The Crimes of Convicted Serial Killer Lucy Letby: A Conversation with Jessica Cash

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[00:01:45] Hidden Object game. You play as Jean Parker. She's a flapper slash sleuth and she's all about

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[00:02:34] and Android. Content warning. This episode involves a discussion of the murder of infants. It is

[00:02:42] very disturbing. Seven. Seven infants. Over the course of one year, seven babies died under

[00:02:50] mysterious circumstances in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England.

[00:02:57] Seven more collapsed under equally strange circumstances. Those seven survived. But as time went on,

[00:03:04] it became apparent to those working there. The death stalked the neonatal unit from June 2015

[00:03:11] to June 2016. On July 3rd, 2018, a young nurse named Lucy Lepby was first arrested for the killings.

[00:03:19] Her trial began in 2022. Lepby faced seven murder counts along with 15 counts of attempted murder.

[00:03:27] She pleaded not guilty. The baby she was accused of killing or attacking were not

[00:03:33] named due to court orders and rules around privacy. The prosecution piece together a complicated

[00:03:40] case connecting Lepby to each of the deaths. They showed how Lepby would incessantly text friends

[00:03:47] and colleagues about the struggling infants under her care, including the ones who died,

[00:03:52] keeping pictures of some of them. They noted that the fatal or near fatal incidents only

[00:03:59] began when Lepby started working intensive care cases and that they stopped when she was reassigned

[00:04:05] in 2016. They argued that two of the babies showed evidence of deliberate insulin poisoning

[00:04:11] according to the prosecution. The prosecution also said that Lepby's weapons of choice

[00:04:16] were hard to detect measures like injections of insulin and air. The defense countered

[00:04:22] Lepby was a scapegoat for a busy, poorly run, neonatal unit. While Lepby at trial agreed

[00:04:28] that at least two of the babies had been deliberately injected with insulin by somebody,

[00:04:33] the defense argued that it wasn't her and it seemed that some of the deaths may have just been natural.

[00:04:39] In the end, the jury agreed with the prosecution. In 2023, Lepby was found guilty.

[00:04:45] She was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2024, things got even worse for her.

[00:04:50] The court of appeal rejected her application to appeal. In July, she was convicted on yet another

[00:04:57] counter-murder. She is now imprisoned at Bronzefield and she continues to claim her innocence.

[00:05:03] Despite this outcome, reporting from the New Yorker raised questions about Lepby's guilt

[00:05:08] and featured statements from experts who threw into doubt the validity of the prosecution's

[00:05:13] evidence. Since then, the case has been mired in controversy. Today, we will speak to a researcher

[00:05:19] named Jessica Cash. Jessica has been on our program before. She's wonderful. She will take us through

[00:05:26] all of the facts of this very complicated case and she will even explain where she falls regarding

[00:05:31] the question of guilt or innocence. My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:05:37] And I'm Kevin Greenley. I'm an attorney. And this is the murder sheet.

[00:05:41] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reported interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:05:47] We are the murder sheet. And this is the crimes of convicted serial killer Lucy Lepby,

[00:05:53] a conversation with Jessica Cash. It's hard to imagine what would make anyone kill seven babies

[00:06:44] and attack seven others. But we know killers like this do exist. Medical serial killers are a whole

[00:06:50] phenomenon. This is when serial killers employ this physician's nurses and other types of medical

[00:06:55] caregivers prey upon the patients in their care. Motives can vary. Sometimes they want to play

[00:07:02] God or feel important. Other times, they have a misguided sense of wanting to put victims out of

[00:07:07] their misery. Either way, this does happen. In fact, England produced one of the most notorious

[00:07:13] of these types of killers, Dr. Harold or Fred Schittman. He's believed to have killed at least

[00:07:25] a patient or administering a fatal dose himself. So this is not exactly some bizarre new concept.

[00:07:32] Also, not new is this level of attention and controversy that surrounds this case.

[00:07:37] There seems to be an increasing amount of division about Lepby's case.

[00:07:42] There have even been conspiracy theories cropping up, some of which require the parents of the

[00:07:47] murdered babies to be lying. It is a lot to unpack. Here to talk about that evidence is Jessica Cash.

[00:07:56] She's a true crime researcher. Her business is just the facts true crime research.

[00:08:02] She helps podcasters put together research files on the cases they want to cover,

[00:08:07] and she is quite good at it. Today, she will be taking us through the saga of Lucy Lepby.

[00:08:13] So Jessica, thank you so much for coming back on our program. We always love chatting

[00:08:17] to you about different cases and sort of getting your research expertise on the variety of cases.

[00:08:23] So thanks for being here. Yeah, it's really good to have a really nice talk to you guys.

[00:08:27] So yeah, it's great to be here. Awesome. I guess to start off with, can you tell us a bit about

[00:08:34] who Lucy Lepby is before we get into this wider murder case?

[00:08:40] Yeah, I'm so Lucy Lepby is a former near-naital nurse. She was born in 1990 in Heraphidshire

[00:08:51] and she comes from quite a nice family background. She's in only child,

[00:08:59] more than dad still together, very kind of close and tight-knit family.

[00:09:06] As she began training as a nurse in 2008 at the University of Chester, which is in the

[00:09:13] North West Rangland, she trained at Liverpool, and then at the counters of Chester.

[00:09:22] And you can see there's been not many clips of her with her and dad, but they were always there during the first

[00:09:31] trial. And when she qualified as a nurse, they put an advert in the paper saying,

[00:09:36] well, don't mind so proud of you. So it's really kind of, she comes, there's nothing in her background

[00:09:43] that would indicate anything strange about her own any kind of these tendencies.

[00:09:49] And my sister, my sister's friend actually went to school with with Lepby. And so I learned this

[00:09:55] reason they were like, tell me everything. And she just said, I don't, she was very quiet.

[00:10:06] There's nothing she'd referred to as the vanilla cure and I think that's quite

[00:10:12] natural. She's very beige. This, this really not a huge amount of known about her between

[00:10:21] and going to this quite nice state, state school, quite a nice school,

[00:10:27] going to university and then qualified to nurse.

[00:10:31] Absolutely, yeah, not not really many red flags there. And one thing I wanted to ask though

[00:10:37] before we get into the murder case is just for our US base listeners who may not be as familiar

[00:10:43] with the sort of wider context of the British medical system for lack of a better term.

[00:10:50] Are there any sort of ins and outs of that that you can sort of contextualize how it might

[00:10:56] operate a bit differently or be a bit unique from the US base system, which of course is privatized

[00:11:03] and bad. So let me work in National Health Service or NHS hospitals exclusively.

[00:11:13] So the training and the women's hospital that's going to make stress hospital and then where the

[00:11:19] killing spree place is also the council cluster is also in NHS hospital. And so we do have

[00:11:27] hospitals here. They are nicer, you have less away, in less but they're also very expensive

[00:11:36] and where's that being was working with the vast vast majority of people who need medical care

[00:11:42] in this country, do buy the NHS and because of the course that she was doing, she would very

[00:11:50] likely have received funding to complete her course. So state funding to go to university, state

[00:11:56] funding to complete her training and then she's a nurse, she was a band, born nurse, which is

[00:12:04] not quite the most senior band but it's quite near the top band and that was in June 2015 when

[00:12:12] the spree started. So now let's get into the facts underpinning the killing spree and sort of

[00:12:21] ended up happening with that if you could break that sort of series of events down to us.

[00:12:27] Yeah sure so in spring 2015 let me qualified as a band for nurse and that means that in the

[00:12:40] in the in-earnatal system she could work with the sickest babies, the most ill babies and at

[00:12:47] pounds of chest up on there on their neonatal ward, there are four nurseries, nursery one which

[00:12:54] is intensive care, nursery two, high dependency, slightly less serious and then nursery three

[00:13:00] and four which are progressively less serious and then in early June 2015 let me went to a training session

[00:13:11] on the dangers of air embalism. Now air embalism is when you're applying an IV drip into

[00:13:19] baby interpens veins and if there's an air bubble in it it can cause serious complications

[00:13:27] and so she receives this training and then about a week later

[00:13:34] this unexplained collapse and death happens and so any sort of the kind of facts around it I mean

[00:13:42] this is one of the things that is quite surreal about this case. Those two things,

[00:13:48] qualifying as a band for nurse is not suspicious, going to a training session on air embalism

[00:13:53] is not suspicious but there's no red flag that implicates something changed in her life to make

[00:13:59] these things that are happening but suddenly they did, but in terms of the fact that it's on

[00:14:05] the ground at the hospital, the suspicious kind of events and there were 25 events listed as being

[00:14:13] suspicious between June 2015 and June 2016 because this case took a while to get to the police

[00:14:23] further substantial amount of time to get to trial last year but in June 2015

[00:14:32] I had a look at these statistics around neonatal deaths in the count of chest there. In 2013

[00:14:41] January to January, there are three deaths, three neonatal deaths in 2014, there are three

[00:14:50] neonatal deaths in January to May 2015, there was one neonatal death and then in I think I said

[00:15:00] early June before it was either like May or early June let me do the course where she's

[00:15:04] taught about the dangers of air embalists or gaps and deaths and then from June to December 2015

[00:15:14] there are eight neonatal deaths in January to June 2016, there are seven neonatal deaths

[00:15:23] and this is what they're taking off the ward in June 2016

[00:15:28] and then for the rest of 2016 there are no deaths, there are 2021, 2021, 2018

[00:15:37] we don't have the statistics for the rest for the years since then but you see this massive

[00:15:43] spike, massive spike of deaths between that June to June and none of the staff on the ward

[00:15:56] wanted to believe that there was inflicted harm and that was the phrase that kept being used they've

[00:16:03] used I repeatedly introduced they didn't want to believe that any number of staff could possibly be

[00:16:09] holding that one of the consultants and this line is always where he stuck with me from him

[00:16:15] because they had a meeting in early July 2016 with the consultants there's senior doctors on the

[00:16:21] ward and they made they've there's four collapses in June 2015, three deaths

[00:16:28] for sudden unexplained collapses of babies and they noticed that left these on shift

[00:16:35] it's really difficult to talk about sorry but they noticed there's this pattern they say

[00:16:41] literally let these on shift for all of them and doctors even bury the accounts that he says in

[00:16:46] that meeting, well it can't be lucid not nice lucid so I know that's quite a long answer those are

[00:16:54] kind of that I suppose the background bats of it and I think it contextualises kind of

[00:17:00] there was a clear spiking death and unexplained events and he's then about looking into how

[00:17:06] those could have happened yeah that is a great recounting and it definitely is is such a disturbing

[00:17:13] pattern and so you mentioned there's this sort of delay in action because nobody wants to think

[00:17:21] that someone is doing some purpose and I guess where does the investigation really kick in

[00:17:29] that starts indicating that these deaths may not be an accident. That's a really complex question

[00:17:38] because by in the in June and July 2015 they had already noticed the link but they didn't

[00:17:49] believe it was anything to do with it was let me but these collapses keep carry on happening so it's

[00:17:57] to in September and there's another in October and actually a murder in October and

[00:18:07] do you see your doctors have become increasingly concerned and so on 23rd of October which is after

[00:18:15] the death of the baby who's been named and child eye there's a meeting held between the consultants again

[00:18:21] sorry when I say consultants that's the senior doctors on the walls and so they hold a staffing

[00:18:26] review and they find that let me is on shift again but all of these incidents that they can't

[00:18:35] explain and so Dr Stephen Breary raises these concerns again another doctor the who I don't know if

[00:18:46] it's been on TV in the US but he has been here Dr Ravi Jairam and who worked on the ward also

[00:18:52] alerted management to the concerns of consultants and he's told don't make a fuss and Stephen Breary

[00:19:02] is told it's very unlikely that let me be involved but they are concretely aware of this in October

[00:19:11] 2015 and he's not clear from the fact of the case whether Lecby was told of these concerns

[00:19:20] I suspect as a human being in someone who has looked at this case quite a lot and looked at the

[00:19:29] psychology of other serial killers I suspect that she learned that things were being said about her

[00:19:37] the reason I say that is because there are no further intents from the 23rd of October 2015

[00:19:45] until the night the rate brought 2016 that is almost a six month gap and this is someone who

[00:19:57] killed three babies in a month in gz 2015 that led to all of this hammock and horror

[00:20:05] couldn't stop us off and doing it then and then takes a break for six months without being without

[00:20:11] having a reason I find that difficult I find difficult to rationalize why they'll be that gap

[00:20:19] and but I don't know but then in February 2016 it's a during that break there's a review

[00:20:28] that's been ordered by Stephen Breary one of the consultants because the consultants as he

[00:20:36] had doctors remain very concerned and when they ordered what was called a thematic review where

[00:20:43] they weren't just looking at who's on ship what happened they're trying to find

[00:20:49] is there are there any commonalities between these deaths and there were and I'm yeah I can

[00:20:55] come back to that but one of the themes that they noticed was let me's there every single time

[00:21:04] and so Stephen Breary requested an urgent meeting with hospital executives on the 8th of February

[00:21:14] 2016 nine meetings in February and in March and in April in May 2016 they finally have this meeting

[00:21:25] and during that time let me attempt to murder child L child M. It's only really

[00:21:33] by the grace of God by luck that those two babies didn't die that in May 2016 they do have the

[00:21:43] meeting and this is something that was brought out by the defensive trial the hospital executives said

[00:21:51] there is no evidence against let me over them coincidence that's not true by the way

[00:21:57] that's just not true there is plenty of evidence against let me over them the coincidence of her

[00:22:04] being them but the curler they couldn't act to take off the ward

[00:22:11] and so in June the attempts to murder child Anne and she murdered child Owen Jarlpin who are two

[00:22:18] babies in a set of triplets and then finally on the 24th of June 2016 Stephen Breary

[00:22:31] losing his mind with worry at this point is how it appears to have been described

[00:22:36] he found the GT executive at the hospital and said she has to be removed from the human

[00:22:43] and at this point I've listened to entities with the doctors to try and see

[00:22:47] had they already made up their minds what was happening if you take the doctor of the

[00:22:51] word which I am inclined to do they at that point were not convinced that let me was involved

[00:22:57] in all of these incidents where even if you don't you think they had decided at that point

[00:23:03] they have plenty of reason to have decided at this point they got 24 incidents that were

[00:23:08] subsequently deemed suspicious some of which they had found at the time were very strange

[00:23:15] and Breary finally says you have to take off the ward the GT executive

[00:23:23] res insists that Lucy that is safe to work and is happy to take the responsibility if anything happens

[00:23:30] other babies when let me was on shift the next day 25th of June 2016 another baby collapsed

[00:23:39] now to be clear the jury couldn't reach a verdict on that on on chart on baby two so I'm not

[00:23:46] I have an opinion but I'm not saying that let me was involved in that incident the jury couldn't reach a verdict

[00:23:52] but after that she's finally taken off off the unit after the ward and then she's moved she's

[00:24:01] not sat she's removed for kind of safety at the same time the hardwood reduces it's

[00:24:07] compact capacity from 16 beds to 12 and they stopped taking the very very sickest babies

[00:24:13] which are all very sensible measures because they're not they're still not sure and this is

[00:24:19] I tend to believe the doctors and you said they weren't convinced it was let be at that point

[00:24:23] because they still took these measures I didn't just get rid of Lucy that they

[00:24:27] and so that's it then that's fine they took other measures in case there was a problem with the practice

[00:24:36] and what do you know as I mentioned the death in the death of the rest of that year stop

[00:24:42] and since then they've remained the statistics that we have they've remained at a low level

[00:24:50] but it takes almost a year of let me still working in the hospital in a nonpatient facing role

[00:24:57] for her to be arrested so she's removed from the ward in June 2016 and in September 2016 she

[00:25:07] is the formal grievance to disciplinary grievance against the consultants and accused them of

[00:25:12] falsely accusing her of causing these deaths and collapses and in January 2017 and this is the

[00:25:23] part that blows my mind that grievance was upheld Lucy let be her grievance against these

[00:25:31] consultants who rightly believe that she had been attacking babies that was upheld and they were

[00:25:38] ordered to send her a letter of apology which they did because what else could they do but after

[00:25:47] that's done in February 2017 they finally they finally went to the police in March 2017

[00:25:56] and part of the reason they finally decided to do that is because she was due to what

[00:26:03] returned to work on the ward in May 2017 and so they finally went into the police

[00:26:16] and the police launched this investigation and yeah I can talk a bit more about how the

[00:26:23] one thing I'd be curious is did the police investigation right now this kind of a

[00:26:30] comprehensive look at this kind of spike in mysterious deaths of these babies that are all tied to

[00:26:37] when Lucy left be as on ship but you know given that these weren't necessarily looked at as

[00:26:43] you know it murders immediately were the police and investigators able to determine

[00:26:51] how exactly the babies died and and sort of how Lucy like be might have had a role in that

[00:26:58] they give the term in how they believe in to die and this is where I mean I'm sure

[00:27:06] even listeners will be aware there have been some questions raised about the evidence that's been

[00:27:11] made it just been used against Lucy let me and this is where a lot of that comes in people

[00:27:15] questioned the methods they say they're really believed for example nasal gastric ambulance which is

[00:27:22] the administration of air for an M.G.2 through working with a consultant pediatrician like

[00:27:29] called Dauy Evans who are decades of experience they came to the conclusion of a number of

[00:27:36] different mode of sub-run died that yet be used and so as well I've mentioned airamblers in terms

[00:27:42] of the bloodstream and there's also the air bolus in the nasal gastric tube

[00:27:53] there's a case of injection of air directly into the baby's stomach

[00:28:00] there's also two instances of insulin poisoning one instance of tube disloyalement the nasal gastric

[00:28:09] tube being removed and then this is really horrible sorry but inflicted throat trauma with

[00:28:17] some kind of medical instrument what is the press covered with this case been like

[00:28:22] Steve if you'd asked me out three months ago I would have said I'd been absolutely

[00:28:29] downing because it had some of it was really quite intense I remember before the trial even started

[00:28:36] I was trying to dig up any information that I occurred about the case I listened to this podcast

[00:28:42] by an American podcaster who didn't have the legal restriction that we had on talking about it

[00:28:50] and this podcast is said before let me have been a done trial and this is quite explicit

[00:28:56] sorry which she said I would like to punch her in the ovaries and everything and that's a lot

[00:29:02] we don't know what we don't know if she's done anything yeah she hasn't been to trial during a trial

[00:29:06] there was fantastically a coverage on a podcast called the trial of Lucy Lepley which

[00:29:13] if you want to understand this case and you don't want to read for days at a time then listen

[00:29:20] to that podcast it's fantastic I just used convicted there were articles said things like

[00:29:26] one quote for example she has opened the dates to hell and the stench threatens to overpower

[00:29:32] us all I read that I am thinking that's like we're talking about she's done something very evil

[00:29:39] I don't feel sorry for her I feel sorry for the families who are kind of having that

[00:29:45] quite over the top rhetoric being used but over the last few months there's been a real ship

[00:29:51] and so there was the New Yorker article which was published which caught we called into question

[00:29:59] safe beer let these convictions and I mean as a piece of advocacy journalism it was very well

[00:30:08] written but it was not true there were things left out things misrepresented with that kind

[00:30:16] line and we weren't allowed to read that here by the way which I don't agree with we weren't allowed

[00:30:21] to read it because she still had an ongoing appeal and then a retrial for the attempted murder

[00:30:28] of baby k so we weren't allowed to read it in case we happen to be on the jury since she was

[00:30:34] convicted by her secondary jury the 11 in the first trial because one jury jorah had to drop out

[00:30:40] the story of 12 in the second trial had all been convinced that let the committed murder and

[00:30:45] or attempted murder we've seen more of these articles and I think a lot of it comes down to

[00:30:58] quit is them are the NHS rather than wanting to accept an nurse could be sending so horrible

[00:31:06] they want to blame a conspiracy of NHS doctors and managers who have gang together

[00:31:15] to blame whole who select me you know and which is an evolution of her theory expressed

[00:31:23] the trial which was that there were four consultants who the gang of four they were called

[00:31:29] who club together to blame everything on let me now that turns into all of these people

[00:31:35] inspiring together to cover up mistakes of the hospital to blame her and that's gone echo

[00:31:42] in parts of the right wing press paleo conservatives pseudo libertarians and you know

[00:31:49] but there's a former government minister like or David Davis who is trying to raise this in

[00:31:53] parliament and I'm open to people asking question he was should ask questions anyone is

[00:32:01] absolutely welcome to do so but I would say when you look at the facts of the case as they're

[00:32:10] reported in the trial recently podcast as they're reported in the media coverage also there's a

[00:32:23] there's so much information there is an appeal judge ruling panel of three judges

[00:32:31] and I feel that once you've read those things if you still come away with questions about her

[00:32:35] guilt if you still come away with questions out loud I'll kill activating on the bat I'm surprised

[00:32:41] I'll put it like that I'm curious mentioned the article by Rachel and V for the New Yorker

[00:32:48] which definitely got a lot of buzz I saw a lot of people talking about the case on social media

[00:32:53] from that context and sort of in many cases concluding that Lucy Lappy was railroaded what sort of

[00:33:00] pieces of information were not included in that piece that you kind of think are significant

[00:33:06] and could kind of point more towards the guilt side of things? Yeah so Lucy let me be the

[00:33:13] media towards so well before we even get to that the statistics were misrepresented in that article

[00:33:20] and in a number of other articles let me was initially charged with eight murders one of

[00:33:25] those was later changed to an attempted murder because in an example of prosecutorial restraint

[00:33:31] because that baby baby K died three days later they couldn't prove prove that the death was

[00:33:38] let be spoke I have an opinion about whether it was morally helpful but legally they couldn't

[00:33:45] prove it there's seven deaths and there's a well she there was at least 13 deaths on the

[00:33:52] ward or at that in that period of time she wasn't charged with all of them now she wasn't

[00:34:00] but she was on shift role of them she was on shift for all of those 13 deaths I'm not saying

[00:34:08] she course all of them I don't believe that she did I've had interviews with doctors who were on

[00:34:13] when these are the babies died basically they were natural and unfortunate tragic deaths

[00:34:18] not caused by a gifted arm that was something that I thought that as these misrepresented was

[00:34:23] empty and there was also really and this one I thought was quite a grudges and deliverer in

[00:34:32] the new article as these reports start and towards the end of the trial the court received an email

[00:34:39] from a concern number of the public saying that a jura had been in her cafe and was saying

[00:34:46] that the jury had made up their minds from the start they didn't need to hear the evidence they

[00:34:50] were always going to conduct her deeply concerning like that is deeply concerning to the judge

[00:34:57] and rightly so and the judge tries to investigate this and sucks the court clerk to reply

[00:35:04] and say can you give us some more information? There's no reply so they instruct the police they don't

[00:35:12] instruct the chessia police because they were involved in investigating the charges against the

[00:35:17] they could be biased and it's a great amount of evidence which is a nearby region and when

[00:35:26] the forensic people, the computer forensic people from great amount of evidence, look at this

[00:35:31] they find that it's a nearly set-up email address in a name that doesn't match the name of any

[00:35:40] business owner or a cafe in the area but it doesn't match the name of a woman who worked at

[00:35:46] the restaurant so they contacted this who was previously reported things to the police

[00:35:51] so they contacted this random woman who shares this name and the spinoid incident just to

[00:35:57] run it down and check was it indeed she and others in no she didn't and the defense abaduring the

[00:36:05] judge to investigate this more and to not allow the jury to continue deliberating and the judges

[00:36:13] will look this person hasn't replied to the email asking for more information with tried to

[00:36:19] on it down and everything we've looked at around this doesn't add up to anything I can't tell

[00:36:25] the jury to stop deliberating and I say stop deliberating by my rather than start because Rachel is

[00:36:33] these wrote that this happened towards the end of trial the jury was 13 days into deliberating

[00:36:41] 13 days so on the face of it the email saying the jury was in here and he said they'd made

[00:36:48] their minds and the star can't be true because after 13 days they hadn't come back with any verdicts

[00:36:57] they didn't come back with a verdict from another six days after this email was received

[00:37:02] but eventually the person who's shown to see mail is initials our care that's all we know

[00:37:08] eventually email is back again and give some more information by which they can identify

[00:37:14] which juror she was talking about and the judge calls this juror in and says do you know anything

[00:37:23] about this and he answers honestly and he says well I've never been in that cafe but my girlfriend

[00:37:29] used to work there and so they say tell us a little more about that and it turns out

[00:37:35] yet on the second of August about to a clock about an hour before the email was sent to the court

[00:37:43] the police have been called by his girlfriend on the owner of the cafe you don't buy a couple

[00:37:49] and it's called on the mail owner because the juror's girlfriend I appreciate this is getting

[00:37:54] convoluted I'm sorry um the juror's girlfriend had sold the owner of phone and he didn't pay

[00:38:00] for it and then when she confronted about the money he assaulted her she called the police they

[00:38:07] came out and instructed him just pay her or send her more about it basically and and then

[00:38:15] lovin behold now a later the court gets this email complaining about the conduct of one of the

[00:38:20] jurors but isn't a coincidence it was just not and the fact that the juror was entirely honest

[00:38:27] about he didn't try and say well I don't know anything about this place that indicates to me that

[00:38:35] he was being truthful and the fact that the email is wrong on the face of it because of how long

[00:38:42] the juror is spent deliberating makes me dismiss it but as these didn't get into any of them

[00:38:49] she just mentioned this as a kind of a throwaway thing and it's a misrepresentation of what happened

[00:38:56] because that would make any reasonable person in case about justice thing a juror was saying

[00:39:04] they'd made up their minds that's terrible but that's just not what happened I'm curious like I

[00:39:12] feel like this is an issue that kind of transcends cases where you do have prestigious outlets,

[00:39:20] prestigious creators, documentarians, podcasts or writers come into a case and and do something

[00:39:26] very splashy a project that's very splashy gets a lot of ink it's a lot of attention

[00:39:31] but very much influences the public's opinions but whether or not it's advocating for

[00:39:37] innocence or even guilt in some cases then it's looked at more strongly as a later on and

[00:39:43] it turned out to have some pretty significant flaws and in fact be trying to

[00:39:48] more of shape the narrative rather than just depict a complicated situation and I guess

[00:39:54] that's just me ranting I don't know there's a question there I guess Jessica what do you think of that

[00:39:59] and are there any ways that all of us as true crime consumers can kind of inoculator cells

[00:40:07] against that while also being willing to take in information even if it's something we disagree with

[00:40:13] that is a brilliant question and yeah I absolutely agree with that and this isn't

[00:40:19] something new it feels like it is sometimes and I do think it's going worse but bluntly

[00:40:26] be looking back in the 90s at Paradise Lost you can see the misrepresentation of the

[00:40:32] Western Empress 3 case and then you fast forward a bit and you see making a murderer

[00:40:38] the misrepresentation of the Avery Gassie murder of Trudeau Zahoba staircase misrepresentation

[00:40:45] of the murder of Kathleen Peterson by Michael Peterson and plenty of others along the way

[00:40:52] some even more agree just than than those examples and I think ultimately the way to

[00:41:00] look at it is and you had that the interview with the skeptic gentleman whose name escapes me at

[00:41:06] the moment but one of the things that he said at least without him was if something you're listening

[00:41:11] to backs up your natural biases you should definitely question that and I really took that to

[00:41:18] heart because often I tend to agree with what I tend to think the last thing that I've heard is

[00:41:26] very compelling and then when I look at it a bit more I'm like oh you know that's there's actually

[00:41:33] a lot more to this and I also know that I tend to after hearing but after hearing evidence I tend

[00:41:42] to lean off and towards guilt and so I will look at the other side of it but when those these big

[00:41:50] splashy pieces and they are invariably you said they could be towards guilt as well and I'm sure

[00:41:56] that's the case but I am yet to really see that a kind of a big splashy piece in the New Yorker

[00:42:05] or whatever saying so and so is actually the death of your guilty it doesn't really happen because

[00:42:13] and I think part of the reason with that is it's it's less interesting to a lot of people

[00:42:19] if you say someone is maybe innocent the story's not over could they have got something wrong

[00:42:27] could they the shadowy day have got something wrong and railroaded this innocent person whether it's

[00:42:35] whether it's middle class white woman Lucy let me or middle class white woman Karen Reed

[00:42:39] it's always kind of could they could could they be being railroaded I think we I think you're

[00:42:45] absolutely right I think most of these are tend to be pro-defense narratives for the reason you stated

[00:42:50] because that's more interesting and journalists like and speaking from experience it's

[00:42:58] it's often seen as better to come in and be like hey could we have all been wrong about this let's think

[00:43:03] then to be like oh yeah this this is definitely what it looks like yeah and that's I

[00:43:12] yeah with with the big high profile case because let me in case it was a longest trial in British legal

[00:43:18] history we were on for 10 months and people still come to me at the end of that and say well you

[00:43:26] know there's only the only evidence they've got against those that she was there that's not true

[00:43:31] but it's much more interesting to think that this poor and fortunate soul has been wrongly charged

[00:43:38] with the most horrible crime you can really imagine than to think well she did it that's when

[00:43:49] you say that that's the end of the matter that would also involve parents of some of these babies

[00:43:56] lying or being mistaken over and over again about the behavior of Lucy let me and that would also

[00:44:03] potentially when you go against the wider kind of some of the wild elements on the internet how they

[00:44:12] view this as involving a larger group with the hospital to all pin all their failures on this one

[00:44:19] nerves and I'm sure that's interesting and you know perhaps entertaining for some people to think

[00:44:27] that happened but it's not reality reality is concrete and when you look at the evidence there is

[00:44:40] a mountain of evidence against Lucy let me a lot of which people are simply

[00:44:48] not aware of and which they will not be made aware of if the media continues to cover it in

[00:44:54] the moment. What do you think is some of the most striking evidence against her that people may not be aware of?

[00:45:03] And that is the that is the perfect question I would say some of the agreed facts of the case

[00:45:10] are damning for that they and the thing that convinced me because I was following this

[00:45:15] live at the time and the thing that made me first think okay she did it was the attempted murder

[00:45:23] of babies F and L and the reason I say those two in particular they were poisoned with insulin

[00:45:34] there was no reason for them to be administered insulin at the time at which they were but

[00:45:41] their blood service came back incredibly low and their insulin levels came back incredibly high

[00:45:49] with low CPeptide levels now I am not a medical professional but I have read the opinion of

[00:45:56] the medical professionals in the case and they say that indicates the administration of synthetic

[00:46:04] insulin and this was an agreed fact at the trial that if Fence agreed must let be agreed with the

[00:46:17] administered insulin to those two babies so you look at the shift rotor there is one other nurse

[00:46:25] who was on shift for babies F and L and this nurse has been named in a film group during

[00:46:33] certain days but in the syncop she was put on the stand twice and denied obviously the

[00:46:40] insulin but it's her and left me who are on shift for both of those times there are 25

[00:46:46] suspicious incidents so look again at the ship rotor left me is on shift for 25 suspicious

[00:46:53] incidents the Linda Syncop is on shift for five five out 25 so unless there are two poisonous

[00:47:04] neither of whom are left me in on the ward it's her over in the syncop they require

[00:47:10] she's believed that either for any syncop did those two things and all the other things aren't suspicious

[00:47:17] or that five of them were done by a bill in the syncop once you've been were done by a

[00:47:23] another or they were just natural the other conclusions that Lucy let me to hunt the bad

[00:47:32] that was tampered with insulin she did it and that I think is the more rational

[00:47:41] conclusion and those are the two of the verdicts that the jury came to a quickest and unanimous

[00:47:47] verdict on and there's also baby O who had such traumatic liver damage that one of the pathologists

[00:47:55] said it was like they'd been in a car crash baby E who his mother came into the ward and he had

[00:48:04] blurred all around his mouth and let me said a doctor's on his way go back upstairs trust me

[00:48:11] arm and then in the medical records let me and mix the fact that the mother was over there

[00:48:18] so you had to believe that baby's mother is lying why why would she do that I think that

[00:48:27] there is very little direct evidence against let me and I don't hurt notes she wrote some notes

[00:48:34] on post it notes and one of them said I am evil I did this some people found that compelling

[00:48:41] I think if you think she's guilty that's compelling if you think she's innocent it's the

[00:48:48] rangling of a woman in despair but and I wouldn't emphasise that so much but a lot of people find

[00:48:56] that convince them I think her mere presence on the ward isn't you know but you don't have just

[00:49:03] done she's always with the babies just before their collapse and then of these babies ever

[00:49:11] collapse when their parents are there parents leave the ward and suddenly they collapse they're

[00:49:16] ignited nurse those on break loosey let me go in there and suddenly they collapse and it happens

[00:49:22] over and over and over again and that kind of you can say statistics it's just a normal variance

[00:49:36] in the deaths actually it's well above the normal variance they expect to to four a year

[00:49:44] to six it could would be considered normal there were 13 13 that is not within the normal range

[00:49:52] I don't believe at least he let me kill all of those 13 babies I believe she killed the seven

[00:49:58] she was convicted of I believe she is morally responsible for the death of baby k three days after

[00:50:05] she attacked him and I think she is remains legally responsible for the last thing

[00:50:14] brain damage physical complications that the other babies who she attacked have

[00:50:19] and I would urge people the because there are 17 babies that she attacked I can't explain

[00:50:27] all of the evidence in all of those cases I'll say listen if you want to get into a

[00:50:33] child at least you let me go to the cattle wiki or send a link to him to you Kevin and I

[00:50:39] and you can share that you should read that because when I've been looking into again the

[00:50:46] in preparation for this interview when I first followed the trial when I saw this woman who looks

[00:50:55] over the name her mugshot no no one looks good in a mugshot and but in her pictures on the

[00:51:01] ward she looks nice as part she looks sweet she looks beige vanilla and I thought she really have done

[00:51:11] this could she really and I've been looking at it again listening to the podcast again

[00:51:20] reading the evidence again and honestly the reflection I come out with is how did it take me so

[00:51:27] long to be convinced the first time around the evidence against Lucy let me just overwhelm

[00:51:32] in it convinced 11 jurors in her first trial it convinced 12 jurors in three hours

[00:51:38] about the death of baby k in her second child it took three hours to determine

[00:51:42] she was guilty of the attempted murder of baby k and appeals panel of three judges

[00:51:49] denied her leave for appeal and reviewed all the evidence and I'm sorry I find that a lot more compelling

[00:51:57] than the opinions of journalists that are not subject to cross examination in fantasy magazines

[00:52:06] sorry I'm yeah I am with you on that because I I'm personally am kind of

[00:52:19] you call it kindly advocacy journalism but I think there are good examples of responsible advocacy

[00:52:26] journalism that does a great job raising questions and even perhaps saying hey this person

[00:52:32] really may not have gotten a fair trial or may not have done what they're accused of doing

[00:52:38] but that should never involve omitting key facts or distorting key facts in order to make a

[00:52:47] point it should go with the facts and if the facts for that journalist point two innocence great

[00:52:52] and and if not then you know I guess I just I get sick of the manipulation too and one

[00:53:00] thing I want to ask you is you know despite the fact that this case has become bizarrely sounding

[00:53:04] you know it sounds like it's been bizarrely politicized in in the UK and it's gotten certainly a

[00:53:12] lot of of people who are now talking about it in expressing skepticism does Lucy let be have a chance

[00:53:20] of actually getting out based on any of this or is the legal process essentially over for her

[00:53:26] now the better peels thing is done so I expect that's a apply for leave to appeal the second

[00:53:34] victim for the attempted murder of baby Kay I would have also predicted that will be denied but

[00:53:41] there's an interesting kind of thing about her sentencing so she was convicted on 13 counts in

[00:53:46] her first trial seven counts of murder six counts of attempted murder and then convicted attempted

[00:53:51] murder in her second trial one time she was sentenced to a whole life tariff or you would call

[00:53:58] it out parole on every single charge so if let's say the conviction for attempting to murder

[00:54:06] baby Kay is overturned she still got another 13 so she would have to overturn all of those

[00:54:13] convictions to ever get up prison but her first trial the legal room is essentially over I mean

[00:54:20] the caveat that we have the criminal cases review commission and I'm sure she will apply to them

[00:54:26] and they will look at it but realistically unless there is some brand new evidence that comes out

[00:54:38] the exonorate sir the legal room is certainly over for the first 13 charges I suspect it will

[00:54:56] firstly I'll over her apology and secondly she deserves a hearing if it happens I do not believe

[00:55:04] that will happen because I think the evidence is so overwhelmed that it would take it would take

[00:55:20] you to not have a role in what happened on that you and I had to say I think that a lot more

[00:55:30] people would feel the way I feel she is guilty beyond the reasonable doubt if she wasn't middle

[00:55:38] class and white I think the fact that she comes from this very nice background a nice country town

[00:55:46] looks very sweet I think that is what makes a lot of people think she can possibly have them

[00:55:55] but the courts two juries two juries of her peers saw through that facade the judges saw through

[00:56:06] as well and yeah I think realistically her legal appeals are over really well said and it's

[00:56:15] for all of us to unpack when we find ourselves very much over the identifying with a defendant

[00:56:22] why that might be and it's not to say that you shouldn't then form whatever opinion you're

[00:56:27] forming but if we're if we're overly relating to someone because they are attractive or because

[00:56:32] we come from the same background or from a you know they seem like they wouldn't do this you know

[00:56:37] had bundee also came from a middle class background held down a job and seemed normal

[00:56:43] if someone comes across as someone a lot he just looks guilty and that is terrible well

[00:56:51] and get it you know absolutely it goes both ways just because this has been terrific you've done

[00:56:57] an amazing job walking us through this complicated case in a very easy to understand organized fashion

[00:57:06] and it occurs to me that there are probably people listening today who may be podcasters themselves

[00:57:13] who might want to even perhaps start a podcast and if any people following that category

[00:57:19] and are thinking gosh I wish I had a researcher like Jessica at my side to help me

[00:57:27] research and put together these stories is there anything these people can do?

[00:57:34] well Kevin he's funny that you should mention that so I'm so I run and

[00:57:41] my own business called just a fat through crime research can find me on Twitter at Jessica Fats

[00:57:50] and we're on Facebook just a fat through crime research and what it is I work as a research

[00:57:55] of for a number of podcasters and content creators I will look into cases and

[00:58:04] try and give people the relevant facts in a in a manner that is easily understandable

[00:58:13] and the reason it's you know just the facts is because that's what I've

[00:58:18] been predicted I have expressed opinions on here today absolutely but if I'm researching

[00:58:23] you'll get this is what was said in the court and this is the at what the evidence points to

[00:58:29] yes I am yeah I'm not really looking forward to working with some of our test design

[00:58:37] I love what I do thank you Kevin and I you were an incredible researcher and so we certainly

[00:58:42] can't recommend you highly not yes we very very much endorsed Jessica we're always blown away by

[00:58:47] her research and not only that but the way she's able to explain very complicated cases in ways that

[00:58:52] everyone can understand thanks a lot. well listen Jessica thank you so much for coming on the show

[00:58:57] is there anything we didn't ask you about this case or some of the wider topics that we were

[00:59:02] talking about that you wanted to mention or I think it's important for folks to understand.

[00:59:07] I just I would just like to emphasize again I understand why people want to look twice at cases

[00:59:14] I get it and you should but don't make your second look reading an article in the New Yorker

[00:59:24] saying well she must be innocent look back at the evidence again the evidence in the case and see

[00:59:31] what conclusion you draw what so now tells you is the truth even if it's me you know Kevin

[00:59:41] Ranya is not necessarily the whole story look back at the evidence and draw your own conclusions

[00:59:51] really well said thanks again to Jessica she's awesome and always a wonderful person to talk to

[00:59:59] if you're a podcaster or looking to become one check out just the facts she's the best

[01:00:04] her research abilities are excellent Jessica can help you get all the facts in order for a case

[01:00:09] in order to make your podcasts the best it can be. thanks so much for listening to the murder shade

[01:00:14] if you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover please email us at murder sheet at

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