Lucy Letby

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We’ve found a witch. May we burn her?

BBC Reporter Judith Moritz (reviewing social media posts on a ostentatiously product-placed MacBook):

“Sparky, full of fun, popular — she looks like the life and soul of the party in these photos. I don’t know what Britain’s most prolific child killer should look like. I’m pretty sure it’s not this, though.

“She comes across as — mousy; a bit normal — you can’t really marry that with the enormity of what she’s been accused of.”

This fits two profiles: either this is some cold, callous, monstrous psychopath — or a perfectly ordinary young woman. You know — a sparky, fun, popular young woman. The life and soul of the party.

What are the percentages of serial killers with history of broken homes, physical or sexual abuse, and mental illness? What percentage are female?

“God complex”

Killing people is not evidence of a God complex. The basest criminal can take life. Bringing people back to life — that is evidence of a God complex.

Evidence

Insulin “smoking gun”

In two cases (Child F and Child L) lab tests indicating high levels of insulin without accompanying c-peptide, which is prime facie evidence of administered insulin (naturally occurring insulin is accompanied by c-peptides; artificially administered insulin is not). Insulin was not prescribed for either infant. If it was true that insulin was added without prescription this is evidence of actual human agency in these two episodes.

The defence team accepted the prosecution’s claim that insulin was added to parenteral nutrition bags and it was presented to the court as an agreed fact.

• The test in question was not reliable for factitious insulin. From the label:

“Please note that the insulin assay performed at RLUH is not suitable for the investigation of factitious hypoglycaemia. If exogenous insulin administration is suspected as the cause of hypoglycaemia, please inform the laboratory so that the sample can be referred externally for analysis.”

• The test results seem to indicate very high levels of insulin: 4657 pmol/L is about four times a dangerously high level in an adult. While, yes, this is what you might expect a murderer to try to do —
• Both babies recovered: You might expect premature babies registering such high insulin levels — four times a critical level for an adult — might have at least caused a fuss at the hospital. But not only did the babies make a full recovery, with no record of hypoglycemic coma, but —
• No-one even noticed the high insulin in their tests until 2018: That is, three years after the babies made a full recovery. If you are looking for a res ipsa loquitur about these events, can we suggest that this is as indicative of negligence in the clinical staff administering the test, or the self-professed unreliability of the tests for detecting factitious insulin.

The victim’s families

There are unquestionable victims here: the families. If Lucy Letby wasn’t responsible then this was either an unavoidable accident, in which case, there is no closure, or there is another culpable explanation — an alternative murderer seems extremely implausible — but medical misadventure of some kind is not. Difficult

The note

Everyone seems to accept the notes are highly inclusive and of little evidential value.

“The ramblings of someone under extreme psychological pressure.”

Yet they are routinely wheeled out.

Resources

Online

• That New Yorker Article (choose your own snapshot from the Wayback Machine)
• Mephitis - The Lucy Letby Case May In Time Be The Story Of The Century
• TriedbyStats
• The Insulin ‘Evidence’ in the Lucy Letby Trial. Criminal Justice in England: Disagreeable Facts

Podcasts

• We need to talk about Lucy Letby (Peter Elston and Michael McConville podcast)
• The Trial of Lucy Letby (Daily Mail podcast)

See also

• Miscarriages of justice