Lucy Letby ( To understand)

[PassingStranger]

What made her kill these babies. Been in the news again today.

It's hard to understand?
Presume as she is in prison and not a hospital, she is not mentally ill?

Will anyone try to find out, I guess if people don't admit they are guilty it's hard too.

Instead of people saying give me 5 mins in a cell with her, surely it's better to stop this happening or maybe it's not possible?
Why does she want to be one of the most hated women in the universe and not give a shit about the babies families and even her own parents?

So much better to be known for doing something nice and have people like you?
AIBU to wonder why she took this road in life?

I think the 'Give me 5 minutes in a cell with her' is just pure emotion and anger from the majority of people. I don't think most of the people who say this would actually go in and hurt/kill her.

I am disgusted by some crimes that people commit, and that isn't just crimes against humans, and I often say I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. I wouldn't actually piss on them if they were on fire, but I could never be the one to set the fire.

I've often struggled with deciding whether I'm anti or pro capital punishment, but I think it is because I think from an emotional point of view. I do know that emotions should not be used in law, but I can't help thinking what if that was my family/friend.

I WOULD vote against it if there was ever a referendum to bring back capital punishment.

As for Lucy, I would've thought that she had Munchausen by proxy, but reading some of the previous comments, that may not be the case.

I don't think that her crimes can be understood by the majority of people who share this earth.

I think her parents are extremely interesting in all of this. Both parents were overprotective but her mum especially seemed to lack insight into the seriousness of proceedings and was overheard complaining about the length of trial in the presence of the victims families, showing a complete lack of empathy for the actual victims. How the press reported her mum’s outburst during the verdict should also be contrasted with how they reported Thomas Cashman’s family, even though the behaviour was the same. I do wonder if her class or gender got her such sympathetic reporting that’s led to the conspiracy theories about her, rather than her colour or perceived attractiveness.

But from the outside she wasn't a pathetic loser, she had amounted to something. She was a qualified midwife.

I think there is bias in both ways. I was a mid-20 and early 30s white single woman working in healthcare, and I was (and still am) shocked at the number of people that state or insinuate her actions were motivated by jealousy over her childlessness state. My experience is that people were a lot more focused on judging me for this, rather noticing the raging depression I was experiencing at the time.

But....I agree this isn't what comes into your mind when you say baby-murderer and that does make people feel unsettled. If you can't trust a trained female neo-natal nurse then who can you trust? Its like the Michael Jackson situation where people simply cannot resolve their happy childhood memories of the music which the heinous things he has been accused of.

The first paragraph sounds like you're describing someone with ASD.

It is terrifying looking at her photo and imaging her doing something so evil the poor parents that trusted her monsters can look so normal. I wonder how many poor patients have suffered over the years from people like her going under the radar.

Can anyone name another serial killer who was as 'normal' as LL? Every single one I can think of showed some clues in their personalities/histories. There's usually something there that the experts find, these people usually let their mask slip at some point. She must be the ultimate serial killer because she comes across as just plain jane normal (not looks, but personality, behaviour past and present, family background). The only thing that stands out to me is that her parents seem a bit smothering.

Harold Shipman.

Also John Bodkin Adams, and Marcel Petiot.

Medical professionals who are respected, trusted members of the community holding positions of power and responsibility but later turn out to be mass/serial killers aren't unheard of.

The people saying "but she's so normal, hence why she's in prison" need to grasp that it often takes years to assess complex killers properly, and it's still entirely possible that she ultimately ends up in Rampton.

I think most serial killers come across as normal to their family and friends. The mask only slips when they realise that they've been found out.

Look at Peter Sutcliffe, he was married and his wife had no idea that her husband was a serial killer.

Moira Hindley wasn't exactly serial killer material had you just looked at her.

The Wests. They lived next door to people. Did their neighbours suspect them to be serial killers?

Harold Shipman is reported to have killed 100s of his patients. He was just a doctor helping people in many of his peers eyes.

You could go on. That's what is scary about serial killers, they walk amongst us and some have never been found out.

She did have pets - two cats. She had friends too; there are messages to friends about dance classes they were taking together. One of her friends teased her about "going commando" to impress a doctor she liked. She owned a home, had loving parents, went on holidays. Honestly, it sounds like a really nice life for a young woman. She definitely wasn't an isolated loner.

I meant Myra Hindley and not Moira obviously

I used to work in a newsroom and on 9/11 the excitement was palpable. People giddy ordering pizzas in as the footage got worse.

Some people thrive on drama. I think her bland outer persona was just a very controlled mask for such a thing and added to which the documented unrequited crush would have made her feel desperately powerless and those feelings manifested in increasingly awful ways.

That is disgusting. After I realised it wasn't a movie, I had nothing but numbness.

She clearly has some type of a personality disorder. She spent time in ICU as a child, perhaps her brain didn't develop like normal people which could show the total lack of empathy and her being an only child with an overbearing parents palyed some role. Some people with a personality disorder don't feel anything at all except pity for themselves and anger towards others they feel envious of. They hate themselves and it's painfully clear to them that they are not like others so they go through like mimicking and mirroring other people's personality in order to fit in. They could be whoever you want them to be, they also feel superior to others, feel they can manipulate people to get what they want, often spend lots of time figuring people out and what makes them tick.

They feel incredibly lonely because no one truly knows them or will understand them. They can catastrophize events and don't think they can achieve normal family life like marriage and kids and happiness, maybe deep down they know they'll mess it all up or the perosn won't like them once they drop the act.

To others they may come across highly intelligent and on paper they are, what they fail to understand is human emotions and sometimes basic logic and how people relate to one another. As an example, they may deny something even when caught red handed or tell an obvious lie and the next day turn up acting normal as if nothing has happened and expect others to carry on as before, thats because they already have moved on and feel zero empathy or shame or any accountability for their actions.

So why did she do it? it could be a combination of many things, power over others has to be one of the main reason. She decided who died and when, she got some type of satisfaction seeing the parents grieve knowing she caused it, even looked them up on fb to get that rush of excitement again. Attention and sympathy from colleagues gave her a temporary buzz until the next time. She got addicted to that feeling so couldn't stop. In some ways I think that perhaps she is glad that it ended, but then since she hasn't confessed to any wrong doings, she will forever play the victim.

I'm not talking about before they've been found out. After capture/conviction, there's usually loads of clues discovered in their past. Not necessarily that screams serial killer, but scars on their character or personality. Shipman's only clue was that he had a record for forging prescriptions for his own drug addictions. The others have loads of clues and markers in their past that were later discovered.

Sutcliffe's father was a right orrible bastard by all accounts. Peter married a paranoid schizophrenic when she was 16 and he 28, who apparently domineered him. And she stayed married to him for over a decade after his conviction, bit weird? After his arrest he quickly confessed to his crimes and said that God told him to do it.

I'm pretty sure Fred West was well known as a nasty piece of work, had a history of sexually assaulting girls as a teenager and even got his 13 year old sister pregnant (when he was 19), for which he was charged but case collapsed when she refused to give evidence against him. Also, pretty terrible parenting - he claims he was sexually abused by his mother as a child, engaged in bestiality as a young teenager and thought that incest was normal because he'd witnessed his dad raping his sisters. He was also rather low intelligence and illiterate and dressed like a tramp. A known wife beater and pimped his wives. Another girlfriend, pregnant at 18 vanished without trace (later found to be murdered by him).

Rose was 15 when she got together with Fred and she had allegedly been sexually assaulted by her own father a child. It was known that Fred pimped her out too, still age 15. Fred also gave detailed confession after being arrested.

By contrast there appears to be absolutely nothing abnormal in LL's life that provides any explanation. Early days yet, but even with hindsight, there appear to be no clues to her motive, or state of mind. And no confession, or hint of admission of guilt. Maybe something will come out that begins to explain why she did it, but so far it's all pure speculation and conjecture.

I don’t like to comment or read stuff about LL because it is so upsetting, but I remember when younger this sort of joke thing, the “psychopath test”, where a short scenario is described and if you can guess the motive and logic behind the psychopath’s actions, it means you are one too. Because to a normal empathetic human, they would never make that leap.

But it came to mind because it’s true. There will never be a satisfying answer to these questions, because the answers will be, IMHO, probably not some big crazy interesting twisted logic, but just some mundane rationale which a sane person would just think “what are you on about, that’s just ridiculous” to the point where it would seem like a lie.

Like for example, didn't Ed Kemper claim he killed his grandmother because he didn’t want her to have to deal with the fact that he had killed his grandfather? It’s not this big complex deep seated motive, it’s just so clearly illogical to people who wouldn’t do stuff like that.

I think the point is that cultural perception can and does influence how serious crimes are committed and by whom, and how a person’s demographic and background can play a role in how they are perceived by society, particularly with the influence of the media involved too.

I'm guessing she'd be diagnosed as ASPD. She doesn't feel remorse or guilt or shame.

If "Lucy" was a cherub-faced young blond man called "Luke" I doubt many people would be struggling to believe he was guilty in the same way.

She was sound of mine when she qualified - doesn't mean she is now.

And PD Vs Schizophrenia - both serious mental illnesses. I really don't see what distinction you are trying to make. And plenty of people with schizophrenia live relatively normal lives.

Can people please stop saying the evidence is "all circumstantial" as if that somehow exonerates her? UK criminal law, there are three main types of evidence: direct evidence, indirect evidence, and circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence is eyewitness testimony or a confession. Indirect evidence is anything that supports or disproves a fact but doesn’t directly prove it, such as forensic evidence. Circumstantial evidence is anything that supports or disproves a fact indirectly, such as an alibi. That's a list of categories; it isn't a hierarchy. Juries are expected to weigh all the evidence in a case. Circumstantial evidence isn't given less weight; it isn't lesser evidence. If you are caught standing over a person who has been stabbed and you have a bloody knife in your hand, that's circumstantial evidence. Should we discount it?

Ted Bundy was on police radar for a long time, he was even reported by his own partner at the time, but people saw him as an attractive educated middle class man (he actually wasn’t) and was just not considered a serious possibility by police. Lives would have been saved had police not assumed crimes like his could not have been committed by somebody “like him”. The judge even praised him while handing down his sentence, commenting he regretted is because he could have been a fine young lawyer!

There is also another case just off the top of my head, I will try and find the details, where a man was murdering women be picked up in bars, but because he was physically attractive it was assumed not to be him, though I believe that may have been victims who felt safe because he was good looking, rather than public perception. I will try to find the case.

Yes, lots of stories like these.

People are blinded by charisma and / or “normal” looking people whatever the sex. (BTK, Christopher Halliwell, Jeffery Dahmer, etc etc etc etc). Everyone wants to believe the monsters in this world look like monsters and they don’t.

I think she meant LL….not nurses in general! I’m confused as to why you think they meant ‘all nurses?’

I agree but my point was more that people will still find it far easier to accept an attractive male serial killer than a female one.