LONDON, England (CNN) -- Serial killer Harold Shipman, known as "Dr. Death," has been found dead in his prison cell in northern England, officials say.

Shipman was found hanging in his cell at Wakefield prison, West Yorkshire, at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday and was pronounced dead at 8:10 a.m. after resuscitation efforts failed, a Prison Service spokeswoman said.

His death will be investigated. Shipman would have been 58 on Wednesday.

Shipman, a family doctor in the town of Hyde near Manchester, northwest England, was convicted for the deaths of 15 elderly women patients in 2000.

In July 2003, an inquiry found that Shipman murdered at least 215 patients, mainly elderly women.

Shipman hanged himself using bed sheets from the window bars in his cell, a Prison Service spokeswoman told the UK Press Association.

He had been on suicide watch briefly earlier in his sentence at Manchester prison and on being moved to Frankland prison in February 2000, but never since he arrived at Wakefield in June 2003.

"He was showing no signs whatsoever of pre-suicidal behavior at all," said the spokeswoman. "He was behaving utterly normally. He was working as normal and doing education as normal.

"There was absolutely no indication that this was coming and he was giving no cause for concern."

Shipman killed his victims with large amounts of diamorphine, or heroin, from 1975 to 1998, the 2,000-page report concluded.

- CNN

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