The jury at Manchester Crown Court in UK convicted the 33-year-old of preying on premature and sick newborns in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital in northwest England during a year-long campaign of deception between 2015 and2016.
Although an independent inquiry has been set up to understand how Letby was able to carry out the killings and attempt six others before being reported to the police, the motive behind these killings may never be completely understood. Despite that, prosecutors and other experts told jurors, during her trial, of several possible motivations behind Letby’s heinous murders.
Theory of infatuation
During the trial, the prosecutor told the jury that Letby attacked and killed the babies in her care to gain the sympathy of a doctor who she had become infatuated with. It was alleged that she wanted to become the centre of that doctor’s attention and focus.
It was further reported that Letby showed no signs of emotion, until 16 February when the medic, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, confirmed his name after he swore on oath.
As the married registrar was giving his evidence from behind a screen, his voice prompted Letby to break down in tears as she abruptly left her seat and walked towards the exit door of the dock.
Although when Letby entered the witness box, she refuted all the claims of her being infatuated with the doctor and told the jury that she loved the doctor as a trusted friend.
She enjoyed the idea of playing God
According to an Independent report, during Letby’s trial, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC stated that she exhibited a sense of control and enjoyment over the events. One of the victims, Child P, who was one of the triplets Letby murdered, experienced a collapse on June 24, 2016, while arrangements were being made to transfer him to another medical facility.
Prior to the intended transfer, Letby reportedly remarked to a colleague, with whom she was allegedly infatuated, “he’s not leaving here alive, is he?”
The prosecutor further indicated that she made this statement due to her apparent anticipation of the tragic outcome.
Notably, Letby had pumped air into Child P’s stomach shortly after feeding him milk, a mere 13 minutes after she had taken the life of one of his brothers.
She found caring of less sick infants boring
According to court testimony, Letby reportedly engaged in disagreements with a senior colleague after being assigned to work in the “outside nursery” area, where babies were treated in preparation for discharge.
The unit consisted of four rooms, with nursery one serving as intensive care, nursery two as high dependency care, and rooms three and four designated as the “outside nurseries.”
Senior nurse Kathryn Percival-Calderbank told the jury that Letby displayed dissatisfaction when scheduled for shifts in rooms three or four. Percival-Calderbank recalled Letby’s sentiment, stating, “She expressed that she was unhappy at being put in the outside nurseries. She said it was ‘boring and didn’t want to feed babies’. She wanted to be in intensive care”.
Having become a nurse in 1988, Percival-Calderbank added,” if anything was going on within nursery one you would find she would migrate there, as we would all do to go and help. She would definitely end up in nursery one to assist’. Whenever there was activity in nursery one, it was common to see her gravitate there, as we all would, to provide assistance. She would often choose to aid in nursery one.”
Percival-Calderbank highlighted concerns about Letby’s mental health, given the potentially distressing and draining nature of consistently working in a high-stress environment. She emphasized the necessity of occasionally stepping away from such an environment by spending time in the “outside nursery” setting.
Letby was suffering from emotional turmoil
In what appeared to be the closest thing to a confession, a post-it note discovered by the police at her residence read, “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.” Additionally, she wrote, “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them. I will never marry or have children. I will never know what it’s like to have a family.”
During the trial, Letby explained that these notes were written after she had been suspended from her job due to an ongoing investigation. She asserted that the writings reflected her emotional turmoil following the tragic deaths of the babies she had been responsible for. She clarified that the notes contained elements of proclaiming her innocence and were not presented as conclusive evidence of her motive in the courtroom.
Letby found a sense of excitement in the sorrow and distress felt by the parents
Parents and fellow nurses in the ward where Letby worked noticed her unusual behavior when the infants she harmed experienced sudden deteriorations.
The parents of Child I, who tragically succumbed to Letby’s repeated assaults, reported to the police that they recalled her “smiling and going on about how she was present at [Child I’s] first bath and how much she had loved it”.
Prosecutor Johnson KC suggested to Letby that her actions seemed to indicate a certain gratification derived from witnessing the grief and distress within the room.
Despite the accusation, Letby denied any such intention or motivation. In addition, it was revealed that the serial killer conducted Facebook searches for the families of her victims on the anniversaries of their passing.
Remarkably, she often performed these searches in rapid succession, sometimes within minutes of one another.
An instance of this occurred even on Christmas Day. When testifying, Letby clarified that her Facebook searches encompassed various individuals and were not limited solely to the parents of babies within the unit.
It is noteworthy that, according to the BBC, Letby was first arrested in July 2008, and it wasn’t until five more years hadpassed that she was ultimately convicted of killing seven infants and attempting to murder six others.
Dr. Ravi Jayram, an Indian-origin consultant pediatrician at a hospital in northern England was among those who raised alarms about the ‘malevolent’ nurse.
Dr. Jayram expressed that some of these precious lives might have been preserved if the concerns he had voiced about Lucy Letby, had been taken seriously and if the authorities had been informed at an earlier juncture.