A British nurse, who wrote a note stating “I am evil”, was found guilty on Friday of murdering seven newborn babies and trying to kill another six in the neonatal unit of a hospital in northwest England where she worked.
Lucy Letby, 33, was convicted of killing five baby boys and two baby girls at the Countess of Chester hospital and attacking other newborns, often while she was working night shifts, in 2015 and 2016.
The verdict, following a 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court, makes Letby one of Britain’s most prolific serial child killers. She was found not guilty of two attempted murders while the jury was unable to agree on six other suspected attacks.
Prosecutors told the jury during the trial that Letby poisoned some of her infant victims by injecting them with insulin, while others were injected with air or force-fed milk, sometimes involving multiple attacks before they died.
“I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them,” said a handwritten note found by police officers who searched her home after she was arrested. “I am a horrible evil person,” she wrote.
Some of those she attacked were twins — in one case she murdered both siblings. She tried to kill one baby girl three times before finally succeeding on the fourth attempt.
Letby will be sentenced on Monday and faces a very long prison term, and possibly a rare full life sentence.
Her actions came to light when senior doctors became concerned at the number of unexplained deaths at the neonatal unit, where premature or sick babies are treated, over 18 months from January 2015.
With doctors unable to find a medical reason, police were called in. After a lengthy investigation, Letby, who had been involved in the care of the babies, was pinpointed as the “constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse”, said prosecutor Nick Johnson.
Letby wept when she gave evidence over 14 days, saying she had never tried to hurt the babies and had only ever wanted to care for them, saying there had been unsafe staffing levels on the ward and its dirty conditions might have been a factor in the deaths.
