Under the spell of a charming killer

FELICITY Drumm, Malcolm Webster's second wife, met the man who tried to murder her at a dinner party in Saudi Arabia in May 1996 - almost exactly two years after he had ruthlessly killed Claire.

Ms Drumm had moved to the Middle East to work ten-hour days as a district nurse in Riyadh to save enough to pay off her NZ$100,000 (49,000) mortgage, and she fell under Webster's spell.

She said: "I got on very well with him that evening. We were sitting beside each other at the table and chatted very freely. He was very friendly, quite amusing, a good conversationalist and quite charming."

Within weeks, she had moved into Webster's apartment, and he proposed marriage in January 1997. Three months later, on 26 April, 1997, Webster married Ms Drumm at St Vincent's Church in Milford, Auckland, before setting off on a honeymoon journey around New Zealand.

It was while on the romantic break that events took a strange turn, with Ms Drumm suffering mystery bouts of ill health after eating or drinking things her husband had offered her.

Then, on 12 February, 1999, he tried to kill her in a bid to obtain 750,000 of insurance on her life.