Crown Case Against Doctor Outlined

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28231, 20 March 1957, Page 13

Crown Case Against Doctor Outlined

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Mgr ch 18.

The Crown alleged today that an Eastbourne doctor had killed a wealthy patient “because he had decided the time had come for her to die.” The Crown allegation was levelled at Dr. John Bodkin Adams, a 58-year-old family physician, who is accused of having murdered Mrs Edith Alice Morrell.' aged 81. at her mansion home at Eastbourne, the Sussex seaside town. Mrs Morrell, a wealthy widow, died in November, 1950. and the Crown alleged that Dr. Adams poisoned her with drugs because he knew he would benefit from her will.

Dr. Adams pleaded not guilty. The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham - Buller) outlined the Crown case. He spoke for nearly two hours. Then the first three witnesses for the prosecution went into the witness box at London's Central Criminal Court—the famed Old Bailey.

The case is being heard before a jury of 10 men and two women by Mr Justice Devlin. More than 200 journalists crowded the press boxes and the public section of the Court was crowded.

The prosecutor said that the interest Dr. Adams showed in Mrs Morrell’s will while he was prescribing massive quantities of drug for her was “significant and sinister.”

Dr. Adams was alleged to have told Detective - Superintendent Herbert Hannam, of Scotland Yard, during a talk about Mrs Morrell’s death: “Easing the passing of a dying person is not all that wicked. She wanted to die. That can’t be murder.” The prosecutor said that Mrs Morrell died on November 13, 1950, shortly after being given two injections prepared by Dr. Adams with a drug only he could name, for he had not told nurses attending her what it was. “Was it really easing the passing?” asked the prosecutor in almost a whisper. “or was it accelerating her death?”

He argued that there was no medical justification for the increasingly heavier drug, dosage prescribed for Mrs Morrell during the last 10 months of her life. The drugs included the most powerful pain-killers in the medical armoury, heroin and morphia, yet Mrs Morrell seldom complained of pain and during her last days was in a coma.

But the heroin she was given then was so great that she developed acute spinal spasms that nearly jerked her from her bed. He said Dr. Adams prescribed drugs “because he had decided that the time had come for Mrs Morrell to die.” Dr. Adams might have felt she should have no further opportunity of altering her much-changed will. Already

she had made a codicil to her will revoking the gifts left to him. which had Included her RollsRoyce limousine and an oak ehest of silver and jewellery. Mrs Morrell was cremated and on the cremation form Dr. Adams said he had no pecuniary interest in her death as far as he was aware. "But for his false answer there might have been no cremation and the prosecution might have been in a position to tell you how much morphia and heroin there was in the body of Mrs Morrell at the time of her death.” the prosecutor said. "The case for the Crown,” said the Attorney-General, "is that

Dr. Adams, by the administration of drugs to Mrs Morrell—drugs given by him and given upon his instructions—killed her, and our submission is that those drugs were given to her with the intention of killing." Dr. Adams sat In the dock, at times with his eyes closed, while the Attorney-General detailed the prosecution's case. His arms were folded, his head slightly sunk forward over his stiff white collar, and at times his eyes were closed behind his spectacles.