Shownotes Transcript
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All right, welcome to Psychopedia. I am your co-host, Hank Sinatra, here with my co-host... Investigators later. And we are back with probably one of the craziest updates we've seen in a long time of a case that we did. It was almost a year ago. Yep. To the day, it was in September.
It was episode 28, 29, Nightmare Nurse Lucy Letby. You remember her. She fucking sucks. Can't forget her. She was the one who was basically executing babies for attention from a doctor, potentially. That's one of the theories because he would always come down if there was an emergency on the floor. But in any event... Right, that's one theory. She was a person who was...
killing babies that were in ICU, NICU, who were vulnerable already. Parents were, you know, waiting with bated breath. Every second there could be a turn of events and she created quite a few turns and she was arrested, but there's been an update. There has been an update. The trial's been going on for a while. The retrial. The retrial has been going on for a while, but there is an update and I'd love to hear what it is. Okay. Former 34-year-old nurse Lucy Fuckby was today...
July 2nd, 2024, so this is hot off the press, found guilty of attempting to kill a two-hour-old premature baby girl referred to as Baby K during the trial. This cold-blooded, calculated killer who was serving already 14 whole-life prison terms was convicted last August, if you recall, and if you don't, then you can listen to the two-parter that this is, you know, leading up to.
She was found guilty by a different jury of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. However, a verdict on the allegation relating to baby Kay could not be reached during the initial trial, and a retrial was ordered, which was just heard at Manchester Crown Court.
And that retrial just found her guilty of trying to murder the quote-unquote very premature infant by dislodging her breathing tube in the early hours of February 17th, 2016. This person is the worst. I mean, I'm speechless.
And I usually have words for days. She probably is. I mean, we've covered some really bad people on here. But as far as just like purity of evil goes, I think she takes the cake. I'm with you. She is officially UK's most prolific child serial killer. Which makes it sound almost positive and it's not. Prolific is like you write a lot of books or you make a lot of movies or you create a lot.
She is, let's just call her the worst. Human being. Ever. Like literally, I'm not like trying to, you know, there's been a lot of bad people out there. In recent memory, there's nobody worse than this chick who was just a two-hour old baby. I mean, I just, for those who haven't listened to part one and part two, please. Which is coming up right after this intro. Right. Absolutely. Please continue on to listen because the case is absolutely staggering. I
I mean, I can't issue enough trigger warnings because the content is so absolutely devastating. You'll hear it in our voices in the episodes. It was really actually very hard to deliver this one because there's not a more vulnerable crowd on the planet than premature newborn babies.
No, there's not. It's just heartbreaking. Now, following the attempted murder, Baby K was transferred to a specialist hospital on February 17th due to her extreme prematurity. And sadly, she passed away three days later. The cause of death was certified as extreme prematurity and severe respiratory distress syndrome. The parents of Baby K gasped and then cried as the jury foreman read out the verdict following a three-and-a-half-hour deliberation.
Lucy Letby, on the other hand, showed no emotion in the doc, obviously. In a statement, Baby K's family indicated the following, Today, justice has been served, but it does not take away the extreme hurt, anger, and distress that we all have had to experience. And yeah, we wanted to bring this, obviously, this update to the table here because Baby K deserves to have her story come to a conclusion in terms of
her killer brought to light. Yeah. There's also, I think that was like, that was a pretty early case for us. Yeah. Episode 28 and 29. Yeah. 28, 29. So not only was I not as seasoned as I am now, not that I'm seasoned, I still get jammed up during cases, but there's definitely a lot of new people here who have not heard that case yet from us. So,
The fact that there's an update made us want to just bring it back and say, hey, if you haven't heard this yet, if you've listened, great, no problem. If you've listened and you want to listen, great. But if you haven't heard it, I highly recommend listening to Investigate Us Later's take on this case.
This was a case that I remember delivering with such passion because I felt so many emotions. It was all I could do to just get the words out of my mouth to present this case. But even if you did listen to part one and part two, it might be worth a re-listen because you may pick up on things that you didn't sort of catch the first time around. Now you're going to be seeing her in the headlines again. So maybe refresh your memory a little bit with what went on. And yeah, I mean...
We're just thinking of all the BBs, but BBK today especially. Yeah. All right. So let's let them listen to the case. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Bye. Bye. All right. Welcome to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host, Investigator Slater, here with my co-host... What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck?
Stealing your thunder. I set you up for that one. I was thinking about that all day. Did you think I was going to screw it up? No, I just couldn't wait to be like, what the hell do you think you're... That's my line. Start over. Learn how to share. No, you know what? That's going to be great for people to hear for the first time. They're going to be like, this is the wrong podcast. They're not going to know what the hell hit them.
We're just mixing things up a little bit, you know? Yes, we are. 30 episodes in, number three on the charts. Not a big deal. You know, it's not a big deal. I have a couple of shout outs to make really quick. Do not skip past this. This is an important one. Okay. Okay.
My mother. My mom. I'm already touched. Yeah. Well, what happened was in an episode where we were talking about the fact that I have a fear of relating to serial killers. Yes. And I said something like, I don't have a good relationship with my mother either. She heard that and took it to heart. Or not to heart. She did mention it. So I just want to publicly say that my mom is...
you know, your mom is awesome. She's beyond awesome. She was my substitute teacher in high school. Yeah. She's like, you know, she's someone who's been the wind beneath my wings since I was a baby, but even more so in adulthood when like nothing was working. She was like, just a quick story. Um,
When I was living in California, she told me about this contest that Oprah was having to win your own show on their Oprah Winfrey network. She's like, you got to try out for it. You got to try out for it. I uploaded a video. Dog shit. I saw it years later and I was like, oh my God.
Just who, how, you know? And I had like 25,000 votes. I truly believe she was 24,900. Because you could vote all day. Oh, really? So I think she just sat there and clicked vote all day. She probably did. And you know what? If there's one person on the planet who you can count on doing that,
Yeah. It's your mama. Yeah. Well, not everybody. You know what I mean? Not the people in these cases. They have bad relationships with their mom, which is why I jokingly was like, I have a bad relationship with my mom too. He was bald. He liked to post memes. He went on a rampage. Like, I just fear that one day I'm going to hear that and then I'm going to snap, but I'm not going to snap. Probably, largely in part,
to tie this all together in a pretty little bow because of the relationship that I have with my mother. Yes, she's wonderful, objectively. Yeah. Also, shout out to Marissa Erso, who's someone that I met at a party over the weekend, who recognized my voice. That's phenomenal. That is so cool. I wish I was there. Oh, she does too. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Well, did you get her, like, info? Can I stalk her? Can we hang out? Can we be friends?
Yeah, you could be. Yeah, for sure. Did this get weird? You made it weird really quick. It wasn't weird when I met her. I don't know how to be socially appropriate. You don't. I'm glad you weren't there, actually. No, she was like, why does your voice sound familiar? And I was like...
Do you like memes? Like, do you follow meme accounts? She goes, Tank Sinatra? The Psychopedia? The podcast? Yay, Marissa! And I was like, yo, that's the first time that my voice has been recognized from a podcast, which is a really special thing. That's very special indeed. Yeah. And then shout out to our listeners for...
for getting us over that 4.7 hump, which we had not been on the precipice of for quite a long time. And then we had an episode go nuts on Spotify because we were recommended by their algorithm. And some people just, you know...
Haters going to hate. And lovers going to love. Oh, I live for those lovers. Yeah. And they, I mean, they got it done in two hours. Thank you. Thank you. You're right. A big thank you to our listeners. Well, I said you were going to have a breakdown if you didn't. You were not over-exaggerating. It's not that far off. It's really not that far off. You have a thing with 4.7, 4.8. I can only imagine what's going to happen to you when we hit 4.9.
Yeah. Good times will roll. Thank you to them. And then thank you to our little semen demons over on Patreon, patreon.com slash psychopedia pod, where we get even more unhinged than we normally are. And, you know, just go over there. You get extra content. We're going to be doing merch soon. You'll get advanced notice on that. Touring dates. And did you want to mention here and now what we intend to do if and when we hit 500 patrons? Yeah.
I've mentioned it before. Yeah, we're going to have somebody come record with us. Sit in on an episode. Yes, mention it again, for sure. Every 500. Every 500. Yes. I love that. Yeah, not just 500. Every 500 we hit, we're going to have somebody come out. Sit down with us. Hey, I'll probably have lunch or something. I don't know. Maybe you'd take a room. I told you a creepy tour of pleasures will be planned. What is hard to remember about that? Yeah. And the case we're doing today has got to be, in my short history in this world, the
The most requested case. Of all time for psychopedia. For sure. The Lucy Letby case. Yes, yes. The fucking nightmare nurse from hell. Yep. Truly. It has been so hard, Slayer.
For me to not know anything about this case, it's been really difficult. It's hard to avoid. I know a couple of things. Oh. I know a couple of things. Okay, that's fine. I know she's from the UK. She drinks tea. Did you stereotype her? Yeah, she basically gets Annette. She loves Adele. I'm going to just let this go. And also, just to, you know, touch upon something, we have a
giant UK contingency here. And I just want to say to you, hello!
And to our UK listeners, tell us how he did. Hello, bruv. Bruvna? No, gruv. Gov. Gov. But bruv is, they say it bruv too. Oh, okay. Yeah. So yeah, we love the UK. We want to come there. We sure do. We really do. UK, Great Britain, Ireland, fucking Scotland. Also New Zealand, Australia. We have a lot of listeners that
Ping us, DM us from those locations. Love you guys. Love everyone. So if you want us to come there, the best way to make that happen is to literally steal phones out of people's hands and make them listen to the podcast. Not me doing that at my cousin's wedding last week. Yeah. All right. So let's dive into this case. I'm bracing for impact. All I know about the case is that it is absolutely
absolutely horrific what this woman did. So I want to preface this case by indicating that I had to break it up into two parts.
Because there's a lot of research. Everything is relevant. Every victim deserves to have full details provided and his or her full story told. And the families deserve this spotlight to the extent that it brings exposure to what they went through and possibly prevents other families from going through a similar horrific tragedy. Yeah. But in order to do this case justice, I had to break it up into two parts so that I could give you all the details that it warrants. Well...
You sold me. Okay, so I'm gonna... I was nervous, but now I'm not. I'm excited to hear how you honor and portray the victims in this case and give them their due exposure and, you know, their due. Yeah, okay. Well, then hang on. Let's get moving. At approximately 1 a.m. on October 24th, 2013, a pregnant woman's water broke five days before her due date.
The pain and labor that followed was incredibly intense, to be sure, but she breathed through each contraction like she'd been taught, rested in between, and confronted each incoming wave of abdominal agony as bravely as she could. But as her contractions graduated from excruciating to ungodly, an unsettling feeling began to take root.
Her strength waned and she started to lose a decent amount of blood and knew instinctively that the baby's progress had stalled. Leather straps were attached to the woman's hospital bed so that she could grasp, twist, and even bite down on them as she endured the unrelenting pangs that ripped through her body, now causing her to swerve in and out of consciousness. In one lucid moment of clarity...
The woman turned to her husband, looked him in the eye, and said, I will not survive this. Needless to say, an operating room was promptly prepped for a cesarean section, given some complications with the delivery, and approximately 45 minutes later, a precious baby boy was born.
Apart from the tireless efforts of the woman's phenomenal husband, she found herself primarily reliant on the maternity ward nurses to provide the essential care for her newborn, care that she herself was initially unable to provide in the aftermath of her C-section. And she was so, so grateful for the competence, care, and compassion displayed by the nursing staff.
They delicately removed the mother's vomit-soaked hospital gown, tended to her incision, and lovingly cared for her baby down the hall as they swaddled, fed, changed, and nurtured him in her absence.
And even though nine years have passed since that experience, that same mother remains confident that she would be able to unmistakably recognize the angelic voices of those remarkable nurses saying, you're doing great, mama, and baby is too. And I can attest to that because that new mother was me. No way. Yeah. You didn't see it coming? No. Oh, good. I did. I was like October 24th, 2013. I was like...
Yeah, I saw you two days later in the hospital. Yeah, my first son was born in 2013, but later. Yep. Why was your down vomit soaked? Because I threw up all over it because I had an awful, awful delivery. My son hit his head against my pelvic bone for three and a half hours straight. What a dick. Oh, my God.
Oh my God. He was like, dang, dang. Poor baby came out with a bruise. It was traumatic for both of us, but thank God we're both okay. But my point in that intro was to say that I relate to women or families or whomever's in a hospital when a baby's born in those very, very vulnerable moments when you literally give all of your trust to
and your life to people who you never met before. Yeah. And they, most of the time, do a great job. As I indicated, my nurses, if I closed my eyes and I heard a sea of voices, nine years later, I could pinpoint which of those voices belong to the beautiful nurses who took such great care of us. And I'm very fortunate to be able to say that. And that will become
excruciatingly clear just how fortunate I am to be able to say that after we finish going through this case. I remember when my first son was born. First son, you're like, okay, you have no idea what's going on. Me, I mean, Jessica knew a little bit. She had a kid and she was the one with the baby.
But they grab that baby and just manhandle it. I know. It's so true. You think, at least for me, when I held my children, I required pillows all around me because I was so terrified. Like if I hold him wrong... If I could have held him with a force field, I would have held him. Right.
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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. So while I laid in the hospital bed recovering, the thought truly never crossed my mind that any of the doctors, nurses, or aides on staff who were, as I said, essentially strangers to me, could have at any moment intentionally inflicted serious harm or worse upon my child. The notion that any one of the individuals in whom I instantly placed my unwavering trust
Those to whom I handed over my most prized possession without a second thought could potentially be a serial killer hiding in plain sight, wearing cheerful hospital scrubs and a butterfly name tag. That is, until I came across the harrowing case that we are covering today.
Lucy Letby is a fucking evil. I mean, I just, I don't know any, again, I don't know anything about the case, but are we going to get into like her and like her background and upbringing? We are getting into everything. We are getting into Lucy. We are getting into psychology. We are getting into statistics. We are getting into exactly what she did. We are getting into it. Okay. We're getting into the weeds. So for nearly a full year between June, 2015 and June, 2016, Lucy,
The neonatal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital in England was plagued by a series of heart-wrenching and inexplicable infant deaths at a rate that was not just alarming, but also statistically unusual and significant.
At least 17 infant deaths and or catastrophic collapses occurred during that 12-month span, representing an alarming surge in mortality and of cases where otherwise stable babies were suddenly teetering perilously close to death. What's a catastrophic collapse? So the baby was near death, essentially. Okay.
And all of these shocking and outrageous tragedies were discovered to have occurred to patients under the presumed care and supervision of one young nurse named Lucy Lettby. And as the expression goes, once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. 17 times? Likely more? Yeah.
Holy shit. I don't know why I thought she'd be older, a little bit more jaded about life and work in general. 25? Mm-hmm. It's almost like she got into it just to do that. Mm.
We're going to get into possible reasons why she did what she did, but very, very young. Absolutely right. So today, obviously, we are discussing Lucy Letby, who is the most prolific child serial killer in modern UK history. Not a title you want. No.
And I need to warn you, Tank, because I know you've been staying away from this case. And I need to warn all of our listeners who likely have seen some footage by this point.
But this case is going to hurt. It embodies devastation in its rawest form and the victims and survivors epitomize vulnerability and undeserved suffering. Maybe we shouldn't do it. Yeah. I mean, it's the level of heartache and evil that we're about to delve into will penetrate the very core of your being. So that is as much of a trigger warning as I can give. Okay. Okay.
And I also want to just give you a heads up. So my general approach with conveying info today is going to be two-prong. First, I'm going to present like broad strokes of the situation and give you an overview of the circumstances. And then I'm going to jump into specifics. Okay.
Born on January 4th, 1990 in Hereford, England, Lucy Letby was the only child of her father, John, a furniture executive, and her mother, Susan, an accounts clerk. Lucy's birth was marked by complications that were said to have inspired her future career path down the line. She asserts that her choice to become a neonatal nurse was driven by a calling to assist children who might have encountered circumstances akin to her own at birth.
But despite her early health challenges, Lucy went on to live a normal, healthy life as the apple of her parents' eye, who perhaps understandably remained quite overprotective of their only daughter, given her traumatic beginning.
Lucy grew up in a 1930s semi-detached house situated in a cul-de-sac in Hereford and was heavily doted on by her loving parents every step of the way. Her background and upbringing offer no discernible factors that could shed light on the appalling behavior that she later exhibited.
And it's important to note that experiencing abuse or trauma in childhood obviously is not the sole path to becoming a calculated and cold-hearted killer. However, it does amplify the sheer perplexity when someone like Lucy emerges from an entirely commonplace, if not ideal, environment and evolves into one of the most heinous individuals in history. Yeah, it's almost like it was fate for her or something. Yes. You know?
Like in the stars? I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, I don't enjoy one way or the other, but at least as someone who likes to be able to make sense of things. And the only reason I like to do that is to try and protect myself and my family from potential threats. I'm looking for a pattern, like you said. Mm-hmm.
But this is just like one of those things where it's like, no, you couldn't have seen it coming. No. But if you try to look for a pattern to try to like protect your family and yourself, how does the notion of like fate factor in? It doesn't. That's why I'm, that's why I said it. Yeah. Okay. Cause fate suggests that there is nothing for you to put your finger on. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. Like she had, there's nothing you can point to in her life and go, okay, if I find out that my nurse had this happen,
I'll keep an extra watchful eye on her, but that's not the case. Right, correct. In 2011, Lucy went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from higher education and receive a degree in child nursing from the University of Chester. Upon completing her education, Lucy left Hereford and moved across the country to embark upon her new professional journey.
a decision that upset her still-doting parents who were now grappling with emptiness syndrome. But despite their sadness about geographically losing their only child, John and Susan remained extremely proud and supportive of Lucy's professional goals and even helped her to purchase her first home, which was a three-bedroom semi priced at £179,000, conveniently situated just one mile from the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Lucy decorated her bedroom with some teddy bears, Disney-themed tchotchkes, fairy lights above her bed, and feel-good slogans like, shine bright like a diamond. As an adult, she decorated her room? Yeah. And this is like a sticking point for like a lot of people. I mean, I got lots of pink glittery things in my bedroom, in my house, because I like it. Yeah, but you're also a freak. I am a freak. Okay, fine. You're obsessed with trickery.
- Investigator Slater's questioning all of her life choices right now. I can tell in her eyes-- - I'm having a moment.
Yeah, but you're a psycho. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. None of this means anything in terms of what the outcome of her life is. You can't isolate one thing in her past and you can't combine them all to find a reason for what happened. Yeah, okay. She lived in the company of her two rescued cats, Tigger and Smudge. There we go. Yeah. Cat woman. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Cat parents are fierce. So. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't want any cat smoke, but I'm a dog person. I love all rescued animals. I texted you about the lizard you posted that lost his little legs and I asked if I could be its mom. That's right. Okay. True. So she also really had a very solid group of friends and a very active social life. She vacationed in Ibiza, went out at night socializing and attended weekly salsa dancing classes.
Pop quiz number one. All right. What was Lucy's nickname growing up? A, Goofy Lucy. B, The Innocent One. C, The Hereford Healer. D, Lucy in the Sky with Cats. What the fuck? Pick your poison. Goofy Lucy. The Innocent One. The Innocent One. The Hereford Healer. Lucy in the Sky with Cats. Yeah, your short-term memory, bro. It's gone.
Goofy Lucy? Nope. You made that up. That's not great. Um...
The innocent one? Yes. Weird. How ironic that growing up, her nickname was the innocent one. Yeah. I just had to put that in. That is weird. On January 2nd, 2011, Lucy set off as a newly certified registered nurse and was assigned to the neonatal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital, where her responsibilities encompassed the care of premature and vulnerable infants.
In her professional capacity, she was largely viewed as a devoted, capable nurse displaying proficiency and decent skills and even underwent specialized training in March of 2014 to presumably refine her craft. And remember this little tidbit of info because we circle back to it later.
Because of her reliable proficiency, Lucy was frequently assigned to what was referred to as Nursery 1, which was a designated area within the neonatal unit reserved for infants facing the most critical health conditions that required specialized care. Oh, okay. Now, in the year 2015, a total of 3,000 infants were delivered at Countess of Chester Hospital. Wow.
Up until that point, the statistics regarding infant mortality had been steady, predictable, and crucially explainable.
But horrifyingly, in June of that same year, so 2015 through June of 2016, an alarming and unforeseen 10% rise in the baby mortality rate occurred at Countess of Chester Hospital. No. Yes. You ready for your next pop quiz? Yes. Okay. Following this alarming rise in the infant mortality rate, what did senior management at Countess of Chester Hospital do?
Do nothing. Correct. Yeah. They did nothing. And we're going to expand upon it in a little while in the case, but I'm laying the foundation. Hindsight is 20-20.
No, much bigger than that. They didn't need hindsight for this. They were brought into the loop almost every step of the way. Oh, okay. But you might assume that the hospital administration would have promptly addressed this notable escalation in infant mortality and would have grinded all operations to a halt for thorough investigation. But this did not happen.
Not only did the powers that be not proactively take the initiative to consider a possible cause behind such a dramatic upsurge in infant fatalities, but those in authoritative positions took on the opposite approach and flat out ignored or intentionally silenced certain prominent, seasoned, supervising physicians who sounded the alarm to the following observation, which
that Lucy Letby had been the sole nurse on duty during all unexplained deaths that year in the neonatal ward. So what, they were trying to like protect the hospital's image or something? That's exactly what they were doing. And again, we will expand on this.
So what exactly transpired that particular year under Lucy Letby's quote unquote care? Yeah. What exactly did she do to harm and or murder all of those precious little souls who were already waging a valiant struggle for existence before being placed under her care? Because a lot of them were in poor health. That's probably why she thought she could get away with it. That's one possibility. Yes. Which is like, well, that's,
I'm just trying to, again, like figure out why somebody would do this. You're working your way through it. It doesn't explain why she would do it at all, but it maybe explains why she thought she got to get away with it. I have no idea. I don't know. We're so early in this case. I'm going to be interested to hear your thoughts once we finish the case and you have all the information. Yeah. And see if you kind of can put your finger on what you think was her motive or...
Driving force. So far, I got nothing. Yeah, well, you and the world. Yeah. Still, I will give you a little spoiler right now. The motive is still undetermined. At the time of this recording, no one has any idea. We have speculations and we have theories, but nobody can confirm why she did what she did. She's not talking. And she's not talking. Yeah. Let's talk about what she did now.
Here's where the numbers may sound a little tricky. Yeah. So at trial, they brought under the spotlight, if you will, 17 cases of child abuse.
By the end of the trial, they can only sort of nail her down for seven definitive deaths and six more attempts. Okay. So 13 is all that she was technically convicted of, although an investigation has ensued going further back and likely will reveal a lot more. Wow.
Lucy Lettby waged a cruel, one-sided, profoundly unjust war against the most vulnerable and least deserving demographic on the planet. Yeah. Newborn babies. Sick newborn babies. Yes. In her savage and twisted grasp, seemingly innocuous elements such as air and milk, as well as medicinal substances like insulin, were transformed into instruments of death.
So please note that I am not a doctor or any type of medical professional whatsoever. So my upcoming description of what happened is based on evidence presented at trial, as well as my own personal research. So if there's anybody in the medical industry out there hearing this and would like to clarify anything that I say, I encourage it. So here are the broad strokes of what this ruthless, cold-blooded, despicable shit-stained scourge on humanity did.
Lucy Letby deliberately injected air bubbles into the circulatory systems of babies in the NICU, leading to the formation of air embolisms. Now, the insidious nature of an air bubble within the bloodstream lies in its ability to obstruct the flow of blood, potentially impeding the delivery of oxygenated blood to vital organs. So if an air bubble exists in a path towards a person's heart, let's say, it will likely lead to cardiac arrest.
If it exists in a path towards the brain, a stroke may ensue. Additionally, Lucy deliberately injected milk, and in some cases, milk mixed with air, directly into the baby's extremely fragile little stomachs. And this abhorrent act then caused abdominal swelling that pressed against the baby's diaphragms, severely restricting or entirely impeding their ability to breathe.
In other acts of heinous brutality, Lucy forcefully administered about 10 units of insulin into the baby's systems, either intravenously or through their feeding tubes. This then caused the babies she targeted to experience dangerously low levels of blood sugar, medically termed hypoglycemia.
which is devastating on the system. So insulin is a hormone naturally produced by the pancreas that facilitates the movement of blood sugar into cells, where it then serves as an energy source. Now, during the process of insulin production, the pancreas generates a byproduct called C-peptide.
which enters the bloodstream alongside insulin in equal proportions. It was determined that at least two of the infants who suffered hypoglycemic episodes lacked C-peptide in their systems, meaning their little bodies had not naturally produced the insulin, meaning it had been deliberately put there.
So what I just described in broad terms was Lucy Letby's diversified modus operandi. She'd insert air into her victim's bloodstream and or inject milk into their stomachs and or poison them with insulin.
Now, I'd like to provide a more specific breakdown of what happened while clearly laying out the timeline of Lucy's crimes, as well as the multiple attempts made by some of her colleagues to raise awareness. Oh, okay. Yeah, and this part is very, very abysmal.
upsetting to listen to. Worse than the last part? So please, yes, please listen with caution. I had to step away multiple times doing the research, so it's okay for our listeners to take breaks if they need it. And Tank, if you need a break, you just let me know. Okay.
First, just know that I'm going to be referring to the victims and survivors as letters in the alphabet because their identities have remained protected throughout this entire process. Good. And to give you perspective, at trial, there was evidence presented relating to babies A all the way to baby Q, which is 17. But right here, right now, we're going to focus only on the confirmed victims, the 13. Okay.
And while we may not know their names, each baby deserves to have his or her story told and to be remembered and honored. So we begin on June 8th, 2015. Child A was born six weeks premature along with his twin sister, child B.
Both babies were in good health and given over to Lucy between the hours of 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. because Lucy typically worked the night shift. 90 minutes later, child A died. 28 hours after that, child B fought for her life and thankfully survived, having had loops of air filling her bowel.
Now, two weeks prior to child A's death, Lucy had completed a course. Remember, I told you to remember this in the beginning of the episode, a course relating to intravenous lines with a focus on the dangers of air embolisms.
So literally two weeks before what's to date confirmed as her first kill, she took a course, essentially, a how-to course. I just hate to imagine that she was trying to kill babies and she couldn't figure out how to do it, so she took a course. I mean, it's not out of the realm of likelihood that that's what she did. Yeah.
I hate her. She had constant cover for all of her decisions. Yeah. Oh, here's a professional development class I'm going to register for. Yeah. Great cover for what she's really in there to learn. Yeah. Five days after the death of one twin and the near death of the second,
Child C entered the hospital seven weeks premature, but in good condition. That is until Lucy let be violently injected air into his tiny stomach during the night shift between the hours of 12 and four, killing him. Eight days after that, child D, who was actually the only baby in the entire case to have been born full term, collapsed twice after Lucy injected air into her bloodstream.
The only reason she was even in the hospital at all was because her mother had a very long and difficult labor lasting 60 hours, and doctors wanted to be overly cautious by monitoring the baby. Sadly, after Child D's third collapse in the neonatal unit, her skin had begun to change color, became blue with patches of pink between the hours of 12 a.m. and 4 a.m.,
And she died. Her parents were in the room as the doctor announced their precious baby girl's time of death out loud.
Ten days later, one of the head physicians on the neonatal unit, a man named Dr. Stephen Breary, conducted a review of the three aforementioned unusual deaths and discovered that nurse Lucy Letby had been the only nurse on shift for each one of the incidents. Really? In spite of raising this horrifying observation and instinctual concern to senior management, Lucy remained in the neonatal unit.
And one month later, child E and F, twins, were born seven weeks premature and placed into her care. Their mother had gone down to the nursery to deliver her breast milk to the babies when she stumbled upon child E screaming in a way that she had never heard before. Who heard the baby screaming? The baby's mother. Oh.
When she went over to her baby, she noticed blood coming out of his mouth as well as a bluish purplish rash with pink patches on his skin. Sound familiar? Yeah. What is it caused by? I believe it's either insulin poisoning or I'm thinking or suffocation. But again, I'm not a doctor. This is just my intuition.
I think you have all the answers, sorry. Lucy had been standing by at the nurse's workstation, ignoring, likely after causing, the horrendous screaming coming from the child. When the mother asked Lucy what was happening to her baby, Lucy, wearing a yellow butterfly sticker on her name badge, reassured the new mother that the baby was okay and that the blood coming out of the baby's mouth was just a result of his feeding tube rubbing his throat.
She, the mother, was instructed to go back to her room to rest, and within two hours, that baby, baby E, had lost more than a quarter of his blood, and Lucy returned to finish what she started. After interfering with his breathing tube, the baby ultimately suffered a fatal bleed.
Doctors tried to resuscitate him for 50 minutes straight before finally calling his time of death at 1.40 a.m. Then, less than 24 hours later, child F, that baby's twin, almost suffered the same fate after Lucy injected him with synthetic insulin. His blood sugar levels plummeted and one of his little legs swelled tremendously. But thankfully, he survived.
One month later, September 7th, 2015, child G, the most premature of all the babies in the case, having been born 15 weeks early, was almost killed after Lucy tried on three separate occasions over the course of a three-week period to insert air into his tiny stomach.
And the initial murder attempt took place on the very day of the baby's 100th day of life celebration on the ward. Wow. Child G, who was now eight years old, having survived the murder attempts, remained severely and permanently disabled as a result of the attacks. I mean, there's nothing to say. This woman deserves to be fucking killed.
cut to like with i don't know you can't even articulate it i know i pictured her body exploding publicly yeah i can't i don't know what would make that happen i mean karma would make that happen yeah no i mean like i don't even know what method would make that happen yeah like stick a piece of dynamite up her ass or something sure i'm actually going to say i'm fine with that
So a little over a month later on October 23rd, 2015, Lucy attempted on four separate occasions to kill baby I in what the court later described as persistent, calculated, and cold-blooded acts of violence. Eventually, after inserting air into the baby girl's stomach, Lucy was successful in taking her life.
In a sick act of sadistic perversion, Lucy sent a sympathy card to Child I's parents on the day of her funeral. She's getting fucking bald now. She's a fucking piece of shit. She started to do that taunting thing that some of these people do. Spot on.
On the same day on which Lucy murdered baby I, another head physician on the neonatal unit, Dr. Ravi Jayaram, alerted senior management to his growing concerns about the possible connection between infant fatalities and nurse Lucy Letby. Yeah, there might be a fucking connection. But Dr. Ravi was flat out told, and I quote, not to make a fuss. And as such, Lucy remained silent.
In the neonatal unit. Wow. So is there any like validity to the thought that there's a conspiracy going on? It has been touched upon for sure. The conspiracy being kind of that the hospital didn't want the negative attention, maybe didn't want to acknowledge it. She had people in high up positions in the hospital administration going to bat for her.
Yeah, negligent, incompetent. Right. Evil, but evil in a different way because they're evil by omission where they don't want to even admit that maybe something's happening. It almost reminds me of bystanders who watch...
a crime happen and do nothing. Yeah. It reminds me of that. Bystander syndrome is fascinating. Yeah. But I don't think that's what this is. Can you tell me about bystander? Because I feel like maybe I don't have a full understanding of what it is. An example of it would be like if there was somebody floating down a river drowning and you were the only person on the riverbank, chances of you jumping in are way higher than if there's 12 people standing on the river. Oh, I did have it wrong then. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah.
So four months after Dr. Ravi was told not to make a fuss by senior management. Yeah, which is fucking a wild, flippant thing to say about babies dying. Beyond. Don't make a fuss. Beyond. Yes. A thematic review ordered by Dr. Stephen Breary, who I mentioned earlier, uncovered yet again several common links between Lucy Lettby and nine unusual deaths since June of 2015. Yeah, that's fucking, that's so many. How do you ignore that?
ignore that. Both Dr. Breary and Dr. Ravi requested an urgent meeting with hospital executives to discuss this extremely pressing matter, but the meeting was postponed for three months. Oh my God. And did not take place until May of 2016. She's almost done at that point. Imagine if somebody had taken action originally. Ugh.
Now, two months after Dr. Brary's thematic review, so now we're in April of 2016, Lucy injected insulin into an IV bag attached to child L. Tests later revealed that his insulin level measured at the very top of the scale that the equipment was capable of measuring. Wow.
With very low C-peptide levels, which, as I mentioned earlier, would be conclusive proof once again that he was intentionally poisoned with synthetic insulin. Two months after that, so we're in June of 2016, child N who suffered from a condition called hemophilia, which causes severe bleeding...
Had a foreign object so brutally shoved down his throat. Oh, my God. That staff were unable to see his windpipe as they intubated him. It was so full of blood. Lucy, calculated as she was, used the baby's blood condition as cover for committing her heinous act. Thankfully, Child N survived. Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay.
So later that month, just 72 hours after returning from a trip to Ibiza, Lucy texted a colleague saying that she would be back to work, quote, with a bang. No thanks. Nope. Kill yourself. Not interested. Die. Then she promptly murdered child O, the first baby born in a group of triplets, one day after coming back from her vacation. Oh my God.
Now, child O had a clean bill of health and was set to go home when he unexpectedly collapsed. His heart rate suddenly rose and his tummy ballooned like E.T.'s stomach, and that's a quote from his father. Additionally, his internal organs showed signs of a vicious assault as his liver looked like he'd been in a car accident.
The triplet's mother, who had been recovering from labor, sat outside the intensive care room in a wheelchair as her firstborn triplet was pronounced dead at 5.47 p.m. Horrible. So she's not only taunting and being more bold, she's using more violent methods to kill these children. It does seem to be escalating, yes. Yeah. She's ramping up, which is classic, classic. And this is usually how killers get caught. Yeah. Yeah.
Then, just 13 minutes after murdering child O, Lucy pumped air into child P's stomach. 13 minutes? Yep.
as she fed him milk shortly before the end of her shift. The little boy recovered overnight because Lucy went home, but within 90 minutes of her returning to work the next day, he collapsed again. So a transport ambulance team had arrived to transfer that baby, child P, to a specialist hospital, at which point Lucy allegedly said out loud, he's not leaving here alive, is he?
Wow. Are you fucking serious? And this was not the first time she was overheard saying that. By the time the transfer was ready to take place for child P, it was too late because his next collapse had been his final one. He died at 9.50 a.m. Experts believe that the excess air pumped into his system shattered the infant's diaphragm.
So by this point, the parents who have lost two out of three of their triplets have
begged the ambulance team to take their one surviving triplet to Arrow Park Hospital. I would fucking smash any, I would take that baby out in two seconds. In your arms and physically run. Yeah. And I mean, the baby was taken by transport and as such, he is the sole survivor. Oh, these parents must be fucking furious. Yes. Heartbroken. I mean, we will go on in part two of this case to hear victim testimony. Oh.
boy. And it's incomprehensible. And it's beyond just the heartbreak and heartache of losing their children. Yeah. It has instilled, and I don't want to put the cart before the horse here because we do get to it in this proper sequence of this case, but it shattered their ability to trust people. It shattered some of their marriages. Oh, yeah. It had some of them turning to alcohol. It destroyed these people. Of course.
So finally, on June 24th, 2016, which was one full year later following the beginning of the series of these horrific and inexplicable infant deaths, Lucy was finally removed from the neonatal unit.
Still, the duty executive, so like one of the administrators at the hospital, a woman named Karen Reese, insisted that Lucy was safe to work and was happy to take responsibility if anything happened to other babies while Lucy was on duty. She should be in jail too. She should. And she will be there with egg on her face because what a stupid fucking thing to do. Now, you might be wondering, as I certainly did,
why there was not an immediate investigation into this devastating pattern of unusual occurrences, particularly in cases where infants exhibited overt distress signals like skin discoloration and blood pooling around their mouths.
First, routine postmortem examinations and toxicology assessments are not customary for neonatal intensive care unit or NICU infants who pass away. They're not. They're not. Why? Because they're in NICU and it's like the assumption is that they just didn't make it. That's exactly why. Yeah. Furthermore, the parents of the victims were actually advised against requesting a postmortem exam as the babies were thought to have died of natural causes and
In fact, during trial, listen to this, one of the head physicians turned to the brokenhearted parents of child E and apologized for advising them against having a postmortem exam conducted. So the first reason why an immediate investigation didn't ensue is because there were no postmortems, so they couldn't definitively prove, right? Second,
Lucy would often attack babies at the end of her shift so their deterioration would occur on someone else's watch, making any attempt at establishing a pattern that much more difficult to ascertain at a cursory glance. She'd almost always be present for the collapse of the child. I think that was part of her enjoyment. Yeah. But not necessarily there for their deaths. Many times, Lucy's deplorable crimes were so subtle that they were imperceptible.
And she was rather adept at covering her tracks. Though it is essential, of course, to emphasize that the concern about Lucy Letby's malicious interference with her patients was on multiple occasions placed on the radar of senior management at Countess of Chester Hospital by seasoned physicians. Yeah. Her saying that baby's not leaving here alive is fucking bone chilling. Yes, it is.
But shockingly, unforgivably, all concerns were silenced. In fact, this is nuts. Not only were these major concerns by major players at the hospital swept under the rug, but adding insult to injury, Lucy actually filed a grievance against the complaining physicians. Wow. And claimed that she was the one being victimized and bullied. Wow. Pop quiz. Okay.
Oh, God. After Lucy filed a grievance, what happened next? A, she got promoted to head nurse. B, the hospital paid her off to stop complaining. C, the physicians were directed to formally apologize to Lucy. The hospital paid her off? No. The physicians were advised to apologize? Yes. Wow. What an, I mean, the most empty apology of all time.
Forget about the emptiness of the apology. No, I want it to be empty. These seasoned, accurate physicians were forced to tuck their tails between their legs. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Empty. And eat shit.
This is one of the worst parts of what went down with senior management, in my opinion. So it was facilitated by the then chief executive of the hospital trust, a guy named Tony Chambers. What is the name of this hospital again? Countess of Chester Hospital. Countess of Chester Hospital.
Should be knocked to the ground. And all of the people that were a part of this, whether intentionally, don't care, it doesn't matter, negligent, they did it for money for sure because they didn't want their hospital to lose money. They should be in jail also. I'm in full agreement that there should be solid, profound evidence
Like overhaul of the entire hospital system. Completely. Not just that hospital. Any hospital this could potentially happen at. Agreed. We will talk about more. These money-hungry, reputation-protecting fucks. Yeah. It doesn't get worse than this with respect to that, you know? So it was only in May of 2017 when the police were finally called in to investigate the
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes with the Cheshire Constabulary received a request from the head of the crime division to examine a letter that had been sent to their local hospital. The Countess of Chester Hospital had finally, finally raised alarms regarding a sudden and unaccountable increase in the deaths of its youngest patients under care.
Hughes subsequently held discussions with Dr. Stephen Brary and Dr. Ravi Jayaram to clarify the implications of the situation that they both vehemently insisted had been plaguing the neonatal unit for at least that year. In fact, one year prior, Lucy was placed on administrative duties after Dr. Ravi witnessed her standing over a dying baby whose breathing tube had been dislodged.
He tried to intervene and sadly it was too late and that baby girl died. But when he walked in, Lucy was standing over the baby doing nothing. Yeah.
The police initiated an investigation into the fatalities of 17 infants as well as the instances in which 16 more babies experienced non-fatal collapses that resulted in some sustaining life-altering injuries. A substantial, substantial quantity of medical records was organized and handed over to a neonatologist identified through the National Crime Agency for examination.
And in December of 2017, the experts' findings were received and the conclusion that was drawn was clear. The deaths in question did not occur naturally. And thus, Operation Hummingbird was launched. And that is where I'm going to end part one of this case. Operation Hummingbird. Yep. Okay, so they're starting to look into it. Right. Okay.
It also does make me feel a little bit better that this happened a while ago and she's not like out there. You know what I mean? I had the opposite thought. This just happened in 2015. Oh. You know what I mean? Like our kids were already born. Yeah. I mean, that's...
If I would, I don't even, I don't even know what to say. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like, I'm trying to put myself in the parents' shoes as much as I want to, because I don't want to that much, because it's, I'm good at it, and I'll fucking break it. Yeah, you're going to spiral. Yeah, they must just be absolutely, I mean, this fucking, the hospital should be sold, and they should give all of the money to the parents.
And foot rubs for the moms for the rest of their lives every day by the fucking physicians who let this happen. I agree with that most of all. There's a lot of good going on in the hospital. I think the majority of players in the hospital, the doctors, the nurses, the staff, the aides, as I described at the top of this episode, are incredible, heroic individuals.
And you can't take one bad apple, you know what I mean, and throw out the bunch. I can't imagine this hospital is going to have any kind of success going forward.
Well, as a mother, I certainly wouldn't take my children there. I certainly wouldn't have a baby there. And that's unfortunate for the people who work there who do take it seriously and do love it. That's what I'm saying, right. But it does definitely shine a light on, in general, the need to stay on top of what's going on. And obviously, of course, if you're in administration, to heed warnings. Yeah.
But the mother knew, said something about the baby that she was scared of losing. And Lucy was like, no, it's fine. Go back. She did what she thought was right and told the nurse on duty that something was wrong. Yeah. The problem is she told it to a serial killer. All right. Well, we'll take a little break here and then we'll come back with part two where I'm assuming everything just gets much better.
Define better. I'm kidding. I'm just going to get worse. Yeah. So stick with us because part two is really, really interesting in a sense that we talk about potential motives. We talk about some of the trial information, the investigation that ensued. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's a little bit redirecting away from the absolute crushing reality of what actually happened to those poor babies. All right, good. So we'll see you guys in a little bit. Bye.
