The Case Of Lucy Letby

Lucy Letby was born in Hereford on 4th January 1990. Letby is the only child of John and Susan Letby. Lucy Letby attended a local school and sixth-form college, and she finally qualified as a children’s nurse at the University of Chester in 2011.

She would complete her training placements in Liverpool Women’s Hospital. After this, she would join the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Her life up to here was pretty much normal.

Lucy lived in several houses before buying her suburban, red-brick, semi-detached home in 2016. This house was around a 20-minute walk from the ward. She was said to have a very active social life. She would regularly use social media to keep in contact with her colleagues, family, and friends. At work, she was very dedicated and trusted. She regularly worked in nursery one. Nursery one is where severely ill children are treated.

When she worked in low-isk nurseries, she would constantly text her colleagues, saying that she was bored and would like to go back to nursery one. This is the nursery where Lucy Letby would carry out her crimes in this case.

There were speculations that Lucy Letby was involved with a doctor who is a married man. Several texts were exchanged between them, and they even shared many meals. Up to this point, there was nothing suspicious about her. She was a normal 20-year-something nurse. There was nothing alarming about her.

The Start of Attacks

Lucy Letby had worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital for three years at this point. During this period, the mortality rate of the neonatal unit began to rise. She carried out her first attack on 8th June 2015. A child would die within 90 minutes in Lucy’s night shift.

Lucy Letby used several methods to kill. Some methods included physical assaults, overfeeding with milk, forcing air into their stomach, and injecting air into their bloodstream. She continued killing several babies, and the death rate in this hospital was at an all-time high. Two of her victims survived when she poisoned their IV dip bags with Insulin. Some babies were even subjected to repeated attempts of her trying to kill them.

Lucy Letby would use medicines and equipment readily available to her to cause babies to collapse unexpectedly. Her victims mainly included boys and girls who were born prematurely. The most sickening and twisted part of this case was that when she finished killing her victims, she would search for the victims' family on social media. She would send sympathy cards to the parents of these babies. She would also take photos of these sympathy cards and keep them as a souvenir.

Lucy was said be relaxed, despite the rising number of deaths in this hospital. She tried to kill the twin brothers with an injection of excessive air, and one of them survived. It was speculated that this annoyed Lucy because one of her murder attempts failed. She was annoyed at her twin's parents because one of their babies survived. Around this time, she even started making suspicious comments that aroused suspicions among people around her.

There was one child who was being readied to be transferred to another hospital after Lucy had pumped excess air into his stomach. She would make a comment like, “ He’s not leaving here alive, isn’t he ?”She made this same comment when another child fatally collapsed.

Lucy Letby committed the murders from June 2015 to June 2016. At the surface, there was no motive as to why Lucy Letby carried out this crime. When the police investigated her house, there were tons of medical paperwork and some notes regarding the babies that were deeply disturbing.

They found several messages that were scribbled by Lucy. Some of these messages read, “ I am evil”, “ I did this”, and “ I don’t deserve to be here because I’m evil”. The prosecutors have noted that these notes illustrate a woman in turmoil, someone who is filled with guilt. A consultant forensic psychiatrist has said that Lucy Letby does not fit any typical “ killer profile”.

Colleagues became suspicious of Lucy within weeks of the first attack. Dr Stephen Brearey, who is the head of the neonatal consultant, reviewed the deaths of 3 babies that occurred in June 2015. He found that Lucy was the only one on shift when the deaths of each baby occurred. Many consultants were concerned when there was a spike in deaths, and these deaths were unexplained. The only common thing was that Lucy Letby was the only nurse who was on duty when the deaths of each baby occurred.

The consultants even informed the management, and the management told them not to make a fuss, and they were made to apologise to Lucy Letby. The management was scared of bad press and told consultants to let things go.

Suspicions grew as Lucy would be the only nurse who would be on shift when that baby died, and she would also be near a child during every suspicious death. Suspicion just grew day by day and alarm bells were going off. There was no concrete evidence against her. Everything was just circumstantial.

Lucy would then be transferred to an administrative role. When she is transferred, the suspicious deaths start to decrease slowly. The hospital would only contact the police in early 2017. It took a long time for the police to go through all the medical charts.

Lucy Letby's arrest

Lucy Letby was arrested three years after her first kill. After her arrest, she was immediately taken into police custody for a police interview. Throughout the interview, she was calm. She would be released after the first arrest, but she would be rearrested in June 2019, and she would be bailed pending further inquiries. She would be rearrested and charged in 2020, three years after the investigation.

Sentencing

Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering 4 babies and attempting to murder 2 babies.

I don’t think we will ever get to the reason behind why she did what she did. What was her motive?