A British nurse was found guilty of killing seven newborn babies and attempt to murder of six others in a hospital in Northwest England.
The nurse, 33-year-old Lucy Letby, called herself a “horrible evil person” on Friday. She killed five baby boys and two baby girls at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2015 and 2016 and also attacked other newborns in the neonatal unit of the hospital in which she worked. She usually carried out the murders and attacks while she worked night shifts.
Following a gruelling 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court, Letby was found guilty, making her the most prolific serial child killer in British history, according to local media.
She was found not guilty of two attempted murders, but the jury, which deliberated for 110 hours, could not agree on six other alleged assaults.
“We are heartbroken, devastated, angry and feel numb, we may never truly know why this happened,” said the families of Letby’s victims in a statement.
Prosecutors informed the jurors that some of Letby’s young victims were poisoned by insulin injections, while others were forced-fed milk or given air injections, sometimes over the course of several attacks.
After the nurse was arrested, the police officials looked her home thoroughly and found a handwritten note, which read, “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them. I am a horrible evil person, I AM EVIL I DID THIS”.
She assaulted twins as well; in one incident, she killed both siblings; in two other attacks, she killed one twin but couldn’t kill the other.
The newest victim had only been a day old.
Letby will be given a severe prison sentence on Monday, potentially even a rare whole life sentence.
Senior physicians became alarmed by the frequency of inexplicable fatalities and collapses at the neonatal unit, where unwell or preterm babies are treated, over the course of 18 months starting in January 2015. That was when she was suspected.
Social media images of Letby showed a cheerful, smiling woman with a full social calendar; in one image, she was seen holding a child. However, her trial heard through months of often upsetting testimony that she was a determined murderer.
The jury was informed of Letby’s four failed attempts to murder one infant girl before she was eventually successful. She responded, “Trust me, I’m a nurse,” when one of the victim’s mothers entered the room and saw her beating the twin infants.
Detectives discovered documents and medical records with references to the case’s children at her home after her arrest. She had also looked up the parents and families of the slain newborns on social media.
Police were contacted when doctors were unable to determine a medical cause. Letby, who had helped with the babies’ care, was identified as, prosecutor Nick Johnson said, a “constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse” following a thorough inquiry.
