Serial Killer Doctors Read Free

that it would go into his account the following day, rather than following the usual process which would take until July 21.
    On July 19, another doctor – Dr Harris – was summoned when Adams was otherwise engaged, after Mrs Hullett was found in a coma. When Adams finally arrived, the two doctors discussed the possibility that she might have suffered a cerebral hemorrhage as her pupils were contracted and her breathing was shallow. However, these are also symptoms of morphine or barbiturate poisoning, but Adams neglected to mention to Dr Harris that Mrs Hullett had been suffering from depression or that he had prescribed barbiturates to her.
    A pathologist, Dr Shera, was called in and suggested they should examine the contents of Mrs Hullett’s stomach to check for narcotics poisoning but the suggestion was ignored by both Adams and Harris. Adams, meanwhile, consulted with a doctor at the Princess Alice Hospital in Eastbourne about how to treat barbiturate poisoning. He ignored the advice he was given but took away with him some Megimide, a new antidote to barbiturate poisoning.
    On July 22, Adams telephoned the coroner to arrange a post mortem but when the coroner asked when the patient had died, Adams told him that she was not yet dead. That same day, Adams administered an injection of Megimide to his patient. Mrs Hullett developed broncho-pneumonia and at 7.23 on the morning of July 23 she died. After her death, it was discovered that she had twice the fatal dose of sodium barbitone in her body.
    As ever, Adams did well in Mrs Hullett’s will. There was another Rolls Royce to be added to the many bequests he had received over the years from his deceased patients. Emily Louise Mortimer, for instance, had died aged 75 in 1946, leaving him £1,950. In 1950, 76 year-old Amy Ware left him £1,000. On this occasion, he again lied, claiming on the cremation form that he would not benefit from her death. Later that same year, he received £200 and a clock from the estate of 89 year-old Annabelle Kilgour. She had fallen into a coma and died shortly after he had started her on a course of sedatives.
    In 1952, 85 year-old Julia Bradnum left him £661. He had thoughtfully gone to the bank with her to help her change her will. She had appeared fit and well the day before she died but after an injection from Adams the following day after she told him she felt unwell, she died. He is reported to have told her as he administered the injection, ‘it will be over in three minutes’. It was indeed, but probably not in the way she expected.
    87 year-old Clara Miller left him £1,257. It is understood that he was in the habit of locking her door, throwing open her windows, removing her bedclothes, raising her nightgown above her chest and exposing her chest to the elements.
    It all began to unravel for Adams when an anonymous phone call was made to Eastbourne police station, voicing concerns about the way that Mrs Hullett had died. It emerged later that the call had been made by the famous music hall performer and film producer, Leslie Henson. Henson had been performing in Dublin when he heard of the death of his close friend, ‘Bobby’ Hullett. He became suspicious because he knew that her husband had died recently and that they had both been treated by Adams, about whom there had been rumours.
    John Bodkin Adams was born into a devout family of Plymouth Brethren in Randalstown, County Antrim in Northern Ireland in 1899. His father was a preacher and watchmaker, thirty-nine years older than his wife, Ellen, and when John was fifteen, his father died of a stroke. Four years later, his only brother, William, died in the post-war Spanish Flu epidemic.
    In 1916, aged 17, Adams matriculated at Queen’s University, Belfast, studying to be a doctor. It was not easy for him. Socially inept and an inadequate student, he missed a year of studies due to an illness which is thought to have been tuberculosis. Despite this, however, he graduated