By Daniel Edu
Lucy Letby, a British nurse, has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others at the hospital where she worked, making her the country’s most prolific baby serial killer in recent history. The 33-year-old nurse harmed the babies in her care by injecting air into their blood and stomachs, overfeeding them with milk, physically assaulting them, and poisoning them with insulin. She was found to have secretly attacked 13 babies on the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2016. Letby’s intention was to kill the babies while deceiving her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause of death.
Letby was arrested in 2018 and 2019 as part of the investigation. Handwritten notes were discovered in her home, where she wrote, “I am evil I did this” and “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.” Doctors at the hospital had noticed a suspicious rise in the number of baby deaths or collapses under Letby’s care, but initial concerns raised by consultants were dismissed by hospital management.
The UK government has ordered an independent inquiry into the murders, examining the circumstances surrounding the deaths, how concerns raised by clinicians were handled, and the actions taken by regulators and the National Health Service in response to concerns regarding Letby. She is scheduled to be sentenced on August 21.
