Dr John Bodkin Adams was born in Randalstown in 1899. He qualified as a doctor and in 1922 started in practice in Eastbourne, Sussex, catering for the wealthy and aged of that health resort. He had a good bedside manner and was popular with, especially, the ladies, many of whom showed appreciation in their wills. It was therefore a shock when Bodkin Adams was charged with murder of two of his patients and tried in 1957, but the local establishment rallied behind him and he was acquitted, although he was almost certainly guilty, and, like Dr Shipman to come, not just of the crimes for which he was tried but a very large number more. He died in 1983.