UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #4

[Sweeper2000]

Hi guys, joined for this case and because I saw this post

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to. Imagine being committed to you job, then being arrested for something you weren't guilty of and constantly being told you did something you didn't. Then the media getting hold of the story and using their convincing power to make the general public see what you were alleged to have done. I'm quite sure after some time you too would start to believe you were evil.

I agree so much with that and it’s because that note might not meant to be taken literally. I think if you look at how that note is written you might see different things but one seemingly incriminating sentence I don’t actually think is. That sentence “I don’t deserve to live“ is followed by what I think is “i killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to” either “care” or “cure for them”. If you look at her writing she blends letters and you can piece it together. There is also seemingly two phases of writing. Under the title the writing in line with the left hand margin is the first phase and the writing on the right hand side of the paper is the second phase written after the first. It is also at a slant suggesting being written after the first section.If you separate the two the note as a whole takes on a very different tone potentially. Starts with what I think is a lucid description of her current state of mind and a statement of innocence “I haven’t done anything wrong“ then tails into the second and much more emotion laden phase. One might take lucid words more seriously than outbursts?

 

[Sweeper2000]

Here’s a transcription of the post-it note, as it keeps coming up. Really not the clear-cut confession some people seem to assume, IMO
View attachment 375130

View attachment 375131

The parts you are missing are. 1 enough.2 I pay for that everyday. 3 I hate myself so much for what this has ? The title of the note is “not good enough“. Also the “I don’t deserve mom + dad has Tom + mate directly underneath.

 

[Legal]

At the time of the coroner’s report, we as a group of clinicians had already begun to raise concern about the association that we’d seen with an individual being present in these situations.

'And at the time we were being told that really we shouldn’t be saying such things and not to make a fuss.

My concern is that had I suggested this - that this could have been happening – I didn’t have any hard evidence.'

There was a group of clinicians with concerns?!

Lucy Letby trial hears TV doctor and his colleagues 'raised concerns' https://mol.im/a/11349579 via https://dailym.ai/android

Interesting! And some more information here

Consultant tells trial skin marks ‘didn’t fit with anything he’d seen’

 

[Legal]

Interesting! And some more information here

Consultant tells trial skin marks ‘didn’t fit with anything he’d seen’

From above:

He said that some time after Child D’s death he “alighted” on a research paper entitled Pulmonary Vascular Air Embolism In The Newborn.
The medic said it described a series of accidental events of air embolism – where a blockage in the passage of blood occurs – and a similar pattern of discolouration.

I remember reading this paper for the very first time and feeling really quite cold and worried. It is a matter of regret for me I didn’t mention it to the coroner at the time

 

[BuzzC]

Regards the note, I keep coming back to this question: what are you more likely to “lie” about (to yourself or otherwise) - being guilty of a horrendous crime, or being innocent of one?

 

[ShireChe]

I really don't know how to feel about this. The consultant mentions how strange and unusual the symptoms were, but didn't mention it on his notes or during an inquest. The senior management is telling it's consultants to 'stop making a fuss' . It sounds very much like there was quite a bit of disarray in the unit. Certainly that would make it easier for the alleged offences to happen and not be picked up in a timely manner, but at the same time it gives the defence some points to explore

 

[Legal]

Interesting!

Regards the note, I keep coming back to this question: what are you more likely to “lie” about (to yourself or otherwise) - being guilty of a horrendous crime, or being innocent of one?

To me, "I killed them on purpose" and "I am evil I did this" sound like straight-up confessions. I mentioned once before the field of forensic linguistics. I just did some searches for studies on false confessions and found an interesting published journal article called "Mitigating murder: The construction of blame in true and false confessions". https://www.jstor.org/stable/24815260?read-now=1&seq=15#page_scan_tab_contents

I had to subscribe to access the article and I don't know if it has been peer reviewed and the sample size was small, so I can't say the findings are definitive but there are some interesting points. The findings found that the false confessions focused on facts and motive, and were detached and cold, with no emotive or evaluative language. However, the true confessions were a lot more evaluative, trying to find justifications for the crimes, expressing regret and remorse, and talking about feelings and guilt and attempting to minimise blame.

Just my own opinions and thoughts.

 

[JosieJo]

Interesting! And some more information here

Consultant tells trial skin marks ‘didn’t fit with anything he’d seen’

Thanks a lot more detail here.

 

[Dotta]

To me, "I killed them on purpose" and "I am evil I did this" sound like straight-up confessions. I mentioned once before the field of forensic linguistics. I just did some searches for studies on false confessions and found an interesting published journal article called "Mitigating murder: The construction of blame in true and false confessions". https://www.jstor.org/stable/24815260?read-now=1&seq=15#page_scan_tab_contents

I had to subscribe to access the article and I don't know if it has been peer reviewed and the sample size was small, so I can't say the findings are definitive but there are some interesting points. The findings found that the false confessions focused on facts and motive, and were detached and cold, with no emotive or evaluative language. However, the true confessions were a lot more evaluative, trying to find justifications for the crimes, expressing regret and remorse, and talking about feelings and guilt and attempting to minimise blame.

Just my own opinions and thoughts.

If LL is found guilty, I wonder about a motive.

I'm wondering if the real victims of alleged killings were the parents of the babies.
Victims by proxy.

Because, why to smile at the grieving parents?

Why to tell a heartbroken mother "I bathed your baby", while the parent didn't have this privilege?
Was it gloating?

Why to obsessively stalk parents in mourning via FB?

Like a stalker lurking in the shadows?
Like looking through families' windows?
Feeding on despair of those parents?

And at Christmas!!!
Family holiday, when the heartbreak and pain would be the most severe?

Moo

 

[Blondiexoxo]

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to. Imagine being committed to you job, then being arrested for something you weren't guilty of and constantly being told you did something you didn't. Then the media getting hold of the story and using their convincing power to make the general public see what you were alleged to have done. I'm quite sure after some time you too would start to believe you were evil.

If I knew I hadn’t done it then no, I wouldn’t think I was evil. Nor would I write some of those statements about killing them on purpose. The note is all me me me, I think I’d be angry that someone else had killed these babies and I would be wanting to find out who the real killer was. There is nothing on earth that would make me not only think but write down, that I’ve killed babies. Nothing. There are no words of sadness for these babies having lost their lives, or the parents having lost children. It’s all LL.. which is something that is common when you deal with cold, calculated killers. When they get caught their concerns are only for themselves.

IMO it comes across as someone who is in despair at the realisation they’ve been caught, there is an investigation underway and the game is up. But interesting how we all read it differently, I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be jurors who read it differently too MOO. But there hopefully will be a lot more to come over the coming months that may shed more light on the meaning of this note.

 

[Supernovae]

Pulmonary vascular air embolism is a rare, and almost invariably fatal, complication of positive pressure ventilation of newborn infants.There have only been 50 cases described in the world literature to date. The rarity of the condition and the clustering of some cases, which may be related to specific local factors, do not allow a meaningful calculation of incidence.

https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/64/4_Spec_No/507.full.pdf

Interesting.

 

[annpats]

Isn't finding vials of insulin and connecting it to the suspect also circumstantial? With direct evidence, no inferences need to be made. It is not evidence until it can be linked to a person and the crime. It is one or several facts that can determine another fact.

However with direct evidence, if another person witnesses the crime or the suspect is caught on camera, no inferences need to be made. That is what I understand to be direct evidence. Nothing more is needed, while with circumstantial evidence, it is the combination of 'facts' that are used in order to prove a bigger fact, or to determine the final conclusion. Imo

No, apparently not circumstancial according to the article, the detective, the CPS and the court.
That was the turning point. Finding this empty insulin vials from the hospital was prime evidence and meant only she could have done it (not anyone else) and nor could it be considered a natural occuring accident. They found the "how".
I'll post the article link below again. Have a read. Interesting stuff.

How I caught Beverley Allitt, the 'Angel of Death'

To this day, the case of the “Angel of Death” – as child serial killer Beverley Allitt came to be known – still haunts me.

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[annpats]

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to.

But I would think even under immense stress, LL would have written some miniscule amount of sadness or bewilderment over the deaths of the babies in the note. But no, none.

And if she was mentally struggling, she didn't at any time ask for help from anyone nor did she take any time off.

I'm not sure what to think about the note....it is a bit disturbing, but at the same time not as horrendous and twisted as it could've been.

If she is innocent, there isn't much genuine sadness, but if she is guilty, then there are no evil satanic thoughts either. Hmmmm.

The note isn't enough to convict anyway, but I think the prosecution will make a big deal out of it when the time comes.

MOO.

 

[TraderJones]

A couple of thoughts on the note:

1. I totally get the 'thought download' anxiety explanation until you get to the 'on purpose' bit. Imagine you had crashed your car into someone and you were feeling guilty about it, you may say 'I did this' and 'it's my fault they are hurt' - but in what world would you ever say I crashed into them 'on purpose'? It so clearly implies intent, I struggle to fathom why an innocent person would write this.

2. Has anyone discussed the idea that it says 'No Cure for them' (rather than 'to care for them')? That is how I originally read it. The N shape is strikingly similar to 'No hope' written top right.

 

[MsBetsy]

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to. Imagine being committed to you job, then being arrested for something you weren't guilty of and constantly being told you did something you didn't. Then the media getting hold of the story and using their convincing power to make the general public see what you were alleged to have done. I'm quite sure after some time you too would start to believe you were evil.

Do we know when the letter was written? I find it hard to believe it was pressure from the media that convinced her to write she was evil or that she killed the babies on purpose.

When was she constantly told she was guilty? In the few interviews with police that we've heard about, I saw no mention of guilt or accusations by investigators.

In fact, from what I've gathered, she had an unusual amount of support on SM. I would think that would have given her some confidence, if anything.

 

[ConcernedThirdParty]

Do we know when the letter was written? I find it hard to believe it was pressure from the media that convinced her to write she was evil or that she killed the babies on purpose.

When was she constantly told she was guilty? In the few interviews with police that we've heard about, I saw no mention of guilt or accusations by investigators.

In fact, from what I've gathered, she had an unusual amount of support on SM. I would think that would have given her some confidence, if anything.

It seems fairly evident that this note which is one of many (containing denials but presumably no further confessions) was written some time after July 2016 and after she had been moved from clinical duties and aware there was some investigation involving her. If I understood correctly, she was suspended from work after a few more months and the police investigation was public as of May 2017 - I'm fairly certain that she'd be aware by that point that she was a focus of it. The notes were most likely collected from her house on her first arrest in July 2018 - by which point this had been going on for 2 years for her.

As far as the strange skin blotches, it seems to have definitely happened in the case of Baby B and drawn a lot of comment by the team at the time who had mostly not dealt with Baby A and is in the notes. So I think the defence is absolutely right to ask if it was so unusual and striking, why isn't it documented, why does not everyone remember it and why did the one doctor and one nurse that do remember it not remember prior to at least their second police interview? That has all the hallmarks of a false memory. That's no slight to them, we know it's actually pretty common for multiple people to be convinced that they remember something that never happened. That's one of the few fairly well replicated results from psychology.

On medical experts, we haven't had much testimony yet granted, but what they seem to be saying is taking in all the facts, the small amount of physical evidence, the contemporaneous documentation and subsequent interviews, the death is most consistent with X cause. Ideally you want everyone to be blind, the people collecting the evidence to not have any preconceptions, the people being interviewed to be interviewed without being primed, having no suspicions, having not had chance to go over and over it and no chance to confer with others. You then want your experts to look at all the cases with no idea that they're being asked to review them by a murder investigation or which cases are ruled in or out. With LL already suspected by some senior clinical staff, you would hope that they would have been alert enough to catch things. But it's also possible that they start seeing normal actions as suspicious.

They're not going to give certainty on that. They're saying this is one of the possible explanations, there are others. In some cases they might be saying this explanation fits the facts better, and in some cases they'll be saying that the alternative is very unlikely - we've already heard that. And that's arguably a logical fallacy - the whole situation is unlikely, all the possible causes are unlikely, murder included, probably many times rarer than the causes they are discounting for being unlikely.

I'm expecting that as we get to the later cases the evidence may become more damming.

On Alitt - and this has also come up with some nurses who were exonerated, empty insulin vials are yet another thing that can be found in a nurses pocket on arriving home after a busy shift - hopefully there was more to it than their mere presence.

 

[MsBetsy]

It seems fairly evident that this note which is one of many (containing denials but presumably no further confessions) was written some time after July 2016 and after she had been moved from clinical duties and aware there was some investigation involving her. If I understood correctly, she was suspended from work after a few more months and the police investigation was public as of May 2017 - I'm fairly certain that she'd be aware by that point that she was a focus of it. The notes were most likely collected from her house on her first arrest in July 2018 - by which point this had been going on for 2 years for her.

As far as the strange skin blotches, it seems to have definitely happened in the case of Baby B and drawn a lot of comment by the team at the time who had mostly not dealt with Baby A and is in the notes. So I think the defence is absolutely right to ask if it was so unusual and striking, why isn't it documented, why does not everyone remember it and why did the one doctor and one nurse that do remember it not remember prior to at least their second police interview? That has all the hallmarks of a false memory. That's no slight to them, we know it's actually pretty common for multiple people to be convinced that they remember something that never happened. That's one of the few fairly well replicated results from psychology.

On medical experts, we haven't had much testimony yet granted, but what they seem to be saying is taking in all the facts, the small amount of physical evidence, the contemporaneous documentation and subsequent interviews, the death is most consistent with X cause. Ideally you want everyone to be blind, the people collecting the evidence to not have any preconceptions, the people being interviewed to be interviewed without being primed, having no suspicions, having not had chance to go over and over it and no chance to confer with others. You then want your experts to look at all the cases with no idea that they're being asked to review them by a murder investigation or which cases are ruled in or out. With LL already suspected by some senior clinical staff, you would hope that they would have been alert enough to catch things. But it's also possible that they start seeing normal actions as suspicious.

They're not going to give certainty on that. They're saying this is one of the possible explanations, there are others. In some cases they might be saying this explanation fits the facts better, and in some cases they'll be saying that the alternative is very unlikely - we've already heard that. And that's arguably a logical fallacy - the whole situation is unlikely, all the possible causes are unlikely, murder included, probably many times rarer than the causes they are discounting for being unlikely.

I'm expecting that as we get to the later cases the evidence may become more damming.

On Alitt - and this has also come up with some nurses who were exonerated, empty insulin vials are yet another thing that can be found in a nurses pocket on arriving home after a busy shift - hopefully there was more to it than their mere presence.

Okay, so we can assume she wrote it at some point between July 2016 and May 2017. I'm still not sure when all the media attention occurred, or when Letby was constantly told she was guilty. If police found it at her house in 2018, then she could have written it at any point during those three years. That doesn’t help much to narrow it down, unfortunately.

 

[Charlot123]

If LL is found guilty, I wonder about a motive.

I'm wondering if the real victims of alleged killings were the parents of the babies.
Victims by proxy.

Because, why to smile at the grieving parents?

Why to tell a heartbroken mother "I bathed your baby", while the parent didn't have this privilege?
Was it gloating?

Why to obsessively stalk parents in mourning via FB?

Like a stalker lurking in the shadows?
Like looking through families' windows?
Feeding on despair of those parents?

And at Christmas!!!
Family holiday, when the heartbreak and pain would be the most severe?

Moo

I think "I bathed your baby" was an attempt at kinship made by a person not understanding how the mother would perceive it.

If she is found guilty (as of today, I am unsure) I think there will be several motives, not one. I don't know what LL felt towards the parents (complex and ambiguous, probably, but not necessarily hate; a huge voyeuristic element here), and there might have been the element of Munchausen by proxy, yes, but she might have enjoyed creating brutal havoc in the hospital because she was angry with it.

ETA: I looked up some peculiar behaviors and ran into obsession with reality TV. Would not be surprised if LL checking the Facebooks of unconsolable, grief-stricken parents had some element of it.

 

[Dotta]

I think "I bathed your baby" was an attempt at kinship made by a person not understanding how the mother would perceive it.

If she is found guilty (as of today, I am unsure) I think there will be several motives, not one. I don't know what LL felt towards the parents (complex and ambiguous, probably, but not necessarily hate; a huge voyeuristic element here), and there might have been the element of Munchausen by proxy, yes, but she might have enjoyed creating brutal havoc in the hospital because she was angry with it.

ETA: I looked up some peculiar behaviors and ran into obsession with reality TV. Would not be surprised if LL checking the Facebooks of unconsolable, grief-stricken parents had some element of it.

As I wrote before, I hope this person was/is/will be thoroughly examined by mental health specialists.

I don't say this with spite but with concern.
Real concern.

Moo

 

[JosieJo]

It seems fairly evident that this note which is one of many (containing denials but presumably no further confessions) was written some time after July 2016 and after she had been moved from clinical duties and aware there was some investigation involving her. If I understood correctly, she was suspended from work after a few more months and the police investigation was public as of May 2017 - I'm fairly certain that she'd be aware by that point that she was a focus of it. The notes were most likely collected from her house on her first arrest in July 2018 - by which point this had been going on for 2 years for her.

As far as the strange skin blotches, it seems to have definitely happened in the case of Baby B and drawn a lot of comment by the team at the time who had mostly not dealt with Baby A and is in the notes. So I think the defence is absolutely right to ask if it was so unusual and striking, why isn't it documented, why does not everyone remember it and why did the one doctor and one nurse that do remember it not remember prior to at least their second police interview? That has all the hallmarks of a false memory. That's no slight to them, we know it's actually pretty common for multiple people to be convinced that they remember something that never happened. That's one of the few fairly well replicated results from psychology.

On medical experts, we haven't had much testimony yet granted, but what they seem to be saying is taking in all the facts, the small amount of physical evidence, the contemporaneous documentation and subsequent interviews, the death is most consistent with X cause. Ideally you want everyone to be blind, the people collecting the evidence to not have any preconceptions, the people being interviewed to be interviewed without being primed, having no suspicions, having not had chance to go over and over it and no chance to confer with others. You then want your experts to look at all the cases with no idea that they're being asked to review them by a murder investigation or which cases are ruled in or out. With LL already suspected by some senior clinical staff, you would hope that they would have been alert enough to catch things. But it's also possible that they start seeing normal actions as suspicious.

They're not going to give certainty on that. They're saying this is one of the possible explanations, there are others. In some cases they might be saying this explanation fits the facts better, and in some cases they'll be saying that the alternative is very unlikely - we've already heard that. And that's arguably a logical fallacy - the whole situation is unlikely, all the possible causes are unlikely, murder included, probably many times rarer than the causes they are discounting for being unlikely.

I'm expecting that as we get to the later cases the evidence may become more damming.

On Alitt - and this has also come up with some nurses who were exonerated, empty insulin vials are yet another thing that can be found in a nurses pocket on arriving home after a busy shift - hopefully there was more to it than their mere presence.

Regarding the possibility of false memory in relation to baby A skin ..is the Jury likely to except that possibility when LL herself states it was there ?