British nurse Lucy Letby was pronounced guilty on Friday of the murder of seven newborn babies and the attempted murder of six others at a neonatal unit within a northwest England hospital where she was employed. The chilling discovery came after Letby left a note bearing the words “I am evil.”
The now-convicted 33-year-old nurse stood accused of perpetrating these heinous acts between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester hospital. The victims included five baby boys and two baby girls, with Letby often targeting newborns during her night shifts.
Letby’s conviction catapults her into the grim ranks of Britain’s most prolific serial child killers. While she was found guilty of seven murders, she was acquitted of two attempted murders, while the jury remained deadlocked on the verdict for six other suspected assaults.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors unveiled disturbing details of Letby’s modus operandi. Some infants were lethally poisoned with insulin injections, while others suffered from injections of air or were forcefully fed milk in a series of attacks. Tragically, some victims were twins, with one case seeing Letby claim both siblings’ lives. In another instance, she attempted to kill a baby girl three times before ultimately succeeding on the fourth attempt.
Sentencing for Letby is scheduled for Monday, with prospects of a lengthy prison term and a potential rare full life sentence looming over her.
The macabre sequence of events came to light when senior medical professionals became alarmed by an unusually high number of unexplained infant deaths and collapses within the neonatal unit, which provides care for premature or ill newborns. After medical causes were ruled out, police intervention ensued. Following an extensive inquiry, Letby, who had been involved in the babies’ care, was identified as a “constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse,” according to prosecutor Nick Johnson.
