LONDON — Lucy Letby, a former neonatal nurse who was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others at a hospital in England, had several possible motives for her crimes, prosecutors said during her trial.
Letby, 32, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on Friday, becoming the fourth woman in British history to receive such a punishment. She carried out the attacks between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where she worked in the neonatal unit.
The reasons why Letby committed the murders may never be fully understood, but jurors were given a number of theories by the prosecution and other experts during the 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
She wanted to impress a married doctor she was infatuated with.
One of the motives suggested by the prosecution was that Letby harmed and killed babies in her care to gain the attention and sympathy of a doctor who she had become “infatuated” with. The doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, worked at the same hospital as Letby and had a secret relationship with her, according to text messages shown in court.
The prosecution claimed that Letby wanted to make herself the center of his attention and focus by being involved in medical emergencies and resuscitations. She also searched for him and his wife on Facebook and sent him love heart emojis.
Letby denied having a romantic relationship with the doctor and said she loved him as a “trusted friend.” She broke down in tears when she heard his voice during his testimony, which was given behind a screen.
She enjoyed “playing God” and predicting baby deaths.
Another motive put forward by the prosecution was that Letby enjoyed “playing God” by controlling the fate of the babies and predicting their deaths. She also made remarks described as “portents of doom” as some of her victims deteriorated.
For example, after her final murder in June 2016, she said to the doctor she was accused of being infatuated with: “He’s not making it out of here alive, is he?” The baby boy, who was one of triplets, died soon after. Letby had earlier pumped air into his stomach as she fed him milk.
The prosecutor Nick Johnson said that Letby knew what was going to happen because she was “controlling things.” He said: “She was enjoying what was going on and happily predicting something she knew was going to happen. She, in effect, was playing God.”
She got a thrill from watching baby deaths and parents’ grief.
The prosecution also suggested that Letby got a thrill from watching the babies die and their parents suffer. Parents and nurses described Letby acting unusually when babies suddenly declined. For instance, when one of her victims died after repeated attacks by Letby, the baby girl’s parents told police they remembered the nurse “smiling and going on about how she was present at [the baby’s] first bath and how much she had loved it.”
Letby also searched Facebook for the families of her victims. She would often search for several of them within minutes of each other, seemingly hunting for grief. She looked them up on the anniversaries of their babies’ deaths and even on Christmas Day.
In court, Letby denied getting any pleasure from harming or killing babies or seeing their parents’ anguish. She said she searched for all sorts of people on Facebook, not just the families of babies on the unit.