I've been thinking alot about the character analysis of Lucy Letby - and the assassination.
I really think that the biggest reason people are determined to paint her as a pathological criminal mastermind is because she doesn't "appear" to be.
This makes her an unknown - and what do humans fear most? The unknown.
Those absolutely convinced by her guilt swing from how devious, cold, calculating and manipulative she is to then trying to say she was sad, pathetic, attention seeking etc. I mean all those things could be true but there are also reports that she was kind, diligent, fun-loving and reasonably well liked. Oh look, a human being, no more or less complex than any other.
I've seen people speculating that as a serial killer, she might have started on animals. I suspect the presence of two well loved and healthy cats in her care would therefore be regarded by some as her attempt to provide a cover - yet if her urge to maim and kill is a compulsion she can't resist, how on earth did she resist it while under the stress of being under suspicion.
Her being too close to her parents? Obviously an unhealthy relationship there. But she lived independently and had bought her own house. She went on holiday without her parents. Her mother is cited as behaving oddly especially when she cried out in court "You cannot be serious" (or words to that effect) at the guilty verdicts. I don't think disbelief is in any way an appropriate response if you believe your child is innocent. But then serial killers often don't fall far from the tree and Mummy (or Daddy) issues are often cited in the profiles of convicted serial killers.
The lack of psychological evidence about Lucy Letby prior to her arrest is unusual. Saying that the way she presented after arrest by claiming PTSD etc is a sign of her mental instability beforehand, and also an attempt at manipulation is wanting the best of both worlds.
If you are falsely accused of something terrible how do people think you should react? Shock, disbelief, anger and hopelessness if you can't prove your innocence and the system is reluctant to let you seem perfectly logical. And in any case, you can't prove you didn't do something - it can only be proven that you did if the evidence exists. And when the proof is circumstantial and complex and the system starts to feel like an adversarial game with an agenda of its own I think you're allowed to throw an element of paranoia into the mix.
There is alot written about gender bias at play. History tells us we should not be "taken in" by appearance or the alleged projected weakness of women. The women who worked in concentration camps were mothers, daughters, sisters etc yet were complicit in atrocities. All it proves is that given the right circumstances anyone can do terrible things. But there is a danger in trying to be so unbiased, our bias actually swings the other way, especially in such an emotive case as this.
Naturally we want answers in the face of the inexplicable and unthinkable. We want reassurance we can prevent such horrors by understanding them. But there will always be outlying situations and circumstances that defy understanding. Learning to live with that is painful, especially when there are things that do not add up. And that's what we have here. Plenty of things do not add up, but some things are clear. There were systemic issues on that ward reported by staff members regardless of Lucy Letby. The medical evidence can be disputed, and is being robustly so by people qualified to do so.
The argument always comes back to the fact that we "don't know" all the evidence and we "weren't there" in the court room. Fair enough, but plenty has been reported verbatim, and we do know that the prosecutions job is to present a case most likely to secure a conviction. So, they "won". If justice has been served is another matter.