Following a ten-month trial and an investigation that spanned five years, Lucy Letby, a former employee of the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England, has been convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder six others between 2015 and 2016.
Letby will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on Monday. The convictions render Letby the most prolific perpetrator of child serial killings in the contemporary history of the United Kingdom.
The trial revealed a series of disturbing incidents involving the alleged murder or injury of 17 infants, with the exception of one premature infant. The prosecution characterized Letby as a “devious,” “calculating,” and “cold-blooded” killer.
She attacked infants by injecting insulin, milk or air into their tiny bodies, leading to their sudden collapse. She was accused of physically assaulting one baby and causing a liver injury akin to a road traffic collision.
Letby took four attempts to kill one baby girl, attacked three sets of twins, twice murdering one twin, and murdered two triplets within 24 hours of each other.
Letby maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings.
As befitting a trial that literally shocked the nation, the verdicts were delivered in three stages over a series of days.
According to Ian Leonard, the prosecutors
told the jury that Letby was a “constant, malevolent presence” at the hospital’s neonatal unit when the trial opened at Chester Crown Court in October.
They claimed she was the “common denominator” and that the baby’s deaths coincided with her shifts.
Babies who had not been unstable “suddenly severely deteriorated” while others who had been sick and recovered, suddenly deteriorated “for no apparent reason.”
In a statement obtained by PEOPLE magazine, Pascale Jones of the Crown Prosecution Service posited that Letby’s attacks constituted a “complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.”
“Lucy Letby was entrusted to protect some of the most vulnerable babies,” the statement read. “Little did those working alongside her know that there was a murderer in their midst. She did her utmost to conceal her crimes, by varying the ways in which she repeatedly harmed babies in her care.”
The statement continued, “She sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability. In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids – or medication like insulin – would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponized her craft to inflict harm, grief and death.”
“Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families. Parents were
exposed to her morbid curiosity and her fake compassion. Too many of them returned home to empty baby rooms. Many surviving children live with permanent consequences of her assaults upon their lives.”
In 2016, following a year during which infants had been dying or nearly dying in mysterious circumstances, Letby was removed from the neonatal ward. This was done after senior hospital staff grew suspicious.
During the trial, it was revealed that Letby, 33, wrote a sympathy card to the parents of one of the babies she killed, the BBC reported.
A copy of the card, which reads, in part, “your loved one will be remembered with many smiles,” was shown in court earlier this year.
“There are no words to make this time any easier,” Letby wrote, according to the BBC. “It was a real privilege to care for [the child] and get to know you as a family — a family who always put [child] first and did everything possible for her. She will always be part of your lives and we will never forget her. Thinking of you today and always.”
Letby also apologized for not being able to attend the baby girl’s funeral.
“Sorry I cannot be there to say goodbye. Lots of love Lucy x,” she wrote.
Prosecutors informed jurors that Post-It notes had been discovered at Letby’s residence. These notes contained the words “evil” and “killed them on purpose,” as reported by the BBC.
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
