sexual depravity," Smith said. However, in at least one case the victim had made Shipman the beneficiary of her will.

"Doctors are respected, rightly so, and Shipman in particular was highly respected in Hyde," Smith had said. "He betrayed their trust in a way and to an extent that I believe is unparalleled in history."

Shipman's activities did not arouse suspicion until March 1998, when another doctor, whom he had asked to co-sign some cremation certificates, expressed concern at the number of deaths. Police concluded the evidence was insufficient to pursue charges.

The investigation was reopened months later after a woman discovered that her 81-year-old mother apparently had changed her will to leave everything to Shipman. That led to exhumations and eventually to Shipman's trial and convictions.

A jury found that he deliberately injected heroin into 15 elderly women - many in good health - during routine checkups in their homes or at his office.

A second inquiry by Smith last year found Shipman would not have been free to murder his last three victims if the initial police investigation had been properly conducted. She said two detectives in charge of the probe lacked experience.