 Instead of having to find a suspect for a known crime, the senior Metropolitan Police officer, Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannam, had a known suspect in Adams but wished to link him to more serious crimes than forging prescriptions, making false statements and mishandling drugs.Devlin suggests that Hannam became fixated on the idea that Adams had murdered many elderly patients for legacies, regarding his receiving a legacy as grounds for suspicion, although Adams was generally only a minor beneficiary inpatients wills.Hannam's team investigated the wills of 132 of Adams' former patients dating between 1946 and 1956 where he had benefited from a legacy, and prepared a short list with around a dozen names for submission to the prosecuting authorities.