Who is nurse Lucy Letby, UK's 'worst child serial killer'
After more than 10 months of trial, Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital, was sentenced to life in prison on Monday for murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to kill six more. BBC termed it the longest-ever murder trial in the UK. Letby is now being called the UK's worst child serial killer in the modern era, with her youngest victim being merely a day old. Here, we examine the possible motives behind her actions.
Possibility of God complex
Letby used various methods to murder the babies, including injecting air and insulin into their bloodstream and force-feeding them an overdose of milk or other fluids. Prosecutors argued one of the potential motives was that Letby enjoyed "playing God," wielding the power to decide upon someone's life and death. A prosecutor said, "She was controlling things. She was enjoying what was going on. She was predicting things that she knew were going to happen. She, in effect, was playing God."
Low self-esteem, jealousy
Dr. Sohom Das, a forensic psychiatrist, stated that Harold Shipman, a general practitioner and one of the UK's most notorious serial killers convicted of killing 15 people in 2000, also had a "God complex." Das, however, said Letby's case isn't the same as Shipman's. She rather suffers from low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. It could be jealousy toward families, as one of her letters stated, "I'll never have children or marry...I'll never know what it's like to have a family."
To gain attention of married doctor
Another motive presented by prosecutors was an alleged infatuation with a married doctor at the hospital. They argued that Letby harmed the babies to gain his attention. However, Letby denied it. Referring to the case of English nurse Beverley Alitt, who killed four babies in 1991, Das said the methods both used to harm the babies were "eerily similar." However, Alitt's case was Munchausen Syndrome by proxy for gaining sympathy, while Letby didn't seek attention and was clandestine, he said.
Letby not clinical psychopath: Das
But Letby can't be easily classified as a clinical psychopath, Sky News quoted Das as saying. He said, "A psychopath does almost everything for a reason, to benefit themselves. So if somehow killing these babies furthered her career, I suppose you could argue at a push that she was a psychopath." "But it doesn't seem like there's any logical motivation. She'd have some psychopathic traits but I don't think she'd be a clinical psychopath," he added.
Letby felt some remorse, but not enough
One of the handwritten notes found in Letby's house read, "I am evil I did this." Das said it showed "that on some level a part of her does actually feel remorse." He said, "Serial killers, especially disorganized serial killers...feel compelled to...kill but they also feel at times guilty of their actions as well. But whatever that part is, it obviously wasn't present enough for her to tell the truth during a criminal trial."
Bored of caring for less sick babies
Dr. Katherine Ramsland, an expert on serial killers and a professor of forensic psychology, said, "Sometimes, healthcare workers are depressed or stressed, so they harm patients as a way to relieve stress or feel empowered." Letby's colleague and senior nurse, Kathryn Percival-Calderbank, told jurors that Letby would be "unhappy" and bored if assigned to care for less sick babies. "She said it was boring and she didn't want to feed babies. She wanted to be in the intensive care."
More about nurse Letby
Thirty-three-year-old Letby was born in Hereford in Central England. She earned a nursing degree from Chester University in Northwest England and began working in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital after qualifying. She was reportedly arrested for the first time in July 2018 and then again in June 2019. In November 2020, she was charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to kill 10 more between June 2015 and July 2016.
