Lucy Letby - new thread (part 2)

[anonymousamy]

A thread for anyone who was on the last one and wanted to continue the discussion.

What I cannot wrap my head around is Letby’s seemingly completely normal upbringing. Usually serial killers have displayed some kind of markers by the time they start killing, but AFAIK she literally had none. 100% believe she is guilty BTW - just cannot begin to understand it.

I say based on nothing because you don’t know enough about this particular case to be half as sure as you sound.

I think we’re all very familiar with the concept that people who commit awful crimes have very often been shaped by bad upbringings. That’s not news. However, I’m not aware that parenting has been proven to account for all such crimes.

Until it is, it comes across as pure speculation to point fingers at the parents without an awful lot more information than the public has.

@Tatslookawful

No mention of a relationship, ever. Unusual really by the time you make your late 20s.

To be honest, her parents moving closer to the prison speaks absolutely volumes about their character. How anyone could stand by their daughter after killing multiple babies is beyond me. I mean I love my daughter unconditionally but there’s no way on gods green earth I would condone multiple baby murders. I guess their indulgence may have been part of the problem.

Interesting. Not relevant of course, but good to know about. 👍

The psychiatrist/psychologist theories about her are based on her being a medical serial killer.

If she isn't, they're utterly pointless.

I'm not suggesting she may not be guilty on the basis of her not fitting the profile of a medical serial killer. If you read my posts, that's just one aspect.

You're diagnosing her as a psychopath it seems? A psychopath with no-one who has known her throughout her life suggesting anything like that? And none of her behaviour before these crimes suggesting that?

Are you a professionally qualified psychiatrist or psychologist who has met her and assessed her?

I'm guessing not so pipe down and sit back down into your armchair and realise you have nothing to say diagnosistically in this case and you are embarrassing yourself.

One of them is apparently on the list of 30 additional cases which the police are icurrently investigating

A lot of the evidence from people's recollections at the time does sometimes come across as confirmation bias.

See - again I had the same thought early on. Until LL couldn't dispel this by saying "actually x happened and I can can prove it" not did her defence put forward alternative narratives.

LL defence was mostly that she couldn't recall.

So where evidence was put forward with 2/3/4 witnesses saying "this happened". LL could or never did say or prove it didn't. Not being able to remember if that was true or not isn't a defence. Hence why the jury have to decide if her not remembering what a group of people said happened provides reasonable doubt.

In some cases it did. In most it didn't.

I agree with the thing about searching. It's actually made me sit up and think that searches can be traced 🫣

But it's really the whole picture. Searching late at night on xmas day. The connection to those babies and collapses. The connection to confrontations she had with families. Which I will add was another eye opener how many families said her manner was inappropriate as well as staff with the things she said.

In isolation you could just say she was clumsy with poor social skills.

But again the bigger picture.

I'm guessing not so pipe down and sit back down into your armchair and realise you have nothing to say diagnosistically in this case and you are embarrassing yourself.

You want me to pipe down whilst you are coming up with unsubstantiated reasons why a jury of 12 is wrong about 14 convictions of either murder or attempted murder. That's funny.

No I'm not a psychologist but I don't think it takes being one to realise the behaviour is far from normal and that someone who can do these things is a psychopath whether anyone could see the signs before or not.

I am really not the person embarrassing myself on this thread.

Which means you don’t know much about it either. None of us do

I mean a lot of this boils down to nature v nurture doesn't it.

Speculating about childhood and parenting is pretty pointless. Most people who have had difficult childhoods do not go on to murder or attempt to murder multiple babies.

Her parents are not to blame even if she did turn out to have a difficult childhood.

@lifeturnsonadime

I agree. You’re really not the one who’s embarrassed themselves on this thread 🤦‍♀️. LL was indeed psychopathic/displayed psychopathic traits with her truly grim crimes. It doesn’t take a psychologist to work that one out.

They’re not to blame but they may have been a contributing factor towards her inherently narcissistic nature. She clearly had no empathy, and may have been indulged to such an extent that she really did believe she was special, powerful, too good to get caught etc etc. Personally, I don’t feel sorry for them. Not even a tiny bit.

I am very surprised that people can't reconcile her crimes with her outward appearance/life.

I commented on another thread about this: When I went to school one of our teachers told us that one of his previous pupils (before my time) became a nurse. Years later he read about him in the newspaper, because he was convicted for murdering over 100 of his patients. He said that this pupil has always been such a sweet boy and it was very hard to believe that he did that.
This happened abroad (not in the UK).

Lucy Letby won't be the first or the last nurse/doctor to murder her patients.

It's rate, but it's not unheard of.

I do feel sorry for them because it must be bloody awful that your kid could do this no matter your parenting. All this speculation about their parenting must also be difficult.

@TheAloe thanks for your support upthread.

"Interesting. Not relevant of course, but good to know about. 👍"

I remember it well, people wanting her lynched, given to a mob and all sorts of deadly punishments, she killed herself with drink, poor lass couldn't ever recover from being tortured by the state, who failed her, and a baying public. I was a supporter of the death penalty up until then, not anymore, life should mean natural life, with that I do agree, always the opportunity to rectify a wrongful conviction, if needed.

Bang on. I don’t know much about it, and I’ve never claimed to either. But I’m not posting judgemental comments like ‘no sympathy’ or claiming to have insight based on scant reported facts about them. That’s precisely my point.

I don’t agree with the judgement Letby’s parents are getting, not because I’m claiming to know anything either way about them, but because it is deeply unfair to cast aspersions when we do not have enough to go on.

I'm not sure what you're rambling on about to be honest, I was posting in response to the posts about how some articles have been written since the trial and that there have only been one or two people come forward since to say about what she like. Nothing about the inclusion of these in the trial or whether I think it suggests she's guilty or innocent.

That doesn't mean she's innocent but it does mean, as the forensic psychologists have said, that if she's guilty, she is an unprecedented anomaly that would represent a complete overhaul of the previous theories and understanding of medical serial killers.

Well yes their understanding should be updated, I don't think not fitting the mould means she isn't guilty. Shipman wasn't to be honest either- doesn't mean he didn't do anything. Thankfully there haven't been huge numbers of medical serial killers really, so you'd expect the mo to update and change at this point.

The fact that she was on the ward so much more than she needed to be does in itself seem a little odd. Neonatal nursing is really tiring, and when you have to deal with a child who suddenly becomes extremely seriously ill and, sometimes, dies, it's absolutely emotionally exhausting as well. If you believe her to be innocent, that means she had to cope with way more than her fair share of really traumatic cases, yet kept coming back for more of the same when no-one would have blamed her for taking time out.

Interesting you raise this.

There was evidence given about some texts between LL and another nurse where LL was complaining she'd been put in a different room after a bad few days of collapses. She was complaining that she needed to be in room 1 to get over it. That in Liverpool aghast what they did. She got quite agitated at the other nurse saying she'd had a tough few days and she was sure it was done with her best interests at heart. She also made mention to the fact another nurse who was less qualified was back in room 1 and they'd been there that day.

It was a real eye opener towards her personality about how she doesn't like being told what to do and thinks her opinion trumps all.

Right, but what does that have to do with Lucy Letby?

And how many neurotypical, middle class or non-low socio economic status, educated, non- drug using, coming from a pro-social family and pro-social cultural background have you worked with who were deeply disturbed and committing offences causing harm to others?

Not many, if any.

So what's yout point?

If you are pulling "facts" from the Science on Trial website or perhaps basing your opinion on the fact that Richard Gill thinks she's innocent and he's had a health care professional's conviction overturned then understand a few things:

Richard Gill has behaved monstrously over the last year and shows little understanding of the evidence, to the point he suggested Dewi Evans might have been responsible for the deaths because "he's elderly". He's said the babies would probably have died anyway (as a statistician he should know that's simply not true), he's harassed the consultants, the judge and BM and threatened to shoot up the court with an AK47. He's been visited by the police in the Netherlands as a result. He believes Beverly Allit is innocent.

Science on Trial has been set up by Sarrita Adams, a severely mentally ill English woman living in California. She's had LOTS of legal issues and has been declared mentally incompetent. She has physically attacked her ex husband on a number of occasions- once trying to cut through a door he baracaded himself behind with a circular saw. She's threatened him with a knife. There's no evidence she's actually worked as a scientist since graduation or even that she submitted her PHD thesis. BTW her former father in law was a consultant at COCH, which might explain her obsession.

These are the people you guys are holding up as experts with credible alternatives to Letby's guilt

No we don’t have enough to go on, you’re right. I was just thinking of what I’ve observed in the past

Observed in the past on who? Her parents? Do you know them?

Her parents will be getting incredible abuse, hate mail etc right now. In the end of the day, it's not on them and their lives have also been ruined by this. To those who say they'd disown their child, you just don't know. I remember one of the Columbine killers' mothers being on Oprah talking about the experience from her point of view. Of course the victims and their families are and should always be the priority. Blaming and abusing and assaulting the parents doesn't help tho and isn't right either.

Letby just seems similar to Shipman? He was probably mid 20s when he started and likely killed hundreds over the 20 years before he was caught. He managed to go decades before rousing suspicions and that wasn’t from his behaviour but from the unusual number of deaths. Perhaps he committed a cluster of killings like Letby just prior to this.

While she targeted multiples, he killed old women. Both had appeared in the media in a professional capacity. Both appeared outwardly normal/respected. Shipman had red flags from forging drugs prescriptions and later stealing/trophies from victims. Letby had things she’d be struck off for like hoarding confidential info/trophies in handover notes that shouldn’t have left hospital, removing essential breathing tubes as photographed, being inappropriate and insensitive with parents.

Both had loved ones steadfastly refusing to believe guilt. Shipman’s wife believed his tale that one of his many elderly women victims was a secret drug addict. His wife actually kept a load of his victims jewellery he was found to have stored in his garage.

He’s widely regarded as a psychopath who was addicted to killing. Their professions allowed them to do it easily.