Ep 65-The Doctor Who Inherited The Dead

A beloved doctor who prays at the bedside, shows up in the middle of the night, and somehow keeps ending up in his patients’ wills. That is the unsettling setup behind our deep dive into Dr John Bodkin Adams, the Eastbourne GP later suspected of sending scores of wealthy patients into comas that looked like strokes but reeked of narcotics.

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Resources: 16

1. John Bodkin Adams — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bodkin_Adams

2. R v Adams (1957) — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Adams_(1957)

3. Death of Edith Alice Morrell — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Edith_Alice_Morrell

4. Death of Gertrude Hullett — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gertrude_Hullett

5. Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Devlin,_Baron_Devlin

6. Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Geoffrey_Lawrence

7. Percy Hoskins — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Hoskins

8. BBC News: "The case of suspected Irish serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams" (2016)  —  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-35606070

9. Irish Times: "Doctor grows richer as old patients die" (2010)  —  https://www.irishtimes.com/news/doctor-grows-richer-as-old-patients-die-1.679439

10. Unknown Kent & Sussex Magazine: "One of the Greatest Murder Trials of All Time" (2023)  —  https://unknownkentandsussex.co.uk/dr-john-bodkin-adams-one-of-the-greatest-murder-trials-of-all-time/

11. HeadStuff: "John Bodkin Adams, A Curious and Dubious Doctor" (2017)  —  https://headstuff.org/culture/history/terrible-people-from-history/john-bodkin-adams-a-curious-and-dubious-doctor/

12. Murderpedia: John Bodkin Adams  —  https://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/adams-john-bodkin.htm

13. MedicalBag: "He Stood Trial for the Suspicious Deaths of 163 Former Patients" (2014)  —  https://www.medicalbag.com/features/he-stood-trial-for-the-suspicious-deaths-of-163-former-patients/

14. CrimeReads: "The Great Age of the Celebrity Crime Reporter" (2021)  —  https://crimereads.com/percy-hoskins-age-of-the-celebrity-crime-reporter/

15. London Review of Books: Paul Sieghart, "Sitting it out" (1984)  —  https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n14/paul-sieghart/sitting-it-out

16. Randalstown Arches Association: Heritage Tales  —  https://randalstownarches.com/randalstown-heritage-tales/11-bodkin-adams/

17. The Persecution of Doctor Bodkin Adams — Alexander Baron  —  https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/dr-bodkin-adams.html

18. BMJ/PMC: "Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in perspective" — Herbert G Kinnell (2000)  —  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1119267/

19. The Lancet Psychiatry: "Shipman and Bodkin Adams in the dock"  —  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(15)00467-8/fulltext

20. Oxford Academic: "R v Adams and Terminal Care in Postwar Britain" (2014)  —  https://academic.oup.com/shm/article-pdf/28/1/155/6872067/hku067.pdf

21. University Hospital Southampton NHS: "Doctrine of double effect"  —  https://www.uhs.nhs.uk/health-professionals/clinical-law-updates/doctrine-of-double-effect

22. Grumpy Old Bookman: "The Strange Case of Dr John Bodkin Adams"  —  http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2004/08/strange-case-of-dr-john-bodkin-adams.html

23. Patrick Devlin, Easing the Passing: The Trial of Doctor John Bodkin Adams (The Bodley Head, 1985), ISBN 0-57113-993-0  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Devlin,_Baron_Devlin

24. Reddit r/UnresolvedMysteries: Discussion thread on Adams and the Macmillan connection  —  https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3gczdy/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/japan-first-approve-stem-cell-treatments-parkinsons-heart-failure?utm

Transcript

Quick Catch Up And Corrections

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Amanda!

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Jenna!

SPEAKER_01 0:13

How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:15

We're good. The baby's still sick, but we are okay. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

So I I have a feeling we'll learn more about this later, but your theory maybe helped you, but not your baby.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Well, you know, you know, so he went there for three days, got sick, got better, went there for another three days. Now I think we're dealing with someone something else. But my theory is strong. We'll talk we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I can't wait. I can't wait. Well, I know you've got a sick baby, so normally we would have some clever banter about now, but in respect for much needed baby mama time, should we just jump right into it?

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah, let's do it. Do we have corrections? Oh, it was mentioned that maybe by you that maybe my correction should be I mean, maybe isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Oh, my correction should be that thank you everyone for joining me on my long and deep arduous rabbit hole with Lucy Levy because honestly, for some reason this case really grabbed me and I just I still don't know quite what I think. And I think it was because I was just so black and white in the beginning. So thanks to everyone for our unprecedented three-parter. If you stuck around, and I hope you did, because um, you know, that's very validating for me anyway. So yeah, that's our correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

I guess, you know, after you said that, I was like, that does sound familiar, but I think I've lived a thousand lives since last week. So uh you did great. I was there for all three parts, and I hope you all were too. We're gonna move on to a sponsor here. It's it's always been an important sponsor to me, but most especially while my baby wakes up every 30 minutes at night, Strong Coffee Company. You know, they they offer a premium instant blend that combines convenience with health benefits. Their standout black fair trade instant coffee delivers a smooth, robust flavor while adding 15 grams of protein, five grams of MCTs, and 250 milligrams of adaptogens like ashwagonda and theanine. This formula provides lasting energy, sharper focus, calm without the jitters, and even supports better sleep and mental clarity. Ideal for new mamas. We all need that.

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SPEAKER_04 2:32

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SPEAKER_01 3:11

Nice. That's a good discount.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

Yeah, we love a 20%er. Bear with me as I'm making my font bigger because my eyeballs feel like also you have five thousand old today.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

We have five thousand and two references. So this is Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

You guys, we're doing a two-parter, so I was like, should we do that after coming off a three? I don't know, but we're doing it. So we're going over to Sussex.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Are you ready? We're going over the pond, are we? Oh, I like a bit of Sussex of an evening.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

We're going out with the pond. Trigger warnings. I left that blank again per usual. I don't think there are any. I'll mention as they come across if there are. But I don't I don't think so. It's just a very interesting old timey.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Well, it's not that old timey, but it is the 1900s. I have patients who tell me their birthday and they say 1900 and such and such, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I was born in the 1900s

Setting Up The Sussex Two Parter

SPEAKER_01 4:10

too. It just sounds so old. It feels like it should be, but it's not really that old.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Nothing like makes you feel old with a newborn. I was born in the 1900s. Um, okay, well, we're in Eastbourne, Sussex. It's November 1950. It's a town of white cliffs, grand hotels, and quiet money. They called it God's Waiting Room, a place where wealthy widows came to live out their final years in peace, tended to by servants and visited by doctors who still made calls in the dead of the night. Edith Alice Morel was 81 years old. She had survived a stroke two years earlier, and now she lay in her bed at Mardin Art Ash, her comfortable home, attended around the clock by private nurses. She was wealthy, and her estate would be valued at 157,000 pounds. Yeah, I didn't I didn't convert.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

That's okay. That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Because I had to

Edith Morell And A Deadly Dose

SPEAKER_04 5:12

I would have to convert twice.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I mean, that's too much converting. That's too much math. US and then I don't math.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

If y'all know me, I don't math. Well, I could Google it. Anyway, okay. So it was a lot of money, and she was frail, and you know, another thing she was was addicted to morphine and handling.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

The man who made her addicted was the same man who now sat at her bedside with a syringe in his hand.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

His name was Dr. Adams. He was a heavyset, devoted, smiley man. A man who held your hand and prayed with you, who came when you called at two in the morning, and a man who, over the course of 30 years in this genteel seaside town, had been named in 350 wills. Just a couple.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Oh boy, I'm starting to smell suspicion here.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

Uh-huh. If you smell suspicion, guys, it's probably suspicion. In the final days of Edith Morell's life, Dr. Adams prescribed 40 and a half grains of morphine and 39 grains of heroin. Quantities that a prosecution expert would later say could only have been prescribed with murderous intent. To put this into perspective, one grain equals 64.8 milligrams.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Oh my gosh, I wasn't expecting that. I thought a grain would be just like this, like on a molecular level.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

64.8 milligrams.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

One grain.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I mean, shouldn't they get like five milligrams total? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

And let's let's remember that he ordered 40 and a half grains of morphine and 39 grains of heroin. Jeez. Insane. So on November 13th, 1950, Edith Morel received her last injection and she never woke up. Adams signed the death certificate himself. Cause of death, he put? Stroke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah. Not wrong.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

He also recommended cremation. He answered no on the form when he asked if he had any financial interest in the deceased estate. And then he collected her Rolls-Royce and drove off.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

I'm sorry. First of all, stroke is like lie by omission. And second of all, oh, I'm not interested as long as I get a Rolls-Royce out of the deal.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Not Sassy. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

No. 163 patients dead. All under the care of the same doctor. All slipping away in comas that looked like strokes but smelled like narcotics. I see what you did there. Oh man. 42% of his patients were diagnosed with cerebral hemorrhage against a national average of only 15%.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

132 of them had left him something in their wills.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Man.

SPEAKER_04 8:14

One doctor, one town, over three decades. And when a Scotland Yard detective finally came to Eastbourne and laid the numbers on the table, Adams looked him in the eye and said, quote, easing the passing of a dying person isn't all that wicked. She wanted to die. That can't be murder. It is impossible to accuse a doctor. End quote.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

And this, my friends, is the story of Dr. John Bodkin Adams, the doctor who inherited the dead.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

This is so disgusting and dark.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

John Bodkin Adams was born on January 21st, 1899, in Randallstown, County Antrim in the north of Ireland. His father, Samuel, was a watchmaker and jeweler who kept a shop at 27 Main Street. He preached every Sunday without fail at the Plymouth Brethren Meeting Hall. The Plymouth Brethren is, well, picture this. There's no stained glass, no organ music, no ordained clergy, just scripture, plain dress, and unshakable conviction that the world outside of the congregation was fallen and corrupt. The Brethren didn't

Who Was John Bodkin Adams

SPEAKER_04 9:30

dance or drink, and they believed that every material thing, every coin, inheritance, and windfall was a gift from God placed in your hands only by divine providence. What?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Sounds like a good time. Okay, so I can make a comment because oh my god, how exciting would it be to hang out with these people? Oh man. It doesn't sound like a bad time.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

It does to me. What? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

No dancing, no drinking, no material things. No, it totally sounds like a horrible time. Very plain Jane boring. Okay, so where was I? Okay. Yeah, okay, so remember all of this because it matters later. John's mother was Ellen Bodkin Adams. She was described without apparent irony as the holiest woman in Ireland. Oh god, she's an even better time. Oh, she's an even better hang. She was devout to the point of severity, and she would remain the most important person in her son's life until the day she died.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Oh my gosh, it's it's it stinks of Ed Cain type attachment here. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Yeah. Together, Samuel and Ellen had two boys, John and his younger brother, William Samuel, who was born in 1903. It was a strict childhood shocking. It was God-fearing, respectable, but then the tragedies came fast. In 1914, Samuel died of a stroke. And John was only 15 at the time, and he was away at boarding school. Four years later, the influenza pandemic of 1918 took William when he was only 15 years old. And just like that, John Bodkin Adams was the only one left. His mother's surviving child, her companion, her project, her mission. They would not be separated for decades to come.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Oh man. This isn't good.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

This is a recipe for disaster. Adams enrolled at Queen's University Belfast when he was 17 years old. His lecturers remembered him as a plotter, a lone wolf, who made few friends and showed no particular brilliance. He missed an entire year due to illness, which was likely tuberculosis. He graduated in 1921 without honors, and honestly, he barely scraped by. But he did have one talent that no examination could measure. He was a networker within the narrow, intensely loyal world of the Plymouth Brethren. At a missionary conference in Larne? Larne? Love it. He met a surgeon named Arthur Rendell Short from Bristol Royal Infirmary, which we've talked about before. Remember that heart scandal? A fellow Brethren member. Oh yeah. Short gave him a position as an assistant houseman, but Adams would only last a year as he did not prove success.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Which is such a polite British way of saying he sucked. He had no work ethic and it was like a waste of space.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Just saying.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

It was Arthur Short who pointed him towards the advertisement in a Christian weekly, which was a general practice in Eastbourne, Sussex, who was looking for a doctor of religious inclination. Which I'm like surprised that you would point him in that direction when you said that he did not prove a success. But okie dokie. The Christians have lower standards.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I'm like, okie dokie.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Maybe not also an advertisement for being a doctor. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Well, there's a lot of problems.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Barely scraped by in your studies the way it was. Well, you know, Adams applied and wow, he got the job. So in 1922, at the little baby age of 23, he packed up and moved to the south coast of England, bringing his widowed mother and his quiet, mousy spinster cousin, Sarah Florence Henry. Eastbourne in the 1920s was a very specific kind of English paradise. As I mentioned before, the White Cliffs, they had grand hotels, manicured lawns, and they had money. Not any kind of money. It was that old money. That old quiet inherited money. Money that pooled in bank accounts of retired colonels, dowager widows, and spinster aunts who had come to the coast

Eastbourne Wealth And Easy Access

SPEAKER_04 14:17

to live out their years in comfort. For a young general practitioner with the right bedside manner, Eastbourne was a gold mine. And for John Adams, he understood this immediately. He made himself indispensable. He cycled to patients' homes at all hours when he could afford it, and later upgraded to a motor scooter and then a car. He appeared at bedside at 2 a.m. holding hands, praying, and radiating warmth and concern. To a wealthy 80-year-old widow who lives alone, frightened of dying in the night, Dr. Adams was a godsend. And the gifts began to flow. In 1929, he borrowed 2,000 pounds from a patient named William Mahood, a Sheffield cutlery manufacturer. That's the equivalent, ooh, I did do math, of over 100,000 pounds today. And in US, 135,836 das.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

How would you feel if your doctor was borrowing money from you? I know. Seriously. Especially when you're. You're making cutlery, knives, and forks, people. Come on. Your doctor needs to borrow money at the rate he charges.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

Call someone else. Yeah. So he used this money to buy Kent Lodge, which was an 18-room house on one of Eastbourne's finest streets. And I'm like, so he's borrowing money to buy a house, also. Odd. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Sorry, not just any house, a house with 18 rooms. Yeah. Are you planning to propagate or what are we doing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

So he also took to inviting himself into the Mahood's home at mealtimes, bringing his mother and cousin along, because why not? And charging items to the Mahood's account at local shops without their permission to do so. Cheeky. Super bold. Mrs. Mahood later told police he was, in her words, a real scrounger. When William Mahood died in 1949, Adams visited the widow exactly once. He picked up a 22-karat gold pen from her bedroom dressing table, said he wanted, quote, something of her husband's, unquote, and never came back.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

That jerk. What?

SPEAKER_04 16:34

The gall. By the early 1930s, the pattern was already visible. If anyone had been looking, in 1935, Adams inherited 7,385 pounds from a patient named Matilda Whitten. Her entire estate was only 11,000. So like just, you know, the majority.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

The majority of her estate.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

The family contested the will, but unfortunately they lost. And then the anonymous postcards started arriving at Kent Lodge. He would get three or four a year of accusing him of bumping off patients. Adams admitted their existence himself years later in newspaper interviews. But they kept coming until the war, and then they stopped, and then they started picking back up again in 1945. The tea rooms of Eastbourne, they were a whisperin', but nobody did anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

I mean, that's where they spilled the tea, to be fair. This is true.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

By the 1950s, Adam had a chauffeur, two expensive cars, and a patient list that read like a page from De Bretz, which I looked up is a British publisher known for cataloging a lineage of nobility and landed gentry in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

So a sort of who's who in the zoo of the upper echelon.

SPEAKER_04 17:55

Yeah. Yeah. Among the names was Lord Burley, the Olympic medalist who won gold for the 400-meter hurdles at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. Oswald Burley, the society painter, Admiral Robert Prendergast, a Royal Navy officer, Sir Alexander McGuire, British industrialist who made his fortune from match manufacturing, producing the McGuire and Patterson brand, among others. The 10th Duke of Devonshire, who happened to be the brother-in-law of a politician named Harold Macmillan. Even the chief constable of Eastbourne, Richard Walker, was a patient of Adams. A journalist named Rodney Hallworth would later claim that Adams was reputed to be the wealthiest general practitioner in all of England. His annual supertax bill alone was 1,100 pounds. When police eventually asked him about his legacies, Adams waved the question away. I don't want money, he said. What use is it? I paid 1,100 pounds in supertax last year. But the money kept arriving and the patients kept dying. So, how does one small town GP allegly kill 163 people over three decades and get away with it? The answer, according to Scotland Yard's investigation and the work of historian Pamela Cullen, who gained access to the sealed police files in 2003, is that Adams didn't operate like a conventional killer. There was no single dramatic act, no poison in the teacup, no pillow over the face. Instead, he had a system. A methodical system. A slow, patient, seven-step waltz, shall we say, with death. And I don't know, I'd say these are probably the steps. So step one, cultivate. Adams

The Seven Step Killing Pattern

SPEAKER_04 19:49

built trust. He was the doctor who came to your house at 2 a.m. He held your hand and prayed with you. He remembered your birthday. He became not just your physician, but your confidant, your friend, your family. And for all elderly patients who outlived their spouses and whose children lived far away, Adams filled a void for them, and he made himself indispensable. Step 2. Prescribe. Then came the drugs. Morphine for pain and heroin for cerebral irritation. Barbituates for insomnia, always with a medical justification and always in quantities that crept upward week by week and month by month. The pharmacy ledgers, when Scotland Yard finally obtained them, were staggering. For Edith Morel alone, in the last 10 months of her life, Adams had prescribed her 1,629.5 grains of barbiturates, 1,928 grains of Sadormid, which is a sedative hypnotic drug, 164 grains of morphine, and 139.5 grains of heroin. And as we touched on earlier, these are not therapeutic doses, my friends. These are chemical restraints.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So how how long how in what time span did you give her all of these?

SPEAKER_04 21:10

10 months.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Ten months? I mean, it's enough to kill a horse, day two, you would think.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Yeah, I'm like elephant, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

So step three, addict. The drugs did exactly what drugs do. They made the patients confused, pliant, dependent. A woman who had once run her own household, managed her own investments, and made her own decisions, couldn't recall their own name within months. Agnes Pike, one of the rare survivors, was reduced by Adam's prescriptions to a state where she could not remember who she was or even how old she was. When her family intervened by bringing in a second doctor who took her off of the medications, she recovered fully within eight weeks. She was back to doing her own shopping, and that recovery tells you everything. Adam's drugs weren't treating illness, they were manufacturing helplessness. Step number four, the will. Here is where the money enters the picture. Adams was involved in rewriting at least 350 wills. 350. He would suggest to patients that paying his fees would directly incur tax. But b bequests? Bequests or legacies were tax-free. Wouldn't it be simpler then if he murdered to just leave him something in the will? He accompanied patients to the back. He was present when solicitors drew up new documents. A saying then began to circulate in Eastbourne, one of the grim jokes, you know, that the community comes up with, that everyone tells, but no one investigates. The saying was, Once you've made out a will in Dr. Adam's favor, your days are numbered.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

They're not wrong.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Step number five, isolate. The next step was to cut the patient off. Visitors were discouraged and correspondences were intercepted. Nurses were asked to leave the room before injections. When Neil Miller's sisters, Clara, Hilda, and Annie, came under Adam's care, their relatives were unable to reach them. Letters went unanswered and phone calls weren't returned. The women were kept sedated, docile, and unreachable. When nurses asked Adams what was in the syringes he carried in his fancy leather bag, the ones that he prepared privately, and the ones administered behind to closed doors. He just refused to say. Step number six, the special injections. Multiple nurses testified to the same pattern. Adams would arrive, ask the nurse to step outside, and then he would pull a syringe from the bag. The syringes were preloaded with contents unknown. He administered the injection, and the patient would slip deeper into unconsciousness. Then he would leave. One nurse attending Gertrude Hewlett in her final hours said directly to her face, You do realize, doctor, that you have killed her. She was later barred from giving this evidence at trial.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Why did he ask them to leave?

SPEAKER_04 24:08

I mean, was it ostensibly because I think he probably didn't want them to see the amount that he was is my assumption because I imagine X amount of greens would just be so much more or like multiple syringes.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Right. And they're and especially back then, the dynamic would be such that a nurse would just need to do what they were told they weren't gonna tell on a godly doctor that they had suspicion.

SPEAKER_04 24:33

Yeah. The the most infamous one, so to speak, in all of UK at this point. Or at least the richest one or whatever. So step seven, the final step, the death certificate. The final piece of his system was the paperwork. He was the one to sign the death certificates himself. And the cause of death always ranged from cerebral thrombosis, cerebral hemorrhage, stroke or natural causes. And every single time he recommended cremation, which conveniently destroyed any toxicology evidence that may have told a different story. Their cremation forums asked a very specific question. And he answered no every single time. Even when he had been named in the will. Even when he knew the Rolls Royce was coming. When a detective finally confronted him about the lies, his response was breathtaking in its shamelessness. Oh, that wasn't done wickedly. God knows it wasn't. We always want cremations to go smoothly for the dear relatives. If I said I knew I was getting money under the will, they might get suspicious. And I like cremations and burial to go smoothly. There was nothing suspicious, really. It was not deceitful. That was a quote from Adams. Not deceitful? Right. The man who lied on government forms to avoid autopsies that would have revealed lethal drugs in this patient's blood. That man looked at a Scotland Yard detective in the eye and said, it was not deceitful.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Oh, ballsy.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

Maniac. And the system worked. For 30 years it worked. And why? Because no one questions a doctor. Who second guesses the kindly GP who prays with you and comes in at 2 a.m.? And in 1950s England, a doctor's word was almost sacred, and John Bodkin Adams exploited that trust with the patience and precision of a man winding a watch. His father's trade, after all, had been watchmaking.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Adams understood gears. He understood mechanisms, and he understood that if you apply the right pressure in the right sequence at the right time, the hands move exactly where you want them to. But before we get further into this, it's time for a chart note. Chart note! Chart note?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Chart chart chart chart. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

I know.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Wake up, Jenna.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

Welcome to the chart note segment where we learn about what's happening in medicine and healthcare or about my breast milk. Okay. So last week I was I was squawking about my breast milk and how I intentionally tried to catch my baby's germs so that my body would create antibodies to then be passed along to my baby. And well, it turns out that I was correct in my line of thinking, and I am here to share with you more about it. So, yes, breast milk does pass antibodies and other immune protections to a newborn, and it plays

Chart Note Breast Milk Antibodies

SPEAKER_04 27:30

a major role in helping protect babies when their immune systems are still developing. The most important antibody in breast milk is called secretory IgA. It coats the baby's mouth, throat, intestines, and airways, helping block viruses and bacteria from attaching to the body and causing infection. Breast milk also contains IgG and IgM antibodies, immune cells, enzymes, and anti-inflammatory compounds that all contribute to protection against illness. Colostrum, which is the thick yellowish milk produced in the first few days after birth, is especially rich in antibodies. And it's sometimes called the baby's first vaccine because of how concentrated the immune factors are.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

What's fascinating is that the protection can be somewhat targeted. Here's where my thinking came in. If a breastfeeding parent is exposed to a virus or bacteria, their immune system creates antibodies, and some of those antibodies can then appear in the breast milk. That means breast milk may help protect babies from illness and the parent or illness that the parent has recently encountered. Research has shown that breastfed babies tend to have lower rates of ear infections, respiratory infections, diarrheal illnesses, certain stomach viruses, and severe infections requiring hospitalization. Breast milk doesn't make a baby completely immune to illness, though. Of course, babies can still get sick, as evidenced by my baby upstairs. And breastfeeding is only one part of immune protection alongside good hygiene, sleep, and overall health. Antibodies begin to pass to the baby during pregnancy through the placenta, especially those IgG antibodies. So newborns actually receive immune protection both before and after birth. But what I was talking about was that my son was already sick and I was trying to catch his germs. So I looked to some medical journals to see if that was a thing or not, and I found this that yes, theoretically, it can absolutely happen, and scientists believe it's one of the really remarkable aspects of breastfeeding. So if your baby is sick and you're exposed to the same virus or bacteria through close contacts, droplets, kissing, handling them, etc., your immune system may recognize that pathogen and begin producing antibodies against it. And some of those antibodies can then be secreted into the breast milk and passed to the baby. The timeline matters though. Your immune system does not usually create brand new antibodies instantly. So if whatever he was sick with I've had before, it would be a quicker response. For a completely new infection, it often takes several days to ramp up a strong antibody response. However, if you've encountered the germ before, like I said, immune system responds faster through memory cells. Breast milk already contains broad immune protection even before specific antibodies are made, and ongoing breastfeeding during illness may help reduce severity or duration of infections. There's also an interesting theory that's supported by evidence that when a baby nurses, tiny amounts of saliva can move backward into the nipple ducts. Researchers think that this may help, quote unquote, inform the breastfeeding parent's immune system about pathogens that the baby is encountering, almost like a biological communication between the two. So while it's not an instant same-day antibody factory, the cycle of exposure, immune response, antibody transfer through milk is very real. And one reason breastfeeding is considered immunologically dynamic rather than just nutrition.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Oh my gosh, you're first of all, you're a genius. You figured this out. Your kid is so lucky that you're so smart. Well done, Amanda. Well done.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Thank you. I guess I didn't write this in here, but I did say it out loud last week about like, well, at first it looks like when I'm pupping. I'm so sorry, anybody that does not want to hear about this. Remember, I was like, it looks kind of watery, and then it looks like milk later. So I was like, maybe my body thinks he's dehydrated. But actually, when I was reading this research, that is a thing because then that like your body's trying to quench their thirst first while they're nursing. That's why it looks watery first. And then they get the like nutrients and like the dense fat richness, milk after the quench of the thirst.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah. Gosh, our bodies are smart in spite of us. I know. I love I love this biological communication. It's so cool. So cool. Thank you for doing that. A little deep dive there.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

I never had heard about the uh old nipple situation before, but I had heard before like if you like are kissing your baby's forehead, then your body like will know what your baby needs or something. I don't know. Anyway, it's wild. Wild! But enough about uh my boobies. Back to the story. It's so cute. Um okay, let's take some time to go inside these gorgeous houses and let's get into how this happened, not in the abstract, but in the specifics, because the horror of John Bodkin Adams isn't in the numbers, it's in the names. Edith Alice Morel. We met her in the cold opening, but let me fill in some details. Edith Alice Morel was born on June 20th, 1869. She was a wealthy widow living comfortably in Eastbourne. In June 1948, while visiting her son in Cheshire, she suffered a stroke. She was particularly paralyzed. I'm sorry. She was paralyzed,

Edith Morell Revisited And The Cover Up

SPEAKER_04 33:08

but partially paralyzed, not particularly, and transferred to Eastbourne on July 5th, where Adams took over her care. He prescribed her morphine on July 9th and, I don't know, added some heroin on the 21st because why not? And by the following year, the routine was established. A quarter grain of morphine and a third of a grain of heroin, injected every evening by private nurses. A steady drip, a chemical leash, which I thought was interesting because this was administered by nurses, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yeah. Through Again, they don't they don't have sorry, they don't have the infrastructure to be able to speak up at this point because first of all, there's misogyny, and second of all, there's Doctor's God plus misogyny.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Absolutely. Through 1949 and 1950, Morel made several wills. In August 1950, Adams was left a chest of silver cutlery worth 276 pounds and a contingent claim on her Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. But only if her son died before she did. It wasn't much. And then on September 13th, a codicil cut Adams out entirely. He may not have known, or he may have. Either way, the prescriptions escalated. In the five days before her death, on the 8th and 12th of November, Adams ordered 40 and a half grains of morphine and 39 and a half grains of heroin. And I know we don't need to know the exact dose, but I'm just like, after we learned about how much one grain is, like these are just insane.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

One grain? One grain is too much. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. How did a pharmacist did pharmacists have no power or no say at this point? How did he get this past anybody? That'd be today, like if we were like, oh well, we need, you know, 500,000 grams of oxycodone for one patient. They'd be like, I think not. They'd be like, um, are you selling? You know, also, FBI, can we get can we get this this guy turfed out of here? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

Yeah, red flag, red flag. Yeah, yeah. Just crazy bananas. The prosecution's expert would later call the quantities, like I said earlier, um, murderous intent. So on November 13th, Morel sadly died, and Adams signed the certificate and put the cause of death as stroke, and he remembered recommend cremation. And yeah, here's the detail that still makes investigators flinch. Before signing the death certificate, he slit Morel's wrist. Why do you ask? To can to confirm she was dead.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Because she was so high and so you know, stupefied on these drugs. He's like, I I need to be sure because she could still be in there somewhere. Oh my god, he's so evil. I hate this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

The body was cremated the same day. Gone, all the evidence, ash. But Adams wasn't finished. He billed Morel's estate for 1100 visits. The actual, the actual number. He's like, You're not gonna give me your Rolls Royce. Here's 1100 visits, charge Piach. Oh I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

1100 visits over how long? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

July to November.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Yeah, come on. Come on, dude. Just the fact that you went to the bathroom and came back into the room doesn't count as two visits.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, what an asshole.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

So police later established that the actual number of visits was 321. It's a lot, but come. But it's not 1100. We probably inflated those too, but 1100. What the hell, man? Just take the rolls. Oh god. Yep, yeah. So he did. He collected the rolls and along with some silver cutlery. Just so sad. A dead woman's possessions handed to the man by Merle's son. He just he's sick. He pumped her full of heroin and took her stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

No, he's an evil demon who deserves a special seat in hell. So that's how I feel.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

The second one I'd like to highlight is Gertrude, who went by Bobby Hewlett. Oh, Bobby. Bobby Hewlett was different. She was much younger, only 50 years old. Wait, what? 50s?

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. It's about to get personal up in here. So sorry.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

I said she was young.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

Popular. She was a fixture of Eastbourne's social scene. And she was deeply, catastrophically depressed. Oh. Bobby's second husband, Jack, had been Adam's patient too. A wealthy man, his estate would prove to be over 94,000 pounds. When Jack developed what Adams diagnosed as a cancerous bowel

Bobby Hewlett And The Rushed Cheque

SPEAKER_04 38:12

obstruction, the doctor prescribed heavy opiates. But I just want to share with you guys, obviously, we type out our script. I wrote that.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

I'm here for your canserous bowel. I may be a heavy mountain, but I shall sit upon your bowel. Until I get my booty, my bounty. I love I'm so sorry. That's such a cute mistake. Okay. All right. But this is not a cute story, so we have to have No, not a cute story, but I'm just glimmer here. Exactly. Exactly. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Um lol. That's so funny. I was reading, like, oh my god, I must have meant to write opiates because I definitely didn't mean to write pirates.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Damn autocorrect. Going to have a cancerous bowel, but you'll have a heavy pirate upon your seat. Don't you worry. Oh no. And your next sentence makes this even worse because I've been making only because this is such a heavy subject material. Okay. I'm so sorry. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

So let's bring it back down to the basement. On March 14th, 1956, Jack died, just eight hours after Adams administered what a nurse who was present at the time believed was a highly concentrated morphine injection. Jack had left Adams 500 pounds in his will. Then came the detail that should have ended Adams' career on the spot. After Jack died, Adams went to a chemist and obtained a 10 cubic centimeter morphine solution in Jack's name. And he asked the pharmacist to backdate the prescription to the previous date. Hello! The dead man's drugs ordered after the day he died.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Hmm. How's he supposed to take those? And what's it going to cure? He thinks there's some nefariousness afoot, perhaps.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

But sadly, Bobby, Jack's wife, spiraled. She was grieving, fragile, and now Adams was prescribing her massive doses of barbiturates. He's like, oh here, here, Bobby, I'll make you feel better. Over 80 days, she received. Are you ready for this? 80 days she received approximately 1,512 grains of sodium barbitone.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

So if we even if we don't know this old-timey medicine, we know that one grain is too much. If she'd received 80 grains, that was too much. But she received what? Oh my god. I mean, 1,500 times what she needed to have. If that, oh my gosh. That's disgusting. I don't know how he gets away with this.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

Her friends and household staff said she appeared drugged and urged her to leave Eastbourne to get away from him. I'm surprised she's conscious. Yeah. But unfortunately she didn't. And on July 17th, 1956, Bobby wrote Adams a check for a thousand pounds, supposedly for her car her husband had promised to buy him. Adams deposited the check the next day, and then he did something that prosecutors would later call the most damning single act in this entire case. He asked the bank to specially clear the check and to rush processing in 24 hours instead of the usual seven days. Yeah. His account held over 12,000 pounds. He did not need the money. Bobby Hewlett was one of the wealthiest women in Eastbourne, so the check wasn't going to bounce. So why the rush? Well, we know because Adams knew she was about to die. Yep. Or we can surmise that that's why. Yep. So two days later, on July 19th, Bobby appeared to have taken an overdose. She was found the next morning in a coma, and Adams was unavailable, but his colleague, Dr. Harris, attended. When Adams finally arrived, Harris mentioned the possibility of barbituate poisoning. Adams said, no way. That's impossible. He did fail to mention her depression, suicidal thoughts, or the 1500 grains of barbiturates he had been feeding her for months. But a pathologist named Dr. Shura was called in and immediately asked if she should test the stomach for narcotic poisoning. But both Adams and Harris said no.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

I mean, detail schmeatels, right? I mean, yeah, she must have done it herself, even though it was prescribed for her.

SPEAKER_04 42:54

Well, and what an idea by a woman to check for.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Women are feeble and over-emotional. She must have just taken her doctor's prescription.

SPEAKER_04 43:05

It was her emotions, game.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Loosen that corset, man. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

Yeah. Adams then visited a colleague at the Princess Alice Hospital and asked about treatment for a bit barbiturate overdose. He was told to administer 100 to 200 cc's of megamide intravenously on a drip. Adams went back to Bobby's bedside and gave her 10ccs. One tenth of the minimum recommended dose. A single injection, no drip. The coroner would later call it a mere gesture.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 43:42

Then this is the detail that makes the blood run cold. On the morning of Bobby Adams' death, Adams called the coroner's office. He wanted to schedule a private postmortem. She was still alive.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

I have chills. Oh my god, that's so disgusting and creepy and scary.

SPEAKER_04 44:03

Fabi Hewlett died at 723 a.m. on July 23rd, 1956, and a urine sample showed 115 grains of sodium barbitone in her system, which was twice the fatal dose. In a will dated just five days before her overdose, Bobby left Adams her 1954 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, worth at least 2,900 pounds. Adams changed the car's registration plate in December and sold it 13 days before he was arrested. Julia Bradnum, she was 85 years old when she died on May 11, 1952. The previous year, Adams had asked whether her will was in order and offered to accompany her to the bank, you know, just to check. The day before her death, Bradnum was well enough to do housework and take walks. The next morning she suddenly felt unwell. Adams arrived and administered an injection. And before pushing the plunger, he told her, quote, it'll be over in three minutes. She died. I'm afraid she's gone, Adam said afterwards. Just as casual. He received 661 pounds from her estate, and her body was exhumed in December 1956, but no decomposition was too advanced at the time for toxicology, and so the case was never prosecuted. Clara Neal Miller. Clara Neal Miller died on February 22nd, 1954, at the age of 87. He had been making locked door visits to her, 28 minutes at a time, discussing what he called personal matters. Witnesses said she appeared to be drugged. One detail from the investigation stands out. In February, in the dead of winter, Miller was found sitting in her room for 40 minutes, bedclothes thrown off, nightgown hiked up, windows wide open, reading the Bible. When confronted about this, Adams replied, quote, The person who told you that doesn't know why I did it. End quote. Miller left Adams 1,275 pounds plus a 500-pound check and a further 700 pounds in estate fees. He was named sole executor. And when her body was exhumed, the pathologist found coronary thrombosis and bronchopneumonia, only trace insignificant amounts of morphine and barbiturates. And again, the case was never prosecuted. Agnes Pike, she was the one who survived. Her story is in some ways the most important because, well, she lived. Adams had been injecting her with morphine and barbituates. Her family, alarmed by deterioration, brought in a second doctor, which infuriated Adams. The new physician found no medical reason for the drugs Adams was prescribing. Pikes was taken out of Adam's care, and within eight weeks, she made almost a complete recovery, regaining her mental faculties. She went out and did her own shopping again, and Adam's drugs had reduced her to a woman who could not recall her own name or age without them. And she was back, baby. Agnes Pike was living proof that Adam's prescriptions, what they were actually doing, they didn't heal or comfort, they erased and killed. And lastly, I want to touch on the Duke of Devonshire. On November 26, 1950, just 13 days after the death of Edith Morel, the 10th Duke of Devonshire suffered a heart attack. Adams, shocking, was his doctor and was at the Duke's bedside when he died. The coroner should have been notified. The Duke hadn't seen another doctor in the 14 days before his death, but through illegal technicality, Adams, as the attending physician, was able to sign the death certificate himself. He put natural causes. No inquest was done. This may have been an unremarkable detail, except for one thing. The Duke's sister, Dorothy Cavendish, was married to Harold Macmillan.

Powerful Friends And Part One Cliffhanger

SPEAKER_04 48:01

And Harold Macmillan would become Prime Minister of Great Britain in January 1957, just weeks before Adams' murder trial began. A coincidence? Oh perhaps. But Eastbourne was a town of connections, and connections in 1950s England could make problems disappear.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_04 48:22

That same day, an anonymous telephone call was placed to the Eastbourne police station. The caller identified themselves only as someone, quote, in the know, end quote. But you'll have to hang in tight to hear all about it because this is where we're gonna end part one, Ally Katz. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

This is crazy. Well done, but and I am now pissed off I have to wait a week for part two, but understandably so. Can I just say, do you think Harold Shipman? I mean, so this guy was in the when 18 like 1899 to early 1900s. Harold Shipman, also England. What's up, England? You guys and your your medical murderers? Holy moly. Okay, so Harold.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

We're gonna we're gonna touch on Harold next week.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

So he was born, I mean, so he did his thing in like after, yeah, definitely after, but I feel like he modeled, so he was born in 46 and he died in 2004. I think he was arrested in the 90s at some point, but he was considered one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history. So this guy, 250 victims for Harold Shipman. But a lot of the things that you're talking about were, you know, some things you'd think, well, they would just come up with like, okay, yeah, cremation, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like that, he would go and ingratiate himself, he'd bike to their houses. Harold Shipman did that too. Do you think he intentionally? Oh gosh, I hope you talk about this. Intentionally, just like we are going to get it. Okay, no spoilers, but like I'm just I'm not excited, but I'm just like fascinated in the fact that Harold Shippen might be the copycat of this evil asshole.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Yeah. Like when I was doing this, I was like, we've already done this case, right? Done this case. I like looked through and I'm like, no, we haven't.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

I thought Harold was the worst, but and he may be, but there's so many worsts. Like England, what's up, you guys? Why are how are you breeding these caregivers? I don't know. Crazy. It's not England's fault. I'm just kidding. But honestly, it's it's terrible. Fascinating. The fact that he could get away with this, like the amount of medication, making sure there were no witnesses. Like in in plain sight, he'd be like, I don't want a witness. Get out of the room. Like, how come no one complained? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

Or, well, I guess they probably didn't find out until later, but going to the bank, rushing the check, or I don't know, going to the pharmacist and just, you know, ordering some drugs.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Hey, Dr. So-and-so, that the borrowed money from his handyman is driving a silver ghost, something called the silver ghost, which sounds amazing. Rolls Warriors. I want to see that car, but like he just borrowed money from his handyman to buy an 18-room house. Like, what the heck is going on here? No one had a suspicion for 30 years. It's not like this happened over three months.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

They did, but they only talked about it in the tea rooms. No one actually did anything until an unknown caller calls 911, which is where we're gonna start next week.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Okay, well, I just think that all of us need to go to tea rooms, like on a regular basis, because that's where it's at. That's where it's at. Well done. Thank you so much. I can't wait to hear more. Should we talk about our next sponsor before we go into our medical mishap?

SPEAKER_04 51:48

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Do you want me to? Or are you doing it? Okay. Yeah, you get it. So, second sponsor, Tona Activeware. I mean, spring, spring, and I want to get active. So I'm really excited because as much as we love Lululemon, they're they're pretty pricey, right? But Tona Active Air is active active air. Active wear. I'm German now. Active wear. You must wear these these costumes for your exercise. Sorry, German friends. But it was built by one of Lulemon's original designers. And in fact, the chief design officer was a competitive athlete. And so she, if anyone understands what female athletes need,

Sponsor Break Tona Activewear

SPEAKER_01 52:30

that the rest of us who aren't female athletes but aspire to be well-dressed female athlete wannabes. Yeah, exactly. She so I don't know if you remember black leggings for girls who gym. I mean, these are designed for the last pair of leggings. Did you get a pair of those? I think you did. Was it you? No. One of my friends got them and they were like raving about them before I even knew who this tona was. So, you know what? Go out, get their leggings. It's time to move, it's time to embrace spring and and summer and feel good because these are like a second skin. And I think Amanda described it at one point when we were talking about Tona because we have so many sponsors, but that they work like a push-up bra for her butt. So I swear it was you. You sure you don't have a pair of these?

SPEAKER_04 53:18

I don't have these ones. It was a listener that wrote in and said a push-up. Because I remember that line, a push-up bra for my butt.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

So yeah, listen, if alley cats are raven, we all need to get on board. So visit www.tonaactive. That's t-o-n-a-c-t-i-v-e.com for 16% off your order with our code What is it, Amanda?

SPEAKER_03 53:44

Stay suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Stay suspicious. Okay, before we go on to our medical mishap segment, Alley Cats, we have another surprise for you. Everyone was so supportive and interested in our guest mishap recording by Mary Beth basically last week. Y'all sent in some questions, so we asked her back to answer them for us. So, quick recap about Mary Beth. If you missed last week's episode, she is a top-notch trauma nurse with a history and social work. She has a woody and interesting voice that's easy to listen to. And although she broke up with him many years ago, she attributes her unique voice to years of friendship with her pal Joe Camill.

Mary Beth Returns With Answers

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Truly, though, her voice is reminiscent of Janice Joplin, meets Betty Boop, meets Marilyn Monroe. Mary Beth is a natural-born storyteller. This queen walks No, dare I say she runs to a fire instead of running away from it. So without any further ado, here's the medical mishap from Mary Beth.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Hello, everyone. This is Mary Beth again. I am so touched that you all found value in my Duke story. I've been asked by Jenna and Amanda to answer some questions that you, Alec had sent in about that experience. What happened after you got home from Duke's house that Friday night? Well, the first night I was a mess. As I mentioned last week, I slept with my gun under the pillow and my Doberman's on the bed with me for protection. I had some pretty bad night terrors the next two nights and a lot of time on the phone with my honey. Thankfully, he was very supportive. That following Monday, I went to work and I met with my supervisor. And I'm going to set the stage for you here. I walked into my supervisor's office and closed the door behind me. I'm the senior social worker where I where I work and and he is a very measured man that I could not have predicted would react the way he did. I started to explain my experience with Duke and how frightening it was. I could have been killed. Ruined my weekend and my life for that matter. He gives me a chuckle and says, Mary, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. I was mortified with his answer and walked out. My always cordial relationship with him changed at that very moment. He decl disclosed who he was. Shortly after that, my path crossed with a relatively new therapist who came from about four hours away. At that point, I'm a glob of frustration, fear, betrayal, and anger. I rush into Rose's office and tell her about my Friday night experience with Duke. She hasn't miss a beat and says, I have suffered a severe trauma and need a professional to help me recover. Finally, a voice of reassurance, I immediately felt a weight lifted off of me and a glimmer of hope that I might be able to recover from this horror story. Thanks to Rose, by the end of that day, I had an appointment to see a therapist. My next action was to call the county and inform them that Duke had a pistol at his house and either law enforcement or family needed to get that gun away from him. The county was appalled and offered any assistance I needed. They did not offer to arrest Duke, though. His family called and felt awful about what happened to me. By the end of the week, Duke had his pistol taken away from him and incurred legal consequences from driving intoxicated and writing bad checks. The sheriff's office and family intervened, and Duke was taken to the nearest detox hospital. Things were changing for me as well. The agency offered no assistance, but our insurance was so awesome that my therapy was covered. I met with my trauma therapist by the next Monday, and he was awesome. Over the next three months, my therapist helped me step outside my body and see the experience for what it was. My supervisor, despite the education and leadership, really didn't have the skills to handle a trauma. This is important because a person who lacks emotional intelligence and empathy can't help someone else with trauma. He didn't have the skill set or ability to lead. As for Duke, he called me when he got out of detox and rehab. He was very sorry and apologized for everything he did. My therapist gave me really good feedback on dealing with Duke and this experience in general. I didn't dump Duke as a client, but he never had a gun in his house again. He could never handle the responsibility. He never had a home visit from me again. In fact, it took me about five years to be able to drive down that gravel road. Duke was made aware that he needed to meet with me in my office for visits. His legal problems were his to work through. He lost his license. Being mentally ill did not excuse bad behavior. Why didn't you grab the gun? That is a really great question. I have had countless experiences in my life when the person next to me I'm visiting with, or even another provider, will say that if he were ever to have that situation or something similar to it, he would have done something completely different. The three stages of fear are more than fight and flight, but more often freeze. That experience taught me something about myself and fear in general. We never really know how to handle a situation till we are in that situation. I hope to be invited back to discuss my hostage negotiation training I did several years ago and what I learned. Were there any takeaways from this experience? I'm happy you asked that. I think a couple of things came out of this experience for me. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There's a learning experience in every experience. Every bad thing that ever happened to me was a learning lesson and really a gift. Learning to deal with trauma allowed me to become a trauma nurse. Becoming a trauma nurse led me to all the unbelievable experiences I have had. Anyone can live through and actually improve their life by learning how to deal with trauma. And finally, trauma is a process and really great personal growth that can come out of trauma. Thank you very much. And thank you for having me back.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Oh my gosh, what a gem. Can you believe? First of all, what is up with that dude? Oh, well, you know, if you can't handle it, you know, get out.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

Yeah, get if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Your boss, are you joking?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Oh my god, dude, you don't know what heat is. I'm about to bring it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:09

Yeah, I was just gonna say not something not nice, but yeah, are you joking me? That guy sounds like the absolute worst. Mary Beth, I just want to say again, thank you so much for sharing your story. You are so brave. And also, can I just say we love a therapist?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

We love, love, love therapy. I miss mine. She kind of broke up with me for a little bit because she can't figure out my schedule up here up north. And I'm

Trauma Aftermath And Workplace Failure

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

like, don't break up with me. I need you. I talk about her all the time and the lessons I learned. So everyone needs a therapist.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

And I like something you said, Mary Beth. I will quote Mary Beth here. Heavy mental illness does not excuse bad behavior. Absolutely. Underline, underline, bold exclamation point, exclamation point. And honestly, I'm just so happy you never had to go into that house again. I like I would never be able to go into the house again.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Oh, for sure. But also, what kind of a goddess is able to forgive what he did and keep seeing him as a patient? Are you kidding me? I have people that bring hellfire on me because their hearing aids aren't set the way they like, and I'm just like, you know what? You need to go to another clinic. I I mean, honestly, I can't believe her life was on the line and she was this gracious after the apologies and the regretfulness that she was able to keep seeing him. So God bless we need more Mary Beths out there, but we also need less violence and guns, but that's something else.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:34

Whatever Mary Beth, whatever you said your boss's name was, you probably don't want to say actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

What a jerk. No, that guy, if anyone needs therapy, he doesn't just need therapy, he needs classes in like this is what it's like to be human. Okay, this is what emotional intelligence is, and this is what misogyny is, and this is how you treat people who've been through a trauma that you're in charge of on the job because of the job.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

I don't know. We do more for people who slip on a sidewalk than what happened to Mary Beth. Like, let's do better people. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, being cognizant that you that this episode is is is, you know, is juicy. It's it's she's not she's not short. We're at an hour. So listen, next week we're gonna do part two, and I can't wait. But meanwhile, don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth wherever you enjoy your podcast for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthetruth at buzzsprout.com. Email us your story ideas, and if you would like to be recorded, let us know. Let's let's hear your content. This is what's making this a rich, enjoyable, interactive show. So doctoring the truth at buzzsprout.com. And be sure

How To Reach Us And Final Ask

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

To follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth. We're on TikTok at Doctoring the Truth and ed Oddpod. E-D-A-U-D-P-O-D. Sorry. The email for your story ideas are is Doctoringthe Truth at Gmail. I just gave you the website twice, but you can email us on the website too, but it's more of like a text. So I would say doctoring the truth at Gmail. Anyway, don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe and stay suspicious.