Everyone Dies In Sunderland: A podcast about growing up terrified in the eighties and nineties
Everyone Dies In Sunderland: A podcast about growing up terrified in the eighties and nineties
The man who admitted to killing 300 people in the local press
In today’s show we revisit the time in 1999 when a Northumberland doctor casually admitted to killing 300 people in a local TV interview.
I’m genuinely surprised you don’t remember.
Doctor David Moor was a much loved GP who would often appear in the regional media as a local medical expert. But one such appearance would lead to him facing a murder charge for helping an apparently terminally ill patient to die. But was Britain’s approach to end-of-life care what was really on trial? And if this was murder, does that mean the Queen’s Granddad got murdered too?
40 years earlier another doctor – John Bodkin Adams – had found himself in a similar position. Was Adams a pioneering doctor who changed the face of palliative care? Or was he lethally useless and more of a danger to his patients than their medical conditions? Or he was he, in fact, literally Britain’s most prolific serial killer?
Along the way, there’s an establishment cover-up, clandestine sexual relationships, clay pigeon shooting fatalities and a welcome(ish) return of Gareth reading poetry.
We also revisit 1999. Rod Hull dies. Whizzer and Chips is nowhere to be found. Kiwi-flavoured 20/20 is consumed. Everyone talking about epigenomics apparently. Nothing like Prince described it.
Trigger warning: This show discusses issues surrounding end of life care and assisted suicide throughout.
You can reach us on email everyonediesinsunderland@gmail.com, on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram.
Our theme music is usually the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here:
ttps://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay
But for a third show in a row it isn’t. Pete’s getting married though. Congratulations Pete!