certainty of an unnatural death, as there was evidence in the committal hearing that Mr Hullett died of a heart attack and, at their exhumations, the pathologist concluded Miller had died from pneumonia, and the condition of Bradnum's body did not allow a cause of death to be stated, so none of these were good cases. Mrs Hullett had died an unnatural death, of a barbiturate overdose, but there was no evidence or admission that Adams had persuaded her to take that overdose and, had Mrs Hullett's case been brought to trial after Adams's first acquittal, Devlin believed that a second acquittal was virtually certain. In these five cases, Adams may have contributed to the deaths in some way, but this would not have been sufficient for a capital murder conviction. Committal hearing The committal hearing opened in Lewes on 14 January 1957. In accordance with the legal rule applying in 1957, Adams was charged on the single count of murdering Mrs Morrell, but the prosecution also alleged he had killed Mr and Mrs Hullett in a similar fashion, and introduced evidence relating to them as evidence of system, which the prosecution also wished to refer to in the Morrell trial. Despite the objections of the defence that this evidence was inadmissible, the magistrates allowed it but, in cross examination, the defence forced an admission from the Crown's expert witness that Mr Hullett died of a coronary thrombosis. The hearing concluded on 24 January when, after a five-minute deliberation, Adams was committed for trial on the Morrell charge. Melford Stevenson, who led the Crown's case at this hearing, made an explicit claim that Adams's instructions to specially clear Mrs. Hullett's cheque two days before her death showed that he knew she was to die very soon, using her wealth and foreseen death as evidence of critical similarities to the deaths of Mrs Morrell and Mr Hullett. He also made an implication, unsupported by evidence, that Adams had been involved in the administration of the drugs that caused her death. Devlin considered the police case that there were similarities in deaths of Mrs Morrell and Mrs Hullett was not well founded, as the claimed similarities were not distinctive. Had the police found two recent cases similar to Mrs Hullett's, where a patient had died of an overdose of pills prescribed by Adams, that might have shown system, but the police found