Killer doctor Harold Shipman has died after being found hanging in his cell in Wakefield Prison. Shipman was discovered at 0620 GMT by staff who tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead at 0810 GMT, a Prison Service spokeswoman said. He was jailed for life in January 2000 for murdering 15 patients while working in Hyde, Greater Manchester. An official report later concluded he killed at least 215 people and maybe 260 people over a 23-year period in Hyde and Todmorden, West Yorkshire. The 57-year-old GP, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, was given 15 life sentences to run concurrently for the murders, and four years for forging a will. He went down in history as the UK's biggest convicted serial killer but always denied his crimes. Jane Ashton-Hibbert, whose grandmother Hilda was unlawfully killed by Shipman, told BBC News: "This seems like an easy way out for him. He never showed any compassion or any guilt and that door is now closed to us." And Kathleen Wood, whose 83-year-old mother Bessie Baddeley died in 1997, said: "I am not sorry he has gone, but it brings it all back and it stirs it all up for us again." A Prison Service statement said he used bedsheets to hang himself from the window bars of his cell. It went on: "Since arriving at Wakefield on June 18 2003, Shipman had never been on a suicide watch and was on normal location and following a normal regime. "The family have been informed and the Prison Service will be conducting an investigation into the death as we do with all deaths in custody. The coroner has been informed." **Poor behavior*** Prisons' Minister Paul Goggins said prisons ombudsman Stephen Shaw would carry out the investigation into Shipman's death. The GP, who leaves a widow Primrose, was on suicide watch at two other prisons earlier in his sentence. BBC home affairs correspondent Andy Tighe said this would be very embarrassing for the Prison Service, coming after Soham murderer Ian Huntley attempted suicide by taking a drugs overdose in Woodhill Prison last year. But Brian Caton, of the Prisoners' Association said Shipman had given no indication of suicide in interviews or in his interaction with prison officers. He told BBC News: "I don't think it fair or reasonable to suggest prison officers at Wakefield Prison were lax." The vast majority of the doctor's victims were elderly women who were given lethal heroin injections. He was brought to justice after attempting to forge the £386,000 will of one of his victims, Kathleen Grundy, 81. After the trial, a public inquiry was launched into how the GP was able to escape detection for so long. It was chaired by High Court judge Dame Janet Smith and her first report in 2002 found the former GP killed at least 215 patients and could have killed as many as 260. **'Perversion'*** Her final report is due out in the summer. Of Shipman's 215 likely victims, 171 were women and 44 were men, with the oldest being a 93-year-old woman and the youngest a 47-year-old man. Last month it emerged that the serial killer had been stripped of his privileges at Wakefield because of poor behavior. At his trial, Mr Justice Thayne Forbes said: "Finally you have been brought to justice for your wicked, wicked crimes. "You abused the trust of these victims - you were, after all, their doctor. "You used a calculating and cold-blooded perversion of your medical skills. You have shown no remorse." **PHOTO CAPTION*** British doctor Harold Shipman, one of the worst serial killers of all time. (AFP/File)