The evil crimes of Lucy Letby stunned the nation – and staked the neonatal nurse as the worst child serial killer in British history.
The 35-year-old murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven other newborns during her time at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016. She is now serving a life sentence and has since been quizzed behind bars over the alleged murders of other infants.
Letby, dubbed ‘Nurse Death’ by ward colleagues before her arrest, employed chilling methods to harm her defenceless victims. She injected air into babies’ veins and stomachs, causing them to collapse. Two babies were poisoned with insulin. Others were found to have had their tiny stomachs pumped with milk.
Yet the sheer horror of her crimes – and apparent lack of motive – has continued to perplexed experts. Dr Mohammed Qasim, a criminologist at the London School of Economics, said: “Letby broke all the normal rules when it comes to serial killers. Here was a trusted professional, a nurse, with no prior signs she was capable of such evil.
Lucy Letby’s grim comforter that she clutched throughout trial
Letby, dubbed ‘Nurse Death’ by ward colleagues before her arrest, employed chilling methods to harm her defenceless victims
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Cheshire Police)
“No-one will probably ever know what drove her to take the lives of newborn babies but there are two possible explanations, in my view. Was this a young woman unhappy with her life? Did witnessing other people’s joy ignite feelings of envy and jealousy, which drove her to carry out her crimes? Why can they be happy when I am not?’
“Or, on the other hand, did she deliberately place herself in a position of trust to carry out crimes that she had intended from a young age? Some killers love power and enjoy playing God. At the end of the day, only Lucy Letby truly knows the answer to that.”
The innocent newborns who died or were harmed at Chester hospital were in relatively good health – despite being born prematurely. Infants were variously described as being “stable”, “doing well” or “excellent” – with no suggestion that they would suddenly fall critically ill. Prosecutors told Letby’s murder trial how “by a process of simple elimination” just one person could be responsible.
A chart revealed that the nurse was always on duty when babies in the neonatal unit collapsed and died across the 13-month spree. No other staff member was present more than seven times. At Letby’s semi-detached Chester home, police discovered confidential medical documents, alongside Facebook searches Letby had made for her victims’ families.
The nurse was always on duty when babies in the neonatal unit collapsed and died across the 13-month spree
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Chester Standard / SWNS.com)
Among the most damning discoveries was a diary entry where Letby admitted: “I AM EVIL. I DID THIS,” and a Post-it note reading: “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough. I will never have children or marry or know what it’s like tohave a family.”
Other writings suggested a God complex. “How do some sick babies get through and others die so suddenly and unexpectedly?” she scrawled. “Guess it’s how it’s meant to be.” Another chilling note read: “What does the future hold. How can I get through it. How will things ever be like they used. HATE. PANIC. FEAR. LOST. I don’t deserve to live. I DID THIS. WHY ME.”
Despite insisting her innocence, Letby’s defence team struggled to explain away the infant deaths. The only witness they presented was a plumber who claimed that he had seen sewage emerge from a sink – suggesting the discharge may be linked. When Letby left the neonatal unit in June 2016, infant deaths suddenly stopped.
Yet, despite the damning evidence, Letby supporters claim she is the victim of astonishing miscarriage of justice. They argue that, unlike most high-profile criminal cases, Letby was convicted despite no concrete evidence to prove her guilt. Prosecutors suggested the nurse murdered her victims by injecting air through their feeding tubes, with two expert witnesses basing their views on a 1989 research paper.
Letby supporters claim she is the victim of astonishing miscarriage of justice
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Cheshire Police)
But the Canadian academic who wrote the paper was not asked to testify for the prosecution and has since questioned whether his work should have been used. Police inspector Nicola Evans described the unassuming killer – described as a shy schoolgirl who always wanted to be a nurse – as a “beige, average nurse”.
She added: “But clearly there was another side of that that nobody saw and that we have unravelled during this investigation.” Letby’s bedroom was decorated with framed pictures of her two cats, Tigger and Smudge, and filled with stuffed teddy bears. A consultant in charge of Letby when told about her possible crimes responded: “It can’t be Lucy. Not nice Lucy.”
Prosecutors suggested she may have attacked babies to gain the attention of a doctor she was “infatuated” with. Letby cowardly refused to attend court for her sentencing at Manchester Crown Court in August 2023. Judge Mr Justice Goss told her: “There was a deep malevolence bordering on sadism in your actions. During the course of this trial you have coldly denied any responsibility for your wrongdoing and sought to attribute some fault to others. You have shown no remorse.”
An ongoing public inquiry into Letby’s crimes is expected to sit until 2025. In December it emerged that detectives had interviewed her in prison over the alleged murders of more babies. The killer nurse was quizzed under caution over unexpected deaths and collapses of infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital. She was also questioned about cases at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student.
Carr, 44, was just 12 when she knifed stranger Katie Rackliff, 18, to death in 1992
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Press Association)
An extract from Sharon Carr’s Diary
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Press Association)
‘The Devil’s Daughter’
Evil Sharon Carr – dubbed the Devil’s Daughter – is Britain’s youngest female murderer.
Carr, 44, was just 12 when she knifed stranger Katie Rackliff, 18, to death in 1992. She is serving life in tough HMP Bronzefield as a ‘restricted status’ prisoner – meaning she is kept in strict isolation. Schoolgirl Carr picked teenage hairdresser Katie at random as she walked home from a nightclub in June 1992.
She then stabbed her thirty-two times and so ferociously that police believed they were hunting a man. Two years later, she struck again and attacked another schoolgirl with a knife in Camberley, Surrey. But while in a young offender’s institute for the knife attack – where she tried to strangle two nurses – Carr began bragging about killing Katie.
Police were alerted and she was convicted in March 1997. Diaries seized by police were full of sickening boasts about the murder. One spine-chilling entry read: “I wish I could kill you again. I promise I would make you suffer more. Your terrified screams turn me on.” She also wrote: “I swear I was born to be a murderer. Killing for me is a mass turn-on and it just makes me so high I never want to come down. Every night I see the Devil in my dreams – sometimes even in my mirror – but I realise it was just me and my heart of terror.” Katie’s mum Helen has always campaigned that she is never released.
Former nurse Beverley Allitt
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PA)
Kayley Desmond
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PA Archive/Press Association Images)
‘Angel of Death
Nicknamed the “Angel of Death”, nurse Beverley Allitt murdered four babies and tried to take the lives of another nine. The twisted nurse struck on ward four of Lincolnshire’s Grantham Hospital over a 59-day period in 1991, plying tots with deadly doses of insulin
Allitt, 56, was handed 13 life sentences in 1993. Her trial heard she was suffering from Munchausen syndrome, in which people harm themselves or others for attention. The serial killer is currently being held at Rampton secure hospital in Nottinghamshire.
19th century North East murderer, Mary Ann Cotton
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Newcastle Chronicle)
How murderer Mary Ann Cotton was depicted in Victorian times
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Newcastle Chronicle)
Britain’s most prolific female serial killer
Victorian murderer Mary Ann Cotton remains Britain’s most prolific female serial killer.
The Sunday school teacher from Co Durham murdered 21 people, including her mother, 12 children and three husbands. All died from apparent “gastric fever” after she laced their food or drinks with arsenic to claim life insurance. Cotton was hanged at Durham gaol on March 24, 1873, aged 40. She maintained her innocence to the gallows – and many at the time believed her.
Joanna Dennehy savagely stabbed three men to death
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Dennehy, 33, was given a whole-life sentence at her Old Bailey trial for murdering three men and stabbing two more
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‘A cruel, selfish and manipulative serial killer’
Sadistic triple killer Joanna Dennehy staked her place as one of the country’s most notorious murderers.
In a frenzied 10-day spree in March 2013, she savagely stabbed three men to death. Kevin Lee, 48, Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, and John Chapman, 56, were each knifed in the heart and their bodies dumped in ditches in Peterborough.
Dennehy, now 41, went on to stab two more men who were left fighting for their lives. Jailing her for life, Mr Justice Spencer called Dennehy a “cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer”.