During Day Three Of Lucy Letby’s Murder Trial, The Court Learned Lucy Allegedly Smiled At A Child’s Mother After Her Fourth Attempt To Kill A Baby Girl Was Successful
The thirty-two-year-old UK nurse Lucy Letby is facing twenty-two charges after allegedly murdering seven babies– five boys and two girls– as well as attempting to murder an additional ten babies.
The tragic instances of harm and death all occurred between June 2015 and June 2016 when Lucy worked in Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal care unit.
A 2017 investigation into the mysterious events led investigators to name Lucy as their prime suspect since she had been on shift during each tragedy.
So, she was arrested three separate times before formally being charged and remanded in custody back in 2020.
And now, as of October 10, Lucy’s trial is officially underway. Today, October 12, marks the third day of Lucy’s trial– in which the prosecution has continued its opening statement.
For privacy purposes, all of the children will be referred to as letters A through Q throughout the trial.
A Play-By-Play Of Trial Day Three – October 12, 2022
Today, the murder trial of Lucy Letby began at about 5:30 a.m. EST. The prosecution, led by Nick Johnson KC, resumed its opening statement with a detailed account of two instances involving Child H.
Facebook; pictured above is Lucy
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The first incident allegedly occurred during the night shift of September 25 into September 26, 2015. That evening, Lucy was Child H’s designated nurse.
And at one point during Lucy’s shift, the baby needed a blood transfusion as well as constant monitoring following a deterioration period a few days prior. This earlier deterioration was not tied to Lucy.
However, the ICU chart revealed that Lucy administered a dose of morphine at 1:25 a.m., as well as a saline drip at 2:50 a.m. Then, at 3:22 a.m., Child H– a baby girl– suffered a severe collapse and required complete resuscitation.
“Lucy Letby would have had the cover of legitimate treatment of accessing the intravenous lines for Child H just before she collapsed,” Johnson said.
And to corroborate this suspicion, the hospital’s attending consultant concluded that the cause of Child H’s collapse was unclear– unlike Child H’s previous incidences of collapse.
Nonetheless, Child H did show stable improvement after being treated by hospital staff. And the following evening, Lucy Letby was not the nurse assigned to care for the baby girl.
But, at about 3:30 a.m., Child H’s oxygen levels began to rapidly fall out of nowhere. The hospital’s registrar claimed they responded to the emergency alarm call and found Lucy administering a neopuff device to help Child H’s breathing.
Apparently, the registrar had thought that Lucy was the baby girl’s designated nurse at the time. However, when Child H’s actual nurse returned, she noted “pink-tinged secretions” around the baby’s mouth.
“There was no reason for what was going on,” Johnson said to the court.
Following that second incident, Child H was transferred to another hospital– Arrowe Park– and reportedly showed “dramatic improvement” immediately after arriving there.
Child H was concluded to have suffered no permanent consequences of the alleged attack. Still, Johnson used Child H’s case to further support a developing pattern.
“As soon as children were removed from the Countess of Chester Hospital and the sphere of Lucy Letby, they often suddenly and remarkably recovered,” Johnson stated.
However, the prosecution did reveal that Lucy’s interest in Child H allegedly did not stop after the baby was transferred out of her hospital’s care. Instead, records showed that one week after Child H’s collapse, Lucy searched for the baby’s mother on Facebook.
That same day– a day she was not scheduled to work– she also searched for the father of twin babies E and F, as well as the mother of Child I.
Following the detailed account of Child H, the prosecution then moved on to the case of Child I. And Johnson prefaced this by calling Child I’s case “an extreme example even by the standards of this overall case.”
The prosecution alleges that Lucy attempted to kill Child I four separate times and succeeded on the fourth and final attempt.
Child I had been born prematurely– weighing two pounds and two ounces– although medical staff had declared the baby girl to be in good condition.
Then, four inexplicable incidents occurred one after another– beginning on September 30, 2015.
That evening, Lucy was Child I’s designated nurse, and according to the baby girl’s mother, Lucy expressed concern about her daughter’s “distended stomach.”
However, according to Child I’s medical notes, Lucy claimed that the baby’s mother had brought this issue to her attention.
The baby girl was then reviewed, and medical staff said she “appeared mottled in color with a distended abdomen and prominent veins.”
Lucy then fed Child I milk at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon before an emergency crash call was issued just thirty minutes later. Within that short period, the baby girl had suffered desaturation, a plummeting heart rate, had been vomiting and struggling to breathe.
Later, an x-ray revealed that Child I had “a massive amount of gas in her stomach and in her bowl, and her lungs appeared squashed.” But, as soon as Child I had the air removed, her condition improved.
Still, just half an hour before Lucy’s shift ended later that night– at about 7:30 p.m.– the nurse gave Child I another saline injection and adjusted the baby girl’s glucose infusion.
“Within moments, you know what happens, don’t you, Child I deteriorated again,” Johnson said to the court.
“But, as I have already said, Child I was resilient, and overnight, once removed from the orbit of Lucy Letby, Child I’s condition improved.”
Then, about two weeks later, during the night shift of October 12, 2015, Child I’s second incident occurred. Again, Lucy was not the baby girl’s designated nurse, and Child I had been doing well.
However, at 3:00 a.m., Child I’s designated nurse had to “temporarily” leave the nursery. And when that nurse returned about twenty minutes later, she found Lucy standing in the doorway of Child I’s room.
“The room was darkened because it was night, and as soon as she appeared, Lucy Letby said to her [the nurse] that Child I looked pale,” Johnson recalled.
“Then, she turned the light on, and Child I appeared to be at the point of death and was not breathing.”
At this point, the prosecution asked the jury to consider how Lucy could have possibly seen that Child I was pale if she had only been standing in the doorway with “minimal lighting.”
Johnson also implored the jurors to consider that Lucy could have potentially shut off the emergency crash call alarm that should have gone off after Child I suffered slowed breathing.
Child I was again found to have “gross gas swelling throughout her bowel and signs of something called chronic lung disease of prematurity.” The baby girl was given CPR and adrenaline, and she was intubated and ventilated.
But then, following this second incident, Lucy was made Child I’s designated nurse since she had special training. This was a precursor to incidents three and four.
The next night, Lucy took responsibility for Child I’s care– her only duty that evening. And again, Child I suffered from increasing abdominal swelling and discoloration.
Another x-ray revealed severe gaseous distention that was enough to split Child I’s diaphragm and stop the baby girl from breathing. She again required CPR.
“Child I was brought back from the brink of death right at the end of the shift, at 7:48 a.m.,” Johnson told the court.
And after the third incident, the baby girl was removed from Countess of Chester Hospital. At that time, she reportedly made a “speedy recovery” before returning to Chester on October 17, 2015. Back again, Child I allegedly thrived for five days.
“A period that coincided with the absence of work from Lucy Letby,” Johnson noted.
But, during the evening shift of October 22, Child I would eventually die.
That night, Lucy was not the baby girl’s designated nurse. In fact, according to Lucy’s notes, she actually had a relatively slow night of patient care.
Then, just before midnight, Child I collapsed a fourth time. Another x-ray revealed a “large stomach bubble” had been present in her bowel.
So, the medical staff resuscitated Child I and brought her back to a stable condition. Afterward, the baby girl reportedly showed signs of wanting to be fed– at which point Child I’s designated nurse took the baby girl off the ventilator and left the room.
“You know what I am going to say next, don’t you?” Johnson rhetorically asked the jury.
Child I’s emergency crash alarm went off, and the baby girl’s designated nurse sped to the room and found Lucy standing next to the baby’s incubator.
Apparently, Child I was severely distressed, and the baby girl’s designated nurse tried to intervene. But, the nurse alleges that Lucy stopped her and said they “would sort it out.”
Tragically, though, Child I was never led to recovery. Instead, the baby girl was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m.
Afterward, Child I’s parents were guided to a private room and asked if they wanted to bathe their late daughter.
Then, according to Johnson, the baby girl’s mother “bathed her recently departed child, and Lucy Letby came into the room.”
“And in the words of the mother, [Lucy] was ‘smiling and kept going on about how she was present at Child I’s first bath and how much Child I had loved it.”
Following the baby girl’s death, her case was referred to the coroner– who concluded that “earlier attempts to kill Child I had caused brain damage.”
The prosecution also revealed that Lucy had been questioned by police regarding a sympathy card she had sent to the parents of Child I. Johnson called this act “not normal.”
However, Lucy claimed that was the only time she had sent a card to a family and claimed: “it is not often the nurses got to know a family as well as they had known Child I’s.”
Lucy also admitted to investigators that she had kept a photo of the card on her smartphone.
“What happened to Child I followed the pattern of what happened to the others before. It was persistent, it was calculated, and it was cold-blooded,” Johnson told the court.
The court then took a break for fifteen minutes before resuming with the case of Child J. Child J, another baby girl, was born prematurely, and about five weeks after Child I’s death, the baby girl suffered an inexplicable collapse on November 26, 2015.
Child J then collapsed two more times that evening– both of which Lucy responded to. The first time, though, another doctor on call took over.
“He [the doctor] described Child J’s oxygen levels as dropping to unrecordable levels and her circulation as poor,” Johnson said.
“He also noticed symptoms of a seizure in that Child J’s arms were stiff, her fists were clenched, and her eyes were deviating to the left.”
And at about 7:20 a.m., after Lucy started a glucose infusion on Child J, the baby girl collapsed again.
It was at that point that Lucy finished her night shift, and Child J recovered smoothly. Still, the other responding doctor deemed Child J’s collapses as “incidents unexplained.”
“We suggest that it is highly significant that children within the orbit of Lucy Letby persistently and consistently suffered unexplained collapses,” Johnson told the court.
“Sometimes the evidence of her hand at work is more obvious than others, and it is remarkable that on many occasions when children who had suffered unexpected spectacular and life-threatening collapses were removed from her orbit, they had exceptional recoveries.”
Today, the jury also learned about Child K– with whom Lucy is accused of killing by means of dislodging a breathing tube– and Child L– with whom Lucy is accused of killing after increasing a dose of intravenous insulin after “failing to kill Child F.”
“She had failed to kill Child F, and so she increased the dose. She saw the opportunity to complete what she had attempted with Child F,” Johnson claimed.
And the prosecution revealed this afternoon that after Child L was allegedly attacked in April of 2016, hospital staff at Chester had grown suspicious of Lucy.
“By this time, Letby was supposed to only be working day shifts because the consultants were concerned about the correlation between her presence and unexpected deaths/life-threatening episodes on night shifts,” Johnson told the court.
Finally, the prosecution wrapped up today’s portion of the opening statement with the accounts of Child M, Child N, and twin children O and P.
Child M, a baby boy, was left with brain damage that was “likely caused by cardio-respiratory collapse” on April 9, 2016, according to a neurologist– another case of rapid deterioration that Johnson alleges Lucy played a role in.
And Lucy was accused of trying to kill Child N on three separate occasions. The baby boy, who was born prematurely, had hemophilia– a disease that can cause bleeding for little to no reason and that the prosecution claims provided Lucy cover with which to attack Child N.
Johnson also alleged that Lucy murdered two of three triplets– Child O and Child P. Child O died of liver trauma just eight days after Lucy allegedly attacked Child N. Child P’s case has not been described by the prosecution yet.
But, Johnson did reveal that again, Lucy searched for another one of her alleged victim’s families on Facebook on the anniversary of Child O’s death.
The court was then adjourned for the day at about 10:48 EST this morning. The prosecution is scheduled to conclude its opening tomorrow. Then, the defense will begin its opening argument on behalf of Lucy Letby.
A Play-By-Play Of Trial Day Two – October 11, 2022
This morning, Lucy arrived at Manchester Crown Court wearing a blue t-shirt and black jacket at about 5:30 a.m. EST. Then, the prosecution– led by Nick Johnson KC– resumed its opening.
On day one, Johnson detailed the circumstances surrounding Child A’s death and Child B’s incidence of harm. Today, he began by describing Child C– who the prosecution claim was murdered by Lucy on June 14, 2015.
Like many other children involved in the case, Child C was born prematurely. The baby boy was born weighing less than two pounds, although he was expected to thrive and was deemed “in good condition” by his medical team.
Then, on the evening of June 13, Child C was assigned to a different nurse at Countess of Chester Hospital. At the same time, Lucy was assigned to care for another child– who is not included in the indictment and is known only by the initials JE.
According to Johnson, the nurses’ shift leader told Lucy that she needed to watch JE closely since the child was considered to be in a deteriorating condition.
“This was a message that [the shift leader] had to reinforce later in the shift when it became clear that Letby was ignoring her,” Johnson added.
Then, when Child C’s designated nurse left to visit the nursing station, the baby boy’s alarm began to sound. And when Child C’s nurse returned to the room, she found Lucy standing next to the baby boy’s cot.
By that point, Child C was experiencing rapidly dropping oxygen levels and heart rate. And Johnson claims that Lucy had “no business” for being in the boy’s room.
“There again at the bedside, or the incubator side, was Lucy Letby,” Johnson said.
Other staff members were able to assist Child C using a device to help him breathe, known as a “neopuff.” However, after Child C recovered shortly afterward, the boy still suffered a prolonged period of low oxygen saturation and heart rate.
During this damage control period, the shift leader assigned Lucy to another child’s room. And according to Johnson, texts sent by Lucy that day revealed her discontent with the reassignment.
“She texted an off-duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room one. She said it would be cathartic for her; it would help her wellbeing to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby– Child A– a baby who had died a few days earlier,” Johnson told the court.
“But the shift leader had put her in room three. So she did not like it.”
And sadly, Child C did not make it. Instead, the baby boy was pronounced dead at about 6:00 a.m. the following morning on June 14.
The hospital’s consultant pathologist had declared Child C’s cause of death to be “widespread hypoxic/ischaemic damage to the heart/myocardium due to lung disease” at the time.
However, Johnson detailed how Child C’s vocal cords were “swollen” and how the independent medical experts who reviewed Child C’s case found that infection did not “adequately explain” the boy’s collapse.
Rather, one doctor stated that the “only feasible mechanism” for the amount of excess air in the gut of Child C was the intentional injection of air through the nasal gastric tube.
“This was a variation– or refinement– of a theme Lucy Letby had started with Children A and B,” Johnson said.
The jury was then shown a diagram that explained how inflating an infant’s stomach with excess milk or air could cause them to stop breathing.
“If you are trying to murder a child in a neonatal unit, it’s a fairly effective way of doing it since it does not really leave much of a trace,” Johnson noted.
However, when Lucy was interviewed in 2018 regarding Child C’s death, she claimed she had nothing to do with any of Child C’s care aside from his resuscitation. Lucy also denied ever being the staff member who discovered Child C’s deteriorating condition– even though her texts placed her by Child C’s bedside.
Then, one year later, Lucy went back on her previous statement and agreed that she had, in fact, been the nurse in the room when Child C collapsed.
Moreover, less than twenty-four hours after the baby boy died, Lucy searched on Facebook for the child’s parents’ names at 3:52 p.m. And since she had only ended her shift at 8:00 a.m. that morning, Johnson suggested that Lucy’s Facebook search may have been “one of the first things she did having woken up.”
The court also learned about Child D– a baby who was allegedly murdered just eight days after Child C on June 22.
“The prosecution says that this was another case of injecting a child with air into the bloodstream. Three children had died, and one had had a life-threatening episode in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in a two-week period. Lucy Letby was the only constant presence,” Johnson stated.
And finally, the prosecution addressed Child E– Lucy’s alleged fourth murder victim who was a twin baby boy– who was found bleeding from his mouth on August 3, 2015.
That evening, at about 9:00 p.m., Child E was feeding well, and his mother decided to visit him in the neonatal unit. There, Child E was in the care of Lucy, along with his twin brother, Child F.
According to Johnson, the boy’s mother “interrupted Lucy Letby, who was in the process of attacking Child E.”
However, the mother did not realize it at the time. All she found was her son acutely distressed and bleeding from his mouth.
The baby’s mother was understandably jolted and claimed that Lucy tried to reassure her. Lucy allegedly stated that the blood was the result of a feeding tube-irritated throat.
Johnson also claimed that Lucy told Child E’s mother to return to the postnatal ward and stated, “Trust me, I’m a nurse.”
“We suggest she [Child E’s mother] was fobbed off by Lucy Letby. However, the mother was so concerned by what she had seen that she telephoned her husband when she got back to the labor ward,” Johnson said.
Sadly, Child E ultimately died early the following morning of August 4. And according to the prosecution, Lucy had made “fraudulent” nursing notes– calling them “false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks.”
Child E was also found left with a “striking” purple and white rash on his abdomen– a characteristic present on Lucy’s other alleged victims that medical professionals claimed was consistent with air injection.
Tomorrow, the trial– which is expected to last up to six months– will continue.
A Play-By-Play Of Trial Day One – October 10, 2022
Lucy’s parents, John and Susan Letby, arrived at Manchester Crown Court at about 5:30 a.m. this morning. And just a few minutes later, a prison van transporting Lucy also arrived.
Lucy donned a dark blue suit and black blouse while being arraigned on twenty-two charges; meanwhile, loved ones of Lucy’s alleged victims sat in the public gallery.
The nurse pled not guilty to each charge against her. Then, a jury was selected and sworn in– consisting of eight women and four men– before the trial kicked off.
Nick Johnson KC opened for the prosecution and began by describing Countess of Chester hospital as a care facility much like the thousands of others throughout the UK.
“But, unlike many other hospitals in the UK and unlike many other neonatal units in the UK, within the neonatal unit in the Countess of Chester, a poisoner was at work,” Johnson said.
The prosecutor then acknowledged the skyrocketing infant mortality rate at Countess of Chester during Lucy’s time at the hospital– a rate fraught with cases of unexpected and unexplainable death.
“Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes, babies who had been sick and then on the mend deteriorated for no apparent reason,” Johnson noted.
“The consultants found the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one neonatal unit nurse. That nurse was Lucy Letby.”
Following Johnson’s chilling opening, the jury learned more about Lucy’s alleged crimes. Most of the incidents happened during the night shift when guardians and parents were less likely to be present at the hospital.
And Lucy’s time spent on the night shift corresponded with the rise in deaths; meanwhile, when Lucy was moved to the day shift, there was a rise then, too.
Additionally, the prosecution shockingly revealed that Lucy allegedly poisoned two infants– known as Child F and Child L– with insulin.
Apparently, both of the children– who were boys– experienced blood sugar levels that “inexplicably dropped to dangerous levels.” Thankfully, though, they did survive after other staff members in the neonatal unit intervened.
And at first, the drop in blood sugar was attributed to natural causes– because, according to Johnson, the idea that a hospital staff member would intentionally harm a child never came to mind.
“Nobody would think in the neonatal unit of a hospital someone was trying to kill babies,” Johnson explained.
Then, the prosecution detailed how Child E and Child M were harmed– followed by the death of Child E after air was fatally injected into their bloodstream.
The term “harmed” varied from child to child. For some, that meant injected with air; for others, injection with insulin. However, Johnson believes that the different means all point back to Lucy.
“The constant presence when they were fatally attacked, or collapsed, was Lucy Letby,” he noted.
It also came to light that Lucy allegedly made as many as three attempts before killing some of the children and then searched for the victims’ families on Facebook afterward.
“We suggest it is an unusual interest, and we will see that on occasions, she searched in quick succession for several of the families of children’s names who appear on this indictment,” Johnson said.
The prosecution also described in-depth the circumstances surrounding Child A’s death and Child B’s incidence of harm.
Child A reportedly “most likely” died after being injected with air via an umbilical venous catheter or a long line. Then, Child B experienced rapidly falling oxygen levels just twenty-eight hours after Child A died.
Lucy was not Child B’s designated nurse. However, Lucy still took the child’s blood gases. Then, about thirty minutes later, Child B was no longer breathing. Their oxygen saturation level had fallen to fifty percent, and the child was turning blue.
Thankfully, Child B was resuscitated and able to “recover quickly.” However, a doctor concluded that the child had been “subjected to some form of sabotage before or after midnight on the night of June 9-10, 2015.”
Finally, the court was adjourned for the day at 11:00 a.m. this morning following Johnson’s claim that Lucy’s involvement is the “obvious conclusion.”
“You might be tempted to draw what we suggest is the obvious conclusion. Taking a step back, it is easy to get sucked in by the detail in this case but important always to keep a sense of perspective,” Johnson finished.
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