A British Nurse, Lucy Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six other infants. Sky News presents an hour-long special programme looking at how police caught the nurse. According to CNN.COM the nurse attempted to kill six others at the hospital where she worked, making her the country’s worst baby serial killer in recent times.
Lucy Letby Age
By the time of this publication Lucy Letby was 33 years of age.
Lucy Letby Modus Operandi
Lucy Letby harmed babies in her care by injecting air into their blood and stomachs, overfeeding them with milk, physically assaulting them and poisoning them with insulin, Manchester Crown Court in northern England heard.
In one case, Letby murdered a baby boy, identified as Child E, by administering air into his bloodstream, the UK’s PA Media news agency reported. The next day, she attempted to kill his twin brother, Child F, by poisoning him with insulin.
The sinister nurse was found to have carried out the crimes from 2015 to 2016 at the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England.
The Manchester Crown Court heard disturbing testimony throughout the trial describing methods and gruesome facts regarding the murders, however the Crown Prosecution Service is still puzzled over one of the key details of the case.
Investigators had determined the baby killer’s preferred methodologies, the use of lethal air injection, claiming it was “one of her favorite ways of killing or trying to kill children in this case.”
According to Sky News, the scale of Lucy Letby’s crimes are unprecedented as she’s found guilty of murdering seven babies on a neonatal unit.
CNN.COM reports that a court order protects the identity of the children involved in the allegations against Letby, including those who died and survived under her care.
Police found a trove of handwritten notes while searching Letby’s house during their investigation, including one that read: “I am evil I did this.”
She secretly attacked 13 babies on the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2016, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement.
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Her intention was to kill the babies while duping her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause of death, prosecutors argued.
Pascale Jones of the CPS called Letby’s actions a “complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.”
“Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability,” she said.
“In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids – or medication like insulin – would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death.”
Victims’ families said they “may never truly know why this happened.”
“To lose a baby is a heartbreaking experience that no parent should ever have to go through,” a joint statement said.
“But to lose a baby or to have a baby harmed in these particular circumstances is unimaginable,” the statement added.
Police Investigation to Lucy Letby
Police investigations commenced in 2018 and 2019
Letby was arrested twice by police in connection with their investigation, PA said. She was arrested again in November 2020.
Authorities found notes Letby had written during searches of her address.
“I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them,” she wrote in one memo, adding in another, “I am a horrible evil person” and in capital letters “I am evil I did this.”
The mother of Child E and Child F said she “completely” trusted Letby’s advice, while giving evidence to the court, according to PA Media.
However, she said she “knew there was something wrong” when her baby, Child E, started screaming in the intensive care unit one night.
It emerged that before Letby murdered Child E, he started bleeding when she tried to assault him.
“It was a sound that should not come from a tiny baby,” the mother told the court. “I can’t explain what the sound was. It was horrendous. More of a scream than a cry.”
There was no post-mortem examination following Child E’s death. The mother said she thought he had passed away from natural causes.
Her twin son, Child F, later survived an attempt by Letby to kill him by insulin poisoning.
Doctors and Consultants Bullied to Apologize for Raising Concerns
According to BBC.COM doctors and consultants begun to notice a steep rise in the number of babies who were dying or unexpectedly collapsing, the court heard.
But concerns raised by consultants over the increased mortality rate of patients under Letby’s care were initially dismissed by the hospital’s management, PA Media said. The BBC has found that doctors working alongside Lucy Letby at a UK hospital were forced to write an apology to her, and told to stop making allegations against her.
She was scheduled to return to the neonatal department in March 2017, but her return did not take place. The hospital trust contacted the police, who opened an investigation.
Reactions to the Murder
CNN.COM reports that, the UK government has ordered an independent inquiry into the murders, including “how concerns raised by clinicians were dealt with.”
The inquiry will probe into the “circumstances surrounding the deaths and incidents,” the government said in a statement on Friday.
It will also evaluate what actions were taken by regulators and Britain’s National Health Service in response to concerns regarding Letby.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay pledged the voices of parents of the victims “are heard” throughout the inquiry, acknowledging there are many questions to be answered.
“Justice has been served and the nurse who should have been caring for our babies has been found guilty of harming them,” the victims’ families said in a joint statement on Friday.
“But this justice will not take away from the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experience,” the statement added.
“We are heartbroken, devastated, angry and feel numb.”
Letby will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on August 21.
