In the United Kingdom (UK), a neonatal nurse went on a year-long killing spree, murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to murder ten others at Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016. The accused, Lucy Letby, originating from Hereford in western England, was apprehended in 2018.
According to reports, Lucy was apprehended after the hospital became suspicious about the sudden spike in the number of infant deaths under her watch.
She is currently on trial at Manchester Crown Court in the United Kingdom on charges of 22 attacks on 17 babies between June 2016 and June 2018. Letby, on the other hand, has denied the allegations.
Today (Thursday, October 13) on the fourth day of the trial, the prosecutor told the jury at Manchester Crown Court that the 32-year-old accused had attempted to kill one of her victims, a newborn, in this case, four times before succeeding on her fifth attempt. She had deliberately administered air into the newborn girl’s stomach through a nasogastric tube. After she succeeded in killing the newborn child, she allegedly also sent a sympathy note to the parents of her victim.
The court was further informed that the police had recovered several handwritten documents from the home of Letby after her arrest in July 2018.
As per media reports, words like “HATE” “no words,” “hope,” “panic,” “fear,” “I can’t breathe,” and “I haven’t done anything wrong” were written on the note found in her possession.
The note further stated: “I will never marry. I will never have children.”
Officers said they discovered papers linked to several of the children whose deaths are mentioned in the indictment, which Letby denied collecting as “souvenirs.”
There was also a series of post-it notes, some of which had the names of colleagues scribbled on them, while others had comments such as “What allegations have been made and by whom”, and “Do they have written evidence to support their comments”, the court was informed.
Another post-it note mentioned her expulsion from the neonatal unit, stating, “I haven’t done anything wrong, and they have no evidence, so why have I had to hide away?”
In yet another note discovered by the police, the accused wrote, “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them, I am a horrible evil person”, and then the bottom of the note read, “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.”
Letby was finally removed from the neonatal ward in June 2016, four months after a top doctor began to link her to inexplicable fatalities and falls, according to the trial.
During that four-month period, she is accused of murdering two brothers from a set of triplets and attempting to murder five more newborns.