The true death toll claimed by family doctor Harold Shipman, the UK's worst serial killer, could be revealed by an inquiry that starts this week.
High Court judge Dame Janet Smith will investigate the deaths of at least 466 patients of the GP from Hyde, Greater Manchester, now serving life for the murders of 15 women patients.
The names of another 152 former patients of the doctor, who practised in Hyde and Todmorden, West Yorkshire, from 1974 until the time of his arrest in 1998, will also be published in a bid to seek clues on whether they too could have been victims.
One million pages of documents relating to the career of Shipman, now 55, have been fed into high-tech systems installed for the inquiry which starts in Manchester Town Hall on Wednesday. The doctor, who was convicted at Preston Crown Court in January last year, will remain in his prison cell in Frankland Jail, County Durham, while the inquiry takes place.
But after the end of the first phase of the hearings, when Dame Janet will produce an interim report determining how many victims he could have claimed, Shipman will be told of the findings and invited to respond.
After the report is published South Manchester Coroner John Pollard will be invited to amend death certificates on potential victims without full inquests being held.
The council chamber in Manchester has been equipped with the latest technology to relay witness's evidence and display documents in the inquiry.
Four giant screens in the chamber will carry images of the proceedings, which will also be beamed to the public library in Hyde for those who feel unable to make the seven-mile journey to Manchester for the hearings.
Trained counsellors will be on hand at the hearings to comfort relatives if necessary.
The first day of the hearings will hear counsel to the inquiry Caroline Swift, QC, outline the background to the case.
Expert witnesses will then be called to give evidence on Shipman's possible death toll.
The judge has said that she hopes to reach decisions in as many individual cases as possible on whether the patients were murder victims.
After the end of the first phase, due to be completed before the end of the year, the inquiry will go on to consider how the doctor was able to carry out the enormous number of murders over so long a period.
In the third phase a series of seminars will look at possible changes in procedures in the health service and other authorities to prevent such a thing being able to happen again.
PA