Lucy Letby – The Baby Murdering Nurse

By Sophia P

Warning: this article may contain distressing content for some readers

Former nurse at Countess of Chester hospital, Lucy Letby, has been charged for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder ten others. Ms Letby has denied all charges against her for several murders and attempted murder. One of the tragic murders occurred after an alleged attempts on 30th September and a further two more on the 12th and 13th October 2015 before Letby was finally successful. The child had been born prematurely in August that year at Liverpool Women’s hospital, before being transferred to the Countess of Chester hospital. She fatally injected air into the infant’s bloodstream and feeding tube, who then died on 23rd October 2015.

The child’s mother stated that the prematurely born child ‘looked like a full-term baby, she didn’t look frail or small’, adding that she thought ‘we are going home.’ Lucy had helped her to bathe her daughter for the first time, taking photos for the victim’s mother, and that her daughter ‘obviously enjoyed it because she was smiling.’ A few weeks later, Letby killed her.

It was in the early hours of 23rd October, when the infant’s parents received an urgent call, informing that they needed to get to the hospital immediately. Upon arrival, they found Lucy and another nurse, along with their consultant, trying to resuscitate her daughter. The doctors had already been attempting to resusite her for over twenty minutes before the parents said ‘You can't do any more'. After the baby was confirmed to be dead, Letby then asked if she wanted to bathe the body of her child, who agreed because she ‘didn’t want to look back and regret not doing it’ in the future.

During the post-mortem bathing, Lucy kept repeating how ‘she was present at the first bath and how [the infant] had loved it.’ She was smiling the whole time. The mother recalled thinking ‘I wished she would just stop talking.’ Though the mother did not want one, Dr Gibbs, their consultant, said ‘she didn’t have a say’ and the baby must have an autopsy ‘because her death was unexpected, and the results would be needed to clear the hospital.’

The baby killing nurse trial continues.