UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, murder of babies, 7 Guilty of murder verdicts; 8 Guilty of attempted murder; 2 Not Guilty of attempted; 5 hung re attempted #35

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I can think of one very predictable story she's going to bring up in a few years time in order to engender sympathy but I'll not state it publicly.

Something about an older work colleague taking advantage....?

 

[Honeybirdette]

Judith Moritz

@JudithMoritz

Image by our court artist
@h_tipper
of Lucy Letby saying “I’m innocent” as she was taken down to the cells after her sentencing today.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I still really feel killing or hurting was not her prime motivation...i think killing them served a purpose.I feel she used those little babies as a tool to get what she wants ...attention, admiration or to take it out on people she had a grudge with.

I've said the same previously and I agree. She was obsessed with the drama and attention she received. I even think she revelled in the attention when she was essentially accused of wrongdoing and the whole grievance procedure she initiated.

I don't think that she derived any particular thrill from the suffering or death (or at least that wasn't her primary motivation), they were purely a means to an end for her. The end being the attention and "Nice Lucy" being the centre of the drama and histrionics. That was the thrill she was after.

Ultimately, she wanted to continually promote and support the "poor downtrodden Nice Lucy persona" that she she herself believes.

The suffering, pain and death was just what she had to do in order to promote her own ego.

All my opinion only, obvs.

 

[Parker Knoll]

I just can’t work her out.
I’m speechless … for once !

 

[Marantz4250b]

Something about an older work colleague taking advantage....?

No but close and far darker. Again, not discussing this on here.

 

[Phoenix Lazarus]

No but close and far darker. Again, not discussing this on here.

Ahh, I think I get where you're coming from....

 

[Honeybirdette]

I wanna know more about this outburst of “I’m innocent”
Did she shout it, was it aimed at the judge, how did baby k’s parents react to it…. I hope someone was at court today to tell us! @CS2C Could you find out?

 

[nothinonyou]

what about gaining a promotion? She kept talking about how incompetent her co-workers were and I wonder if she was the one to always be there when something serious happened to a baby that the spotlight would be on her and she'd be first in line for a promotion. She was so work obsessed and didn't seem to have a life outside of it. Not sure what kind of promotions were possible but it did cross my mind that she wanted full control of everything and to be the boss around the place

 

[iamshadow21]

I wanna know more about this outburst of “I’m innocent”
Did she shout it, was it aimed at the judge, how did baby k’s parents react to it…. I hope someone was at court today to tell us! @CS2C Could you find out?

According to the Standard, it was addressed to the judge. It doesn't describe her shouting it, just stating it.

Recap: Sentencing of Lucy Letby following her retrial

The sentencing of killer nurse Lucy Letby, who was this week unanimously found guilty by a retrial jury of attempting to murder a baby girl, takes…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Marantz4250b]

I just can’t work her out.
I’m speechless … for once !

I've never been able to work her out, quite frankly. She is just so incredibly different to any murder/serial killer I've ever read about. She's been compared to Allitt but those comparisons are lazy and completely wrong. They are nothing alike.

She was genuinely and sincerely liked by everyone, as far as I can tell. She was outgoing, sociable and I get the impression that people wanted to be around her. That's not something you can say about almost any other serial killer, as far as I can think of. Shipman was said to be a "lovely man" but when you read about him he was quite the loner and weirdo with few social connections. Few people seemed to actually like him other than his elderly clientele and a lot of people took objection to him.

Perhaps it's the wrong thing to say but I find her absolutely fascinating.

 

[Marantz4250b]

And she actually bought a house overlooking the children's cemetery. Didn't bother trying to hide the fact that she enjoyed the view.

She most probably did. I think the location was just coincidence, though.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Definitely agreed though, she is a very high risk daring type of gal. Does she play games of risk about being caught in a way that resembles her games with babies lives? Definitely maybe imo. She's a dice thrower.

And this is why I'm incredibly interested in her earlier life story. There must be something back there that we don't know about, which very few people know about. Every single serial killer I can think of has got something disturbing in their back-story yet Lucy Letby seems to have absolutely nothing.

I don't believe that but, if it's true, it makes her absolutely unique, imo.

 

[Sarahlou]

If she didn't derive pleasure from killing/suffering then why keep souvenirs and stalk the families on Facebook? I think she very much did enjoy killing and seeing the suffering of the families. I do also think she enjoyed the attention too.

 

[DianaWW]

If she didn't derive pleasure from killing/suffering then why keep souvenirs and stalk the families on Facebook? I think she very much did enjoy killing and seeing the suffering of the families. I do also think she enjoyed the attention too.

I agree, I think she’s a sadist and enjoyed seeing the grief she caused. I think part of her enjoyment was that she had so many people fooled into thinking she was a sweet, normal, kind and capable. A bit like an extreme version of the awful kid in school who’d pinch another child at the playground and then smile sweetly at the teacher who would never believe they were capable of it. JMO.

 

[ColourPurple]

I think she overestimated her own cleverness and underestimated the investigators…
I genuinely think that she didn't think police would be able to grasp the intricacies of neonatal care, and the case would dissolve in a puff of smoke, and she'd get her apology and her transfer to the other hospital with the higher need babies.

I think she thought exactly the same about taking the stand. That she’d easily fob Johnson off but he was like a terrier.
There was one of CS2CT’s court transcript videos where she tried to do this. I think it was Baby G where it came across like she thought she could fob him off by saying how premature Baby G was and how she hadn’t been expected to survive and listing all the difficulties she had. But he didn’t just accept that and move on. Instead he kept questioning her until eventually he got her to admit that those difficulties had all been in the past and she had overcome them and was expected to go home.

 

[Marantz4250b]

what about gaining a promotion? She kept talking about how incompetent her co-workers were and I wonder if she was the one to always be there when something serious happened to a baby that the spotlight would be on her and she'd be first in line for a promotion. She was so work obsessed and didn't seem to have a life outside of it. Not sure what kind of promotions were possible but it did cross my mind that she wanted full control of everything and to be the boss around the place

Definitely! This was all about Lucy and if this got Lucy a promotion then that's attention for Lucy.

 

[iamshadow21]

I've never been able to work her out, quite frankly. She is just so incredibly different to any murder/serial killer I've ever read about. She's been compared to Allitt but those comparisons are lazy and completely wrong. They are nothing alike.

She was genuinely and sincerely liked by everyone, as far as I can tell. She was outgoing, sociable and I get the impression that people wanted to be around her. That's not something you can say about almost any other serial killer, as far as I can think of. Shipman was said to be a "lovely man" but when you read about him he was quite the loner and weirdo with few social connections. Few people seemed to actually like him other than his elderly clientele and a lot of people took objection to him.

Perhaps it's the wrong thing to say but I find her absolutely fascinating.

Whereas all I can see in her are the whole array of similarities to other serial killers.

She isn't a unicorn for being sociable. Gacy was far more sociable than Letby ever was. Was very active socially, politically, and in his community. Some compartmentalise well. Gacy was in many ways more like a sociable, connected paederast (which he also was) than a lot of serial killers, but that doesn't mean he wasn't an example of what a serial killer can be.

I think Letby was middling on compartmentalisation. Her whole life revolved around what she did at work. Her house seemed... Soulless, somehow. Like all she did was sleep there, on her dragon hoard of handover sheets. We never really learned anything about real dreams, hobbies, or relationships outside CoC.

She wasn't like one of those killers who have no ability to blend, who drift and kill and end up in trouble on the regular, no. But she wasn't one who had a rich and vibrant life and a growing family and active social life (that wasn't just going out with the girls from work for drinks occasionally) either.

She had friends at work, but she seemed to use them for emotional validation and information on the babies, and would get frosty if they wouldn't respond as she wanted them to. She also had a number of people at work who didn't get on with her, who thought she was a 'madam' and bossy and had an attitude of superiority. I don't know if many of those work colleagues wanted to speak firmly on her behalf at trial... but I think it's telling that no one did.

MOO

 

[Marantz4250b]

If she didn't derive pleasure from killing/suffering then why keep souvenirs and stalk the families on Facebook? I think she very much did enjoy killing and seeing the suffering of the families. I do also think she enjoyed the attention too.

Not saying she didn't, maybe I put it wrongly, but I don't think that was her primary motivation. Her no.1 motive, imo, was attention for Lucy. I think that any pleasure she derived from the suffering was vicarious to Lucy getting attention. Maybe this is why she kept the handover sheets? Not sure if that really makes sense?

Look at it this way; these babies clearly suffered but, hypothetically speaking, if she could have induced some medical urgent condition in them which was serious but didn't involve them suffering, yet would have resulted in her getting all the attention as the savior, would she still have done it? I think yes.

So, I don't think the suffering of her victims was her primary purpose. It was merely a means to Lucy getting attention.

 

[nothinonyou]

I think that's why her life was so boring outside of work, she didn't need a boyfriend, she didn't need an interesting personality, when she had a secret life doing the craziest thing a person could ever dream of doing. That's how she got her high and that's what her purpose was for living. I think it filled her life with excitement and joy and a thrill and that's all she needed and wanted

 

[Marantz4250b]

I think she thought exactly the same about taking the stand. That she’d easily fob Johnson off but he was like a terrier.
There was one of CS2CT’s court transcript videos where she tried to do this. I think it was Baby G where it came across like she thought she could fob him off by saying how premature Baby G was and how she hadn’t been expected to survive and listing all the difficulties she had. But he didn’t just accept that and move on. Instead he kept questioning her until eventually he got her to admit that those difficulties had all been in the past and she had overcome them and was expected to go home.

What a lot of people don't realise (and, to make it very clear here that this is not a personal dig a Mr Johnson, but I'm sure he'll know what I'm getting at) is that many lawyers who rise to the upper echelons of their profession are border-line psychopaths/sociopaths themselves, as are many high flying business people for that metter. Coupled with being highly intelligent, that is not an easy personality to talk into a corner.

She completely overestimated what she was up against, I think.