KEY POINTS

  • 33-year-old Lucy Letby was convicted on Friday of killing seven babies in the neonatal unit of a hospital in England.

  • A handwritten note found by police officers who searched her home after the arrest read “I killed them on purpose”.

  • Letby will be sentenced on Monday and faces a very long prison term, and possibly a rare full life sentence.

  • sugartits@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Very unlikely here.

    The death rate shot up at the hospital where she worked, and in every single suspicious case of death or near death of a baby, she was present. All 25 of them. I think the next closest was a nurse who was present for 7 of them.

    When she stopped working there the suspicious deaths stopped. Deaths on that baby ward pretty much stopped completely actually. I think they had like one on that unit in the years following, compared to 3-4 month when Letby was there.

    I’m not saying it’s impossible she’s innocent, in the same way it’s not impossible for my ugly ass to get a date with Michelle Ryan. But it’s really, really unlikely.

    • Smurfpiss@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Missing the most fucked up part. She was having an affair with the doctor who would be called in during such events. She was obsessed with him and this was how she was ensuring he’d come to the rescue.

      • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Also missed that she was reported repeatedly by consultants who were essentially given a gag order by their bosses under the banner of “bullying” behaviour.

      • sugartits@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ehhhh I’m not sold.

        From your link: “For the case in which digoxin poisoning was alleged and supposedly detected by independent measurements in two Dutch laboratories, the method used in those laboratories did not exclude that the substance had actually been a related substance that is naturally produced in the human body. The Strasbourg laboratory used a new method, a test of high specificity and sensitivity, which did not support the digoxin overdose hypothesis”

        Let’s compare that to “Child F” in the Letby case, who died.

        When the body produces insulin, it also produces c-peptide. This is just how it works, even with diabetes.

        Blood samples taken from Child F returned an extremely high insulin level of 4,657 and a very low C-peptide level of less than 169, indicating synthetic insulin was in his system.

        Insulin was not ordered for any baby present on the ward at the time. So it couldn’t have been a mix up or accidental overdose. The running theory is that insulin was added to the feeding bag.

        So that baby was very clearly murdered. We are good at testing these things, there shouldn’t be a problem here.

        The only question remains is “who did it”? Whereas in the de Berk case the question is of it being a murder at all.

        Also in the de Berk case there were administrative cockups pointing to her being present for some deaths when she was actually on holiday, and it stuns me that was somehow overlooked.

        There is, as far as I’m aware, no issue with knowing that Letby was present on the days of the babies dying.

        And let us not forget that Letby wrote that she did it in her diary. Admittedly it might be that she felt she wasn’t good enough at her job and she had guilt at not being able to provide adequate care. But when you add that to everything else… Pretty difficult to overlook.

        The evidence just keeps piling on and on in the Letby case. She was always there. The babies were always expected to survive. It’s very clear in many cases that the babies were flat out murdered. There are lots of smoking guns here. The more you look (and I’ve not looked that much) the worse it looks for Letby.

        Okay, I’m changing my odds to a date with Michelle, and her being very agreeable to a threesome with Zooey Deschanel. Damn, I kinda want her to be innocent now…