Chester, United Kingdom – Lucy Letby, a 33-year-old British nurse, was convicted last month for the murder of seven infants and the attempted murder of six others. The crimes took place during her five-year stint at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. The chief medical expert at her trial, Dr. Dewi Evans, revealed that Letby used a range of medical procedures to harm the infants, making her actions hard to trace.
Letby was apprehended in 2018 in relation to the deaths of eight children at the Chester Hospital. Following her arrest, Evans was tasked with examining the medical records of 48 infants, none of whom were part of the trial. He discovered 18 cases that raised suspicions, many involving infants whose breathing tubes had been removed or displaced in 2014. Evans believes this was Letby’s initial preferred method of harming the children.
Evans voiced his concern about the unusually high number of dislodged breathing tubes within a short timeframe in what was considered a reputable neonatal department. He also highlighted a case of insulin poisoning death, suggesting that Letby might have committed more such acts where doctors failed to measure the insulin level post-mortem. Without these measurements, it’s impossible to determine if foul play was involved, leading Evans to suspect there may be more cases of insulin poisoning.
The murder count in Letby’s unit began to rise after she attended a training course that highlighted the dangers of air embolism, a severe or potentially fatal condition where air enters the blood vessels, causing conditions like stroke or heart attack. Evans pointed out that there were no recorded deaths from air embolism before Letby attended this course, but the deaths escalated after she learned about this method.
Prosecutors are set to announce whether Letby, now known as Britain’s most notorious child killer, will face a new trial for six attempted murder charges on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict.