She is suspected of having killed seven babies and of having tried – sometimes several times – to end the days of another ten infants, between 2015 and 2016. In total, Lucy Letby, now 32, is under the blow of 22 charges. , which she flatly rejects.
The nurse’s trial opened on October 9 before the Royal Court in Manchester. As magistrates struggle to shed light on these cases, the circumstances of the crimes are slowly surfacing. BFMTV.com takes stock this Wednesday of this extraordinary dossier.
Particularly lurid cases
As the BBC remarkably recalled here, the events took place between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester hospital -in this same town in Cheshire- where this nurse attached to the neonatology service was then practicing.
The first alleged victim died on June 8, 2015. Investigators suspect that Lucy Letby injected air into the baby’s bloodstream. The following night, and always according to her instructions, she would have tried the same method with the twin of the little deceased. This time, fortunately without success.
The alleged murders resume on June 14 and 22. On August 4, the sudden death of a newborn baby is still recorded. Lucy Letby is still suspected of having wanted to kill the latter’s twin. Elements even support the idea that when the nurse failed in her attempt, she did not hesitate to repeat it. Thus, in one particularly lurid case, she would have taken it four times before managing to kill a premature baby. She then her to send a card of condolences to her father and her mother.
The messages of the accused at the center of the debates
The carnage is such that the court has not yet been able to examine all the incriminating files. However, it seems that the same methodology emerges from case to case: it is an injection of oxygen or possibly insulin into the blood that, each time, has precipitated the death of babies.
The Royal Court is also interested in the communications of the accused during the corresponding period. Throughout the wave of murders attributed to her, as the British public broadcasting site also points out, Lucy Letby multiplies her messages to her colleagues, on social networks where she also conducts research on grieving parents. .
A message left for one of her companions who was concerned about her condition the day after the baby’s death on June 8, 2015, was played in the audience on Tuesday. On entend Lucy Letby will say: “Le papa était par terre, en pleurs. Il disait: ‘S’il vous plaît, ne m’enlevez pas mon bébé’, quand on l’a amené à la morgue. C’était à briser el corazón”. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I hope next night will be better,” she finished her. A few hours before the assassination attempt on her twin sister.
Of course, the profusion of these mysterious deaths ends up finding a strange resonance in the corridors of the neonatal unit. One nurse even opens up to Lucy Letby: “There’s something weird about that night and the other three who died so suddenly.”
The “common denominator”
At the start of the trial, prosecutor Nick Johnson also recalled how the ray of suspicion finally fell on Lucy Letby, as reported here on the ITV site. Consultants commissioned by the hospital to investigate suspicious deaths first concluded cases of poisoning. “After searching for the cause, without being able to establish it, the consultants noted that these unexplained illnesses and deaths had a common denominator: the presence of one of the nurses on duty and that this was Lucy Letby.”
The accusation was also based on handwritten notes unearthed in the latter’s home during searches. Because if Lucy Letby today fights against the suspicion that hangs over her, she wrote on one of these sheets: “I intentionally killed them … I am a horrible, bad person.” Or in another place: “I’m bad, I did it.”
The trial is expected to last six months.
Defense attorney Ben Myers, however, felt that these few statements were too light to support his client’s guilt. He tried to brush away the effect produced by these confessions, seeing in them only the “anguished unpacking of a young woman terrified and desperate for herself, at the moment when she realizes the enormity of what they say about her”. He also pointed to the lack of material evidence of Lucy Letby’s responsibility in these deaths, calling the allegation a “coincidence-based theory”.
Justice will have time to decide between the arguments and form an opinion before formulating its verdict. The trial is expected to last six months.
Source: BFM TV
