UK - Healthcare worker arrested on suspicion of murder/attempted murder of a number of babies, 2018

[Jules2021]

That's what I don't get-the babies died after heart and lung failure and were supposedly "unusually impossible to resuscitate" according to this article-
Chester nurse Lucy Letby charged with murder of eight babies | Daily Mail Online

If that was indeed the case then why are there ten attempted murders? They obviously managed to resuscitate those ten babies so it wasn't always "impossible"-unless they think she was prevented/stopped in her tracks all those times, and how could they possibly know that? Or they think she changed her MO at some point? The facts that we know so far just don't seem to make any sense.

I definitely agree there could be all sorts going on with her under the surface, "the quiet ones you have to look out for" probably means she can go undetected for quite a long time, but so far we have no possible motive and no method she used to kill the babies, at least the police aren't saying yet. The facts are not making sense at this point in time so I have a hard time believing her guilt until we hear more.

 

[annpats]

I had a thought earlier:

If she is guilty, is totally evil and a narcissist, then these people always blame others, either directly or indirectly, gaslighting, denial etc.

So....I wonder if part of her defence at the police station interviews, or with her legal defence, have been to divert the blame back....either onto her nurse colleagues, other healthcare workers, doctors, equipment, etc. etc. etc.

I'm interested in her modus operandi, both psychologically and physically.

A narcissist would fit in with the "superhero" method of putting babies in danger, then being the one to 'save' them and get all the praise and admiration.

 

[Marantz4250b]

These are all good comments. The whole thing is very contradictory; on the one hand, if she's guilty then she's literally a master criminal as she's managed to hide almost twenty exceptionally serious crimes for years and so well that no one even noticed for ages afterwards and only did because they asked the police to investigate whether any crime was even committed. Yet, on the other hand, they are saying that an apparently well trained and skilled nurse, a nurse who specifically chose to nurse premature babies, was actually a fairly crappy serial killer as she failed more times than she succeeded. Now, I'm no medical expert but, to put it rather bluntly, how difficult can it possibly be for a skilled children's nurse to murder premature babies, babies who were likely on the very cliff-edge between life and death to begin with?

The other thing is - why did she start when she did (if she's guilty)? I watched a documentary about a nurse in New Jersey the other day who murdered 40 patients but was reckoned to have murdered far more. The thing with him, and it appears every other medical murderer I can bring to mind, was that he started killing people pretty much from the outset of him becoming a nurse. Shipman was the same, as was Allitt. Yet in this case they seem to be saying that LL started murdering after having been a nurse for several years. Of course, they may think she's murdered more but they don't have the evidence for it but you'd think that if they can prove as many as thy say they can then they'd be able to prove others. They are also suggesting that not only did she start late but when she did she was murdering and trying to murder at a prodigious rate; I don't have the time-line handy but I recall reading it and thinking that she must have been trying to murder on an almost daily basis. That in itself is highly unusual.

None of this proves she didn't do it, of course, but I can't help thinking that when you start stacking one unlikely fact on top of another unlikely fact and keep going you end up with a highly unlikely case! There's definitely something truly bizarre about this case.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I had a thought earlier:

If she is guilty, is totally evil and a narcissist, then these people always blame others, either directly or indirectly, gaslighting, denial etc.

So....I wonder if part of her defence at the police station interviews, or with her legal defence, have been to divert the blame back....either onto her nurse colleagues, other healthcare workers, doctors, equipment, etc. etc. etc.

I'm interested in her modus operandi, both psychologically and physically.

A narcissist would fit in with the "superhero" method of putting babies in danger, then being the one to 'save' them and get all the praise and admiration.

I'm not sure on that. They have charged her with attempted murder in addition to murder. The suggestion that she was putting them in danger to act the hero doesn't fit with an attempt murder charge, I don't think. They are saying that they have evidence to prove that the intention in her mind at the precise time that she did whatever act they are accusing her of was to cause death. If you intend to kill someone then you don't have any intention of saving them. Yes, I suppose it might be the case that she did intend death to result and to get some of the glory in trying to help save them but it doesn't really fit and I don't think I can bring to mind any similar cases. Also, as I said in the previous post, how come she was so bad at it?

I'd love to know what evidence they have to back up the attempted murder charges. As we've discussed previously, it's extremely difficult to prove. Far more difficult than murder, usually. It is, to my way of thinking, bordering almost on the fantastical that they have evidence which proves someone's specific intention from several years previously and that they didn't have such evidence for more than two years after she was first arrested. I wouldn't at all be surprised if those charges were dropped or dismissed.

 

[JosieJo]

I'm not sure on that. They have charged her with attempted murder in addition to murder. The suggestion that she was putting them in danger to act the hero doesn't fit with an attempt murder charge, I don't think. They are saying that they have evidence to prove that the intention in her mind at the precise time that she did whatever act they are accusing her of was to cause death. If you intend to kill someone then you don't have any intention of saving them. Yes, I suppose it might be the case that she did intend death to result and to get some of the glory in trying to help save them but it doesn't really fit and I don't think I can bring to mind any similar cases. Also, as I said in the previous post, how come she was so bad at it?

I'd love to know what evidence they have to back up the attempted murder charges. As we've discussed previously, it's extremely difficult to prove. Far more difficult than murder, usually. It is, to my way of thinking, bordering almost on the fantastical that they have evidence which proves someone's specific intention from several years previously and that they didn't have such evidence for more than two years after she was first arrested. I wouldn't at all be surprised if those charges were dropped or dismissed.

It may or may not be relevant in this case...but its worth mentioning that to charge with murder you do not have to show the intention to kill ...it can also be knowingly or intentionally causing serious harm which leads to death.
So in theory if someone purposefully caused a baby to collapse or go into cardiac arrest with the purpose of saving them ..if resuscitation was unsuccessful it may still be murder

 

[Mrs Marple]

I agree appearances are deceptive. I'm not aware that being shy and an introvert are signs of being a narcissistic though!

 

[Marantz4250b]

I agree appearances are deceptive. I'm not aware that being shy and an introvert are signs of being a narcissistic though!

I'd have thought the opposite was more likely true. Narcissists love themselves and love self promotion so tend to be more "shouty", surely? Look at Beverly Allitt, for instance.

 

[Parker Knoll]

This case makes my head hurt !
I find it utterly baffling.

 

[annpats]

I'd have thought the opposite was more likely true. Narcissists love themselves and love self promotion so tend to be more "shouty", surely? Look at Beverly Allitt, for instance.

Perhaps Lucy Letby is a covert narcissist, rather than an overt one?

Or maybe suffers from another psychological disorder too.

Or maybe what we're seeing here is something altogether new....? A psychological profile that is a rare one.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Or maybe what we're seeing here is something altogether new....? A psychological profile that is a rare one.

You may be right; from what we know of her, and what we can see of her life from her photos, she seems unlike any other serial killer in history. Perhaps she has Luch Letby syndrome? Of course there may be lots we don't know, things which she and others may have been hiding all her life but it's certainly not looking that way so far.

 

[Marantz4250b]

A few weeks back we were discussing one of the babies who died and of whom LL is charged with both murder and of attempted murder. I posted something about it but I think the post ended up being removed as the sources were not main-stream media ones - fair enough. I've subsequently found a proper source for it.

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines. It's a story from the Daily Record.

So, to take this case to an ever higher level of bizarre, on top of all the existing truly bizarre and unlikely facts associated with it we have this (I've redacted the child's name as it doesn't need repeated publication);

An alternative charge of attempted murder has been included for *********** as she died on February 20th, 2016 - "some time" after leaving hospital. Her attempted murder allegedly took place three days earlier.
​

From other sources we know that this child was born on the 17th February. That report isn't quite correct as although it states the she left hospital "some time" before, she actually only left the CoC and not hospital care overall. She was taken to Arrowe Park hospital about 15 miles away and that is where she died. The reason for this move, as stated in the other source, was that the Countess didn't have the facilities she needed for her care. That being the case it's probably safe to draw the conclusion that she was taken there within hours of being born.

So, the prosecution is alleging that LL did two acts to try to kill this child, one of which succeeded, that she did them literally within hours of the poor thing being born, without anyone noticing and that whatever she did took at least a couple of days to result in death. This is yet another set of events which seem to border on the ridiculously unlikely.

Now, once again, unlikely events, and those which seem to have no precedent, do not mean that someone didn't do what they're accused of. It's another example, though, of the completely and utterly off-the-scale weirdness of this case.

 

[Tortoise]

A few weeks back we were discussing one of the babies who died and of whom LL is charged with both murder and of attempted murder. I posted something about it but I think the post ended up being removed as the sources were not main-stream media ones - fair enough. I've subsequently found a proper source for it.

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines. It's a story from the Daily Record.

So, to take this case to an ever higher level of bizarre, on top of all the existing truly bizarre and unlikely facts associated with it we have this (I've redacted the child's name as it doesn't need repeated publication);

An alternative charge of attempted murder has been included for *********** as she died on February 20th, 2016 - "some time" after leaving hospital. Her attempted murder allegedly took place three days earlier.
​

From other sources we know that this child was born on the 17th February. That report isn't quite correct as although it states the she left hospital "some time" before, she actually only left the CoC and not hospital care overall. She was taken to Arrowe Park hospital about 15 miles away and that is where she died. The reason for this move, as stated in the other source, was that the Countess didn't have the facilities she needed for her care. That being the case it's probably safe to draw the conclusion that she was taken there within hours of being born.

So, the prosecution is alleging that LL did two acts to try to kill this child, one of which succeeded, that she did them literally within hours of the poor thing being born, without anyone noticing and that whatever she did took at least a couple of days to result in death. This is yet another set of events which seem to border on the ridiculously unlikely.

Now, once again, unlikely events, and those which seem to have no precedent, do not mean that someone didn't do what they're accused of. It's another example, though, of the completely and utterly off-the-scale weirdness of this case.

Interestingly it does say alternative charge, which I hadn't picked up on before. So it's an either/or.

I agree it's very strange.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Interestingly it does say alternative charge, which I hadn't picked up on before. So it's an either/or.

I agree it's very strange.

I think that that's just the way it's come across in the report. When the charges were originally listed in court (reported several pages back in the thread) there were definitely two relating to the same child - one murder and one attempted murder. That can only relate to two separate offences/acts. Attempted murder is a failure in your attempt to cause a death.

 

[Tortoise]

I think that that's just the way it's come across in the report. When the charges were originally listed in court (reported several pages back in the thread) there were definitely two relating to the same child - one murder and one attempted murder. That can only relate to two separate offences/acts. Attempted murder is a failure in your attempt to cause a death.

They used the term "alternative charge" in other articles too.

"Pascal Jones, prosecuting, told the court this morning that in one of the murder cases there was an alternative charge of attempted murder 'because the child died some time after being taken away from the Countess of Chester Hospital'. "
Chester nurse charged with murder: Eight babies named for first time | Daily Mail Online

I think it has to have its literal meaning and the jury will decide if it's attempted murder or murder.

I do agree that it makes no sense for it to be attempted murder if her actions caused the death. I suppose their thinking might be that if it's not irrefutable or provable that she caused the death, perhaps because there was too much time (and improvement?) between the two dates they want to get her for attempting it and causing the initial collapse.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Yes, I see what you're getting at there. I think I was over-thinking it and had decided they used "alternative" when they meant "additional". I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that being charged before. So strange.

What could they possibly be alleging that she's done, I wonder?

 

[Tortoise]

Yes, I see what you're getting at there. I think I was over-thinking it and had decided they used "alternative" when they meant "additional". I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that being charged before. So strange.

What could they possibly be alleging that she's done, I wonder?

I wonder too. Could it be a case of something she didn't do, omitting to provide necessary assistance?

 

[Marantz4250b]

I wonder too. Could it be a case of something she didn't do, omitting to provide necessary assistance?

Maybe but I think it was discussed previously and was thought to be unlikely for various reasons. Murder by omission as opposed to being by act being incredibly difficult to prove, I believe.

I just find it so difficult to believe that she could be causing and attempting to cause so many deaths, in such a short period and hiding the fact from everyone else at the unit. She must have been doing this on a daily basis almost.

It's going to be many more months until we see the evidence though.

 

[JosieJo]

my thoughts would be that they have evidence that by whatever means she caused this particular baby to collapse but was successfully resuscitated. It is then possible the evidence is not so clear regarding the actual final cause of death.
If a baby is premature there are lots of problems that can occur.
If they only put it down as murder but the defence could show some doubt by showing other medical problems present that “could”have caused the death then there would be no justice for this child if LL was guilty of attempting murder. Hence 2 separate charges to ensure justice

 

[annpats]

"The mens rea (Latin for the "guilty mind") for murder includes an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm where there is virtual certainty of death resulting, whereas attempted murder depends on an intention to kill and an overt act towards committing homicide.

Attempted murder is only the planning of a murder and acts taken towards it, not the actual killing, which is the murder.

This makes the offence very difficult to prove and it is more common for a lesser charge to be preferred under the Offences against the Person Act 1861."

Attempted murder - Wikipedia

 

[annpats]

Alternative lesser offences:

In some cases the prosecution will add an alternative lesser count to the indictment relating to the same incident, to allow the jury to convict of the most serious offence or an alternative lesser offence:

Where alternative lesser offences are included, they are used as a safety net in case the jury are not sure the defendant is guilty of the main (most serious) offence.

If the jury find the defendant guilty of the most serious offence, they will not be asked for a verdict on the lesser alternative offence.

Simply because alternative lesser counts are included on an indictment does not mean that the prosecution do not believe in their case on the more serious counts, although the defence may well suggest this in their closing speech before the jury at trial."

The Indictment — Defence-Barrister.co.uk