Futility Closet - 294-'The Murder Trial of the Century'

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from a baseball microphone to some puzzling asparagus. This is episode 294. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1957, an English doctor was accused of killing his patients for their money. The courtroom drama that followed was called the Murder Trial of the Century. In today's show, we'll describe the case of John Bodkin Adams and its significance in British legal history. We'll also bomb Calgary

Starting point is 00:00:43 and puzzle over a passive policeman. In August 1956, a series of lurid headlines began to appear in the British press. Seaside mystery of 13 Rich Women Mystery of the 300 Women Yard Probe's Hypnotic Killer Theory Yard Probe Mass Poisoning 25 Deaths in the Great Mystery of Eastbourne The story is told of a series of suspicious deaths in Eastbourne, a genteel Victorian resort on the south coast of England

Starting point is 00:01:21 where many wealthy people chose to spend their retirement years. They concerned a rotund 58-year-old doctor named John Bodkin Adams. A pious, teetotaling bachelor, Adams had moved to Eastbourne in 1922, and his practice soon included many wealthy elderly women. Perhaps because of his charm, perhaps because of his solicitude, the women began to include him in their wills. In 1935, one 72-year-old patient had left him 3,000 pounds. Relatives had disputed that, but the courts upheld it. As time went on, the pattern continued. Rumors began to circulate through the quiet seaside town. It seemed odd that so many of Dr. Adams' patients were leaving him bequests, and that so many of their bodies were being cremated after their deaths. Some patients withdrew from his practice, sometimes at the

Starting point is 00:02:09 insistence of relatives, who objected to Adams' use of narcotics. But others insisted that he was innocent and a good doctor. Charles Aldiss, a former mayor of Eastbourne, said, In his midlife, he became the victim of a vicious whispering campaign of rumor and vilification, but he gave treatment to any who sought his help. Many were poor patients who were charged no fee. By the mid-1950s, Adams had been remembered in the wills of at least 132 patients and was reputed to be the wealthiest general practitioner in England. In July 1956, after one deceased patient left Adams a Rolls Royce,

Starting point is 00:02:46 someone placed an anonymous call to the Eastbourne police, and the chief constable asked Scotland Yard to get involved. The police began working on the theory that Adams had administered increasing doses of morphine and heroin to his patients in order to relieve their suffering, then prevailed on them to change their wills and gave them overdoses. Of the 310 death certificates that Adams had issued between 1946 and 1956, police deemed that 163 were worthy of further investigation. Those patients had died while in a coma, which is consistent with the administration of a narcotic or barbiturate. In the late 1950s, only around 15% of elderly bedridden patients

Starting point is 00:03:24 were diagnosed to have died of cerebral thrombosis or cerebral hemorrhage, but fully 42% of Adams' deceased patients received that diagnosis. Some of the nurses involved gave a good account of Adams, but some mentioned special injections that he'd administered directly. He had refused to describe these injections to the nurses and had even asked them to leave the room before he gave them. And the nurses said that Adams would try to isolate his patients by reducing contact between them and their relatives. During the investigation, some of Adams' practices were found to be concerning. He had sometimes forged prescriptions in other doctors' names, he'd failed to keep a register of the dangerous drugs he was using, and he'd falsely stated on cremation forms that he had no pecuniary interest in the estates of his dead patients.

Starting point is 00:04:10 He told the investigators, oh, that wasn't done wickedly. God knows it wasn't. We always want cremations to go off 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 burials to go smoothly. When one investigator mentioned the legacies that Adams had received from his deceased patients, he said, a lot of those were instead of fees. I don't want money. What use is it? When the investigator mentioned one patient who had left Adams 500 pounds, he said, now, now, he was a lifelong friend. I even thought it would be more than it was. The police winnowed their list down to 23 cases in which Adams' patients had died after

Starting point is 00:04:46 naming him in their wills. From that list, they charged him with the murder of a single patient, Edith Alice Murrell, a wealthy 81-year-old widow who had died six years earlier in November 1950. Adams was alleged to have addicted her to narcotics, got her to include him in her will, and then killed her with an overdose. If found guilty, he faced death by hanging. He was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, London's main criminal court, in 1957. The trial was presided over by Patrick Devlin, who had become England's youngest high court judge when he was appointed nine years earlier, at age 42. The media called it the murder trial of the century and one of the greatest murder trials of all time.

Starting point is 00:05:26 One reporter said the spectacle kept the eyes of the whole newspaper-reading world focused in fascination. One observer, A.W. Simpson, in the Michigan Law Review wrote, One might suspect that there is something in the British character or culture that must explain the fact that so homicidally inactive a people should produce so many murder trials of real quality. He says the reason is that the English criminal trial honors the dramatic unities and that adversary procedure, as practiced in English courts, makes good theater. It certainly did in the Adams trial, which lasted 17 days, making it the longest murder trial in Britain up to that point. The news media had printed oceans of lurid gossip

Starting point is 00:06:05 before the trial started, which created the impression that Adams would be convicted easily. But of course, he was presumed to be innocent. The pattern of his patient's deaths might only have been coincidence, and he may have prescribed narcotics only, as he said, to ease the passing of his dying patients. Proving that the business amounted to murder fell to the prosecutor, Sir Reginald Manningham Buller, who was unfortunately known as Sir Reginald Bullying Manor because of the way he handled witnesses. Even Devlin, the judge, wrote later, his disagreeableness was so pervasive, his persistence so interminable, the obstructions he manned so far-flung, his objectives apparently so insignificant, that sooner or later you would be tempted to ask yourself whether the game was worth the candle. If you asked yourself that,

Starting point is 00:06:49 you were finished. The prosecutors had chosen to pursue the death of Edith Morell because it was felt to offer the best chance of conviction, but the lapse of time and the cremation of her corpse presented problems for the prosecution. The prosecutor alleged that Adams had led Morell into addiction by gradually increasing the dosage of her narcotics until she was helpless without them. A consulting neurosurgeon testified that he could see no reason to prescribe morphine or heroin prior to the large terminal dosages at the end. In fact, Adams had prescribed a combination of both for 10 months. The neurosurgeon said this would have produced a serious degree of addiction to both these drugs. The prosecution suggested that Adams did this in order to make his patients dependent on him so that he could induce them to name him in their wills. Where Manningham Buller was

Starting point is 00:07:34 unlikable and disorganized, Adams' defense lawyer, Jeffrey Lawrence, was polished and superbly well prepared. This was his first criminal case of any importance. He was a specialist in real estate and divorce cases, but he quickly displayed a capacious memory and a thorough command of the medical facts. To begin, he surprised everyone by choosing to keep the loquacious doctor off the witness stand. Adams spoke six words at the start of the trial, I am not guilty, my lord, and then sat silent in the dock thereafter, though sometimes he could be seen reddening or shaking his head at the charges that were leveled against him. Lawrence told the jury that there was no evidence that a murder had been committed, much less by his client. The

Starting point is 00:08:13 indictment was based mainly on testimony from the four nurses who had attended to Mrs. Morell before her death. The prosecution brought forward one of these nurses, Helen Rose Stronach, who testified that she had never injected anything but morphine and that Morel had been rambling and semi-conscious just before her death. Lawrence got the nurse to admit that all this had happened seven years earlier and that she was relying on her memory of the events. She agreed that if the notebooks that the nurses had kept were available now, they'd offer a much more reliable account of what had happened. And then, like a magician, Lawrence produced the notebooks. They were thought to have been thrown away years earlier, but Adams'

Starting point is 00:08:49 solicitors had found them at the back of a shelf in his home. They were absolutely devastating to the prosecution's case. They contradicted much of the testimony that the nurses had given from memory. For a start, they showed that smaller doses had been administered than the nurses had remembered. Lawrence said, what this entry shows is that your memory was playing you a trick, does it not? Stronach said, apparently so. He said, obviously so, is it not? He went on to another entry, in which she'd recorded a visit by Adams and noted an injection he'd given to Murrell. Lawrence said, it is clear you knew what injection was given, otherwise you could not have recorded it.

Starting point is 00:09:23 That undermined the prosecution's claim that Adams had been giving secret treatments. Lawrence asked Stronach to read the record of the patient's lunch on the day she was said to be rambling and semi-conscious. It was partridge, celery, pudding, and a brandy and soda. Lawrence said, you have recorded the lunch consumed by this semi-conscious woman. I suggest it is another complete trick by your memory to say that on the last day you left Mrs. Morrell, she was either semi-conscious or rambling. Stronach was forced to say, apparently so. The nurses had been star witnesses against Adams to that point. Now they had to concede that their own records showed that Adams' sedative treatment had been medically

Starting point is 00:10:00 appropriate. This weakened the prosecution's evidence so severely that the judge took the rare step of asking the prosecutor in open court whether he would maintain that Dr. Adams had had murderous intent. It didn't get better. The chief medical witness, Arthur Henry Douthwaite, senior physician at Guy's Hospital London, insisted that the records showed that Adams had intended to kill Morell. But Lawrence, in cross-examination, managed to get Douthwaite to concede that Adams had inherited Morell as a patient, that she was already on morphia, and that she might have died if the drug had been withdrawn. Douthwaite had to revise his theories in the witness box. He was also forced to admit that Adams had kept Morell alive more than twice as long as could have been expected after she'd suffered her stroke. By this time,

Starting point is 00:10:43 the prosecution's case had essentially fallen apart. The remainder of the trial became a battle between experts as to the meaning of the nurse's log entries and how high a tolerance to heroin an 81-year-old woman could develop. In his closing speech, Lawrence told the jury, trying to ease the last hours of the dying is a doctor's duty, and it has been twisted and turned into an accusation for murder. In summing up, the judge reminded the jury of the Norse's notebooks and the contradictory testimony of the medical experts, and he defended Adams' right not to take the stand. And he made a crucial distinction. He said that if a treatment were given with the intention of killing a patient, that would constitute murder.

Starting point is 00:11:21 But if it were intended to relieve pain and had the incidental effect of shortening the patient's life, then it need not be. Foreseeing that an act might shorten someone's life is not the same as intending to shorten it. This has been called the doctrine of double effect. Devlin said, if the first purpose of medicine, the restoration of health, can no longer be achieved, there is still much for a doctor to do, and he is entitled to do all that is proper and necessary to relieve pain and suffering, even if the measures he takes may incidentally shorten life. Proper medical treatment that is administered and that has an incidental effect of determining the exact moment of death is not the cause of death in any sensible use of the term. The jury took only 44 minutes to acquit Adams. The prosecution was so discouraged by that outcome

Starting point is 00:12:05 that it decided to drop the other cases that it had planned to bring. A month after his acquittal, Adams had begun to visit some of his old patients again, including many wealthy elderly widows. In a trial of 13 lesser offenses, he was found guilty of lying on cremation forms, forging prescriptions, and violating the dangerous drug laws. He was fined 2,400 pounds. As a consequence, he was struck off the medical register, but he was reinstated four years later and even permitted again to prescribe dangerous drugs.

Starting point is 00:12:33 Regarding the forgeries, he had told Scotland Yard, I have God's forgiveness for it. All of these were only to help poor national health patients. I love helping these national patients and gave a vow to God I would. And he sued several newspapers for libel and won. When he died in 1983 at age 84, he left an estate of 400,000 pounds. Adams' victory must certainly have been a relief to himself, but it's not clear that justice was served. In the best case, he was carrying out mercy killings at a time when painkillers were the only way to relieve terminal suffering. In the worst case, he was carrying out mercy killings at a time when painkillers were the only way to relieve terminal suffering.

Starting point is 00:13:06 In the worst case, he was deliberately murdering his patients in order to claim their inheritances. In the very worst case, he is the most prolific serial killer in British history. In a police interview in November 1956, Adams had said, Easing the passing of a dying person is not all that wicked. She wanted to die. That cannot be murder. At his arrest, he'd said, murder, murder. Can you prove it was murder? I didn't think you could prove it was murder. She was dying in any event. At the trial, the prosecution made much of these statements,

Starting point is 00:13:35 saying that Adams sounded like, quote, a shaken man who had committed a murder which he thought could not be proved. But the defense responded that these were the incredulous words of an innocent man who was, quote, That is, Adams believed that these judgments ought properly to be made by a doctor, and he was taken aback that the law would address them at all. The case revealed a divide between the medical and legal views of the proper care of a terminal patient. No one denied that Adams had given large doses of morphine and heroin to an ailing woman, enough eventually to kill her. The question was whether that constituted murder. Doctors acknowledged that such treatments were not uncommon in easing the passing of their terminally ill

Starting point is 00:14:19 patients, and this provoked little controversy among the onlooking public. This gave doctors a wide latitude, and Adams' case seemed to test this policy to its limit. Even the doctor's supporters must have acknowledged that his seeming avarice threw his motives into question in making these judgments. Still, the judge wrote in 1985, even if Dr. Adams was forced to admit that he knew the doses were large enough to kill, the crowd would still have to tackle his plea that all he was doing was easing the passing in a case of inevitable death. If he really had an honest belief in easing suffering, Dr. Adams was on the right side of the law. If his purpose was simply to finish life, he was not. Ultimately, of course, no one can know what Adams' real motives were, so the cost of establishing this principle may have been that

Starting point is 00:15:04 a murderer escaped punishment. One observer called the trial a vivid demonstration of the painful solicitude of the English for the guilty sometimes go free. It is to carry out that great principle that the common law has evolved these rules, the rules of evidence and proof, and it is upon those rules that our juries have been instructed for generations. The rigorous standards of the law sometimes allow that the guilty walk free. In episode 286, I briefly discussed researchers using carbon dating to determine that a surprising number of samples of purportedly rare whiskeys weren't nearly as old as they were alleged to be. On the topic, Colin and Hannah wrote, we were quite surprised and had a long discussion on radiocarbon dating after 1950. I, Colin, thought it was common knowledge that radiocarbon dating became inaccurate after atmospheric nuclear bombing, so I was quite

Starting point is 00:16:20 surprised to hear your story about a whiskey radiocarbon dated to 2011 or newer. So just in case anyone else was wondering about that, it is the case that nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s did increase the amount of carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, in the global atmosphere, which does affect carbon dating. does affect carbon dating. Radiocarbon dating is based on the fact that carbon-14 decays at a known rate, while another isotope, carbon-12, remains stable. Thus, determining the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in organic material can determine how long it's been since the organic material stopped being alive and taking in new carbon, and instead began to decay. Nuclear testing isn't the only human activity that has implications for carbon dating, as industrialization, which brought the burning of large amounts of coal and oil starting in the 19th century, caused the emission of much more carbon dioxide than

Starting point is 00:17:15 previously, which diluted the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Because the proportion of carbon-14 in the atmosphere isn't constant, scientists construct calibration curves that are used to convert the amount of radiocarbon measured in an object into an estimate of the object's calendar age, based on the various proportions of carbon-14 in the atmosphere at different times. These calibration curves are produced by testing sequences of securely dated samples that can then be used to relate calendar years to radiocarbon years, and examples of these types of samples include tree rings, coral, and layers of sediment or sedimentary rock. In the case of the researchers carbon dating whiskey to look for

Starting point is 00:17:56 fraud, it seems that two basic methods were employed. First, any whiskey that was claimed to be older than 1950 but that contained relatively high levels of carbon-14, could be determined to be fraudulent, as the higher levels would indicate that the barley had grown during the post-nuclear era. And second, researchers were able to use samples of whiskey with known distillation years from 1950 to 2015 in order to construct a calibration curve against which unknown samples could be measured, allowing them to determine that quite a number of whiskeys were likely much younger than they were being claimed to be. That's clever that they can figure that out. Yeah, well, I mean, it's good for, I guess, the consumer, but not so good maybe for the people trying to sell the whiskeys.

Starting point is 00:18:43 Because otherwise, how can you tell for sure, you know, what year a whiskey was made in? Yeah. Dan McIntyre sent us an email with the subject line, Episode 287's mention of manure bombs. At the risk of going too many standard deviations off topic, Kathy Jones's letter about explosives disguised as manure brought to my mind the time when my home city of Calgary actually was bombed with manure. In 1975, Calgary was booming thanks to high oil prices in the wake of the 1973 OPEC embargo. Amid the city's prosperity, local musician and amateur pilot Cal Cavendish

Starting point is 00:19:14 became increasingly frustrated over the lack of financial success in his music career and suspension of his pilot's license due to the fact he had been receiving psychiatric treatment. of his pilot's license due to the fact he had been receiving psychiatric treatment. On April 11, 1975, Cavendish loaded his Luscombe 8A aircraft with 100 unsold copies of his latest record and 100 pounds of cow manure, then made an unauthorized takeoff from Springbank Airport, roughly 20 kilometers west of downtown Calgary. As Cavendish flew over 9th Avenue, he poured the manure out the door of his plane, circled the Calgary Tower at the level of its revolving restaurant, then dumped the records as he continued flying east, most of which landed in the Inglewood community. Cavendish had enough fuel and daylight to reach the town of Brooks, 160 kilometers away,

Starting point is 00:19:58 when he turned himself in to an incredulous RCMP officer. In 2015, CBC Radio's Calgary Eye Opener interviewed Cal Cavendish, long since known as the Mad Manor Bomber, who said, They fined me $4,000, and my license was already gone, so they made damn sure it stayed gone for years and years and years. And Dan very helpfully sent a couple of links for this story, which seems to be fairly well-known in Calgary, but not so much elsewhere from what I could tell. According to the 2015 CBC News story, Cavendish actually had trouble getting the Mountie to believe that he was, as the article said, the crazed pilot who had buzzed Calgary, and that it took him two attempts to get the officer to believe him and take him into custody.

Starting point is 00:20:45 attempts to get the officer to believe him and take him into custody. In a 2009 interview with the Calgary Herald in advance of a play opening locally that dramatized his story, Cavendish said that he'd found it really devastating that his pilot's license had been revoked because he'd been receiving psychiatric treatment, and that he had felt pretty desperate when he realized that despite all of his efforts, he just wasn't going to be able to make it as a musician. Cavendish says of his stunt that his rebellion came at a high price, because afterwards no one in the music industry would even work with him. And he agrees with the interviewer that the act was quintessentially Albertan, saying, you'd better believe it was Albertan. It's the freedom to make an ass out of yourself. And he says, some people thought it was funny, and some people thought it was funny

Starting point is 00:21:25 and some people thought it was nuts and they were both right, but it was the defining moment of my life. Here I am over 30 years later, still talking about something that my grandkids have to live down or up to depending how you want to look at it. I guess most of us don't have a moment like that.

Starting point is 00:21:40 The one moment that that's all anybody remembers you for. In episode 291, I read an email from an Australian Mike Cowley, who was tickled to have heard me reading an email from a different Australian Mike Cowley in episode 10. I passed along greetings to the first Mike Cowley if he was still listening to the show, and Greg suggested that maybe both emails were actually sent by the same guy who had forgotten that he'd written into us six years earlier. But recently, we delightfully got an email from the first Mike Cowley from episode 10. Hey, Sharon and Greg. Yes, I am still listening, and no, I have not developed amnesia as far as I can remember. Thanks for the shout out from my

Starting point is 00:22:20 West Coast counterpart. I've only known two other Mike Cowleys and one is my uncle, so it's nice to hear indirectly from another. A shout out in reply. Since you mentioned coincidences, I thought I would share a story about the other Mike Cowley I have met. He was a student at my high school, a boarding school in country Queensland that accepts students from all around the country. The other Mike was a year or two younger than me and it seemed a bit of an odd coincidence when he arrived as Cowley is not a very common name. I think it turned out that we could both trace our family history back to the same English settler from around 150 years ago, but there had been no contact between the family branches for years. We weren't particularly close, so I lost touch as soon

Starting point is 00:22:58 as I left that school and moved to Brisbane, Queensland's state capital. Around five years later, I had recently moved to a new unit with the street address of 142 Doorknock Terrace. While opening my mail, I found a bank statement from a bank with which I did not have an account. The statement had my name, although on closer inspection, I noticed that the address was 42 Doorknock Terrace rather than 142. I was quite confused, but since I had to go down to the shops anyway and would walk past number 42, I took the statement with me and knocked on the door. Of course, it was the Mike Cowley from high school who opened the door. After a quick catch up with Mike and a chuckle at the

Starting point is 00:23:34 coincidence of my name counterpart moving to such a similar address, I had a word at the post office to make sure they double checked when they got a letter addressed to one of us. Thanks once more from a longtime listener still loving your work. So, wow, a surprising number of Mike Cowleys in Australia, which is rather interesting if Cowley is really not that common of a surname there. And since Mike was at school with this other Mike Cowley, then that makes at least three of them that are all Gen X to boot, as the first two identified themselves. And then, of course, the extreme coincidence of having two of them ending up with such incredibly similar addresses.

Starting point is 00:24:08 So just wow all around. Yeah, that last one seems like just incredibly unlikely that they'd wind up so close together. Yeah. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We are always glad to get your follow-ups, questions, and coincidences. So if you have any of those for us, please send them to podcast

Starting point is 00:24:25 at futilitycloset.com. And thanks as always for both pronunciation tips and links to articles. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an odd sounding situation and he has to try to work out what is actually going on, asking yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Chris Pallant in Kingston, Ontario. A man is driving slightly above the speed limit when he sees a police car on the side of the road. Instead of slowing down to avoid a ticket, he speeds up until he is greatly over the speed limit and drives off. The police officer sees this. The police car is in perfect working order, and he was stationed out there to catch speeders and give tickets, but he sits in his car and does not do anything. What's going on? It's a good puzzle.

Starting point is 00:25:17 Okay, the man who's driving, is he driving a police car? No. Is he a police officer? No. Is he speeding up because he sees the policeman by the side of the road? That's the reason he does it? I would say yes. So he wouldn't have sped up if he hadn't seen that? I would say that's correct. Does it matter what he is driving? Let's say yes. Let's say that. Let's say that. Is it a car? No. A truck? No. You had to think about that. I had to think about it for a second. A motor vehicle.

Starting point is 00:25:51 Yes. Which is driven by an engine. Yes. Driving on a conventional road. Not a truck. I'm not sure why I had to think about that. I want to make sure not to give a wrong answer. Okay.

Starting point is 00:26:01 So he's speeding up. He speeds up when he sees the police officer by the side of the road. Okay, yes. Speeds up to a speed that's breaking the speed limit. Yes. And knowing that the police officer will see him do that. Yes. Or he doesn't know that the police officer will see him, but he knows that he very well could. Yes. Does he expect the reaction that he gets, which is nothing. Yes. So he Does he expect the reaction that he gets, which is nothing? Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:28 So he didn't expect the police officer to chase him? That's correct. Do I need to know where this happens? No. When? No. Are there other people involved? Not in a way that you could figure out or that would be helpful to you. Are there, like, subsequent events that I need to figure out?

Starting point is 00:26:47 Like, does more happen eventually later? I suppose. Right, like, immediately after this. Yeah, like, does someone else pull him over or something like that? No. So he might just continue down the road and, I guess, slow down again and just go about his life? Not exactly.

Starting point is 00:27:05 Does he get a ticket for speeding eventually? No, he does not. Okay. But is his occupation important? Yes. Is he, well, obviously, he's doing his occupation while? Yes. Is this fiction at all?

Starting point is 00:27:22 Is he an actor or a stuntman, something like that? No. Is he a criminal? No. And we've said he's not another police officer. He is not another police officer. And he's driving

Starting point is 00:27:35 some mysterious vehicle. He's driving a mysterious vehicle. That's a good puzzle. So does the police officer do anything? No. He just sees that this man speeds up in his mysterious vehicle.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Yes. Above the speed limit. Yes. Are the conditions important, like the weather or the condition of the road, anything like that? No. Is safety involved somehow? Not sure what you mean. Is he doing this?

Starting point is 00:27:59 I don't quite either. Doing this somehow to preserve his own safety or someone else's? Not sure. He has some other motive for speeding up other than just, well, he must. Yeah. He's speeding up for a reason. Yeah. Other than to taunt the police officer.

Starting point is 00:28:13 Right, yes. He's not trying to taunt the police officer. And you said there aren't really other people involved. And if it's not safety, why would you speed up if it's not the road itself or the conditions? And I said he does not get a ticket. Nobody gives him a ticket for speeding. And his occupation is important. Okay, is his occupation connected with the type of vehicle that he's...

Starting point is 00:28:39 Yes. Is he performing his occupation while he is driving? Yes. But it's a vehicle on a road. It's not a car. It's not a truck. Is it a mass transit vehicle of some kind? I don't think so, no.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Like a bus, I guess. No, yeah. I don't think you'd say that. So who drives vehicles on the road? Well, like a taxi? Just someone who's conducting a passenger somewhere. No. Is he conveying freight of some kind? No. No. But who gets to speed without getting tickets? Oh, like an

Starting point is 00:29:15 ambulance driver. Yes. So why does he speed up when he sees the police officer? I guess I can think of a bunch of reasons. To convince the police officer that he's going to or coming from an accident? No, no. He's not actually trying to avoid a ticket in any way. He's not concerned at all about getting a ticket. But why would he speed up if he's not? Right. Is the siren going? Is he actually conveying?

Starting point is 00:29:48 Yes. No. He's going to or from? Yes. Oh, he's running the siren. Yes. But he's not going to? Going to.

Starting point is 00:29:56 An emergency? He is. Right. He's not conveying someone at the moment. But he's headed to an emergency with a siren on. Yes. And not going very fast, I guess? Well, he is.

Starting point is 00:30:06 The puzzle says he's driving slightly above the speed limit. And then when he sees the police car, he goes even faster. Because he knows that the police officer will escort him? No. No. No. And he's performing his occupation at the time. Because he sees that the policeman is not attending to the emergency scene?

Starting point is 00:30:27 No. And that he's needed more urgently there? Why would you speed up? So that'll get him close, that'll get him to the scene of whatever this is. Yes, he is trying to get to the scene of where he needs to be. But he's doing that

Starting point is 00:30:41 specifically because the police officer sees him. No, but I already said that he speeds up deliberately when he sees the police officer. When he sees the police car, he speeds up. But it's not because of something he expects the police officer to do. That's correct. So seeing the police officer sitting there gives him some other information. Sort of. That's why I'm asking. Is it the fact that he knows the police officer isn't going to be at the scene of the emergency? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's trying to get

Starting point is 00:31:15 to the police officer. The police officer is injured. Oh, I wouldn't have got that. Chris says the man was a paramedic who was driving to the scene. The police officer had pulled over a person suspected of DUI, and that person had pulled out a gun and wounded the officer. The officer returned to his car, called for backup, and told where he was on the highway. When the ambulance showed up, he realized he was coming from the wrong side of the highway. He was going southbound from the hospital, but noticed the wounded officer was on the northbound side. Therefore, he sped up to try to find a way to turn around and make it safely to the officer. Okay, that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:31:48 That's why the officer didn't chase him or didn't do anything. And that's why he sped up when he saw the officer. And Chris added, in case you were worried, if I recall correctly, the officer was in the ICU, but was expected to make a full recovery. I don't know what happened to the drunk driver. So thank you to Chris for that hopefully non-fatal puzzle. And if you have a puzzle you'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported entirely by our amazing listeners. If you'd like to support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll not only help support our

Starting point is 00:32:30 show, but also get more discussion on some of the stories, extralateral thinking puzzles, outtakes and peeks behind the scenes. You can find our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futility closet or see our website for the link. At our website, you can graze through Greg's collection of over 11,000 concise curiosities. Browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast, with links and references

Starting point is 00:32:56 for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset dot com. All our music was written and performed by the illustrious Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 294-'The Murder Trial of the Century'

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