Lucy Letby, a former neonatal nurse, was caught after a series of suspicious infant deaths and collapses at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016, where she worked. The investigation began due to an unusually high number of unexplained baby deaths on the neonatal unit, all of which occurred during shifts when Letby was present, making her the common denominator in the incidents
. Police and hospital staff grew suspicious after multiple babies died or suffered life-threatening collapses under her care, including two triplet siblings who died within days of her return from holiday in June 2016. Letby had been observed acting strangely, and hospital doctors expressed concerns about her continuing to work on the unit despite the deaths
. Letby was arrested in June 2018 after a thorough police investigation that included:
- Analysis of hospital staff rotas showing she was the only nurse present during every incident
- Discovery of handwritten notes at her home with confessions such as "I AM EVIL, I DID THIS" and "I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them"
- Recovery of hundreds of confidential medical documents from her home, which she claimed were collected accidentally
- Digital evidence showing she searched for her victims' parents and sent sympathy cards to them, sometimes photographing the cards before funerals
- Medical evidence including abnormal blood tests and signs consistent with insulin poisoning and air embolism in the babies
Police arrested her early in the morning, with body camera footage showing the moment she was taken into custody
. The prosecution presented overwhelming evidence during her trial, leading to her conviction for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder others. The case was described as a "campaign of horror," and Letby was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order
. In summary, Lucy Letby was caught through a combination of medical anomalies linked to her shifts, suspicious behavior, physical and digital evidence found during police searches, and the hospital's eventual alerting of authorities after failing to find natural causes for the babies' deaths
