Lucy Letby, the most prolific serial killer of children in modern British history, will spend the rest of her life in prison after being convicted of killing seven babies while working as a neonatal nurse in Chester, England. Letby’s crimes so horrified the nation and the world that they could almost be described as unthinkable—except that they have happened before.
Letby’s crimes have been repeatedly compared to the murders committed by Beverley Allitt, who killed four babies in 1991 while working as a nurse in Lincolnshire. Although their crimes were committed 24 years apart, both women used similar methods to commit their murders, and their motives remain unclear in both cases.
Stuart Clifton, the retired detective who helped bring Allitt to justice, went so far as to call Letby a “copycat murderer,” suggesting she might have been inspired by Allitt’s crimes, and saying of Letby’s murders: “It’s almost like she read the Allitt book.”
Family members of Allitt’s victims not only see parallels between the two murderers, but Letby’s recent crimes have caused them to question why hospitals haven’t implemented better safeguards after Allitt’s murders to help ensure that nothing like that could happen again.
The Case of Lucy Letby
Lucy Letby, 33, killed seven infants that were in her care at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where she had worked as a neonatal nurse since 2011. She also attacked and tried to kill at least six other infants, with all of these crimes occurring between June 2015 and June 2016.
Letby’s used various methods to kill her victims, including deliberately injecting them with air bubbles, poisoning them with insulin, assaulting them with medical tools, and force-feeding them milk until they died. Letby was arrested in July 2018 after a year-long police investigation, and she was convicted of seven counts of murder on July 10 after a nine-month trial.
On August 21, Letby was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole-life order, meaning no possibility of parole or conditional release. She is only the fourth woman in British history to receive a whole-life order; the other three are serial killer Rose West; Joanna Dennehy, who stabbed three men to death; and Myra Hindley, who killed five children in the mid-1960s.
Prosecutors suggested several possible motives for Letby’s murders during her trial, including that she enjoyed “playing God,” got bored by caring for healthier infants, and wanted the attention of a doctor with whom she was infatuated.
Letby wrote on Post-it notes that, “I killed them because I’m not good enough to care for them,” and “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.” However, her attorneys said that was neither a motive nor a confession, but rather the result of mental anguish resulting from the allegations against her.
The Case of Beverley Allitt
Letby’s murders and trial have led to comparisons with the crimes of Beverley Allitt, now 54, a nurse who was convicted of murdering four infants and injuring or attempting to kill nine others in 1991, while working at the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire, England. The horrific crimes earned Allitt the nickname “The Angel of Death.”
Although police couldn’t determine how she carried out all of her crimes, she committed at least some of the murders with a method similar to one used by Letby: administering large doses of insulin or air bubbles into her victims. That is just one similarity former detective Clifton sees between the two murderers.
“There are so many parallels between this and the Letby case,” the 79-year-old said this month. “I have never been able to understand how someone in the caring profession could do this. To me, it beggars belief that there’s more than one person that has committed these actions against babies.”
As with Letby, Allitt’s motives for her murders were never fully explained, though authorities speculated she might have experienced Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disorder in which a perpetrator causes illnesses in others to attract attention to themselves. Allitt was convicted of four counts of murder and other charges in May 1993 and is serving life in prison.
“This Has All Happened Before”
Letby’s crimes have been a horrific reminder for the survivors and family members of Allitt’s victims. Among them was Kayley Asher, who was 15 months old when Allitt tried to kill her by injecting an air bubble into her arm, leading to two cardiac arrests. Asher is now 33 and has special needs. She followed the Letby trial and was terrified Letby might try to kill her, too.
“She was worried when they said Letby would not appear in court for sentencing,” Kayley’s mother Sharon Asher said. “She was worried she would come out and get her that weekend. I had to explain to her that she would still be locked up.”
Nevertheless, the Letby murders have several of Allitt’s victims frustrated that such a similar crimes could happen again. “Allitt was killing in plain sight, and what she did went totally unnoticed,” Sharon said. “This Letby case has brought it all back… All we say is this, ‘Why weren’t lessons learned? This has all happened before.’”
David Crampton, whose son Paul was one of the survivor babies who Allitt targeted, feels the Letby case shows that hospitals haven’t made necessary reforms following Allitt’s crimes. After her conviction, Crampton provided evidence for an independent inquiry, during which he advocated for better systems to alert hospital staff members to abnormalities.
In Letby’s case, Crampton says the institutions again failed to recognize and act as a pattern of unusual events developed. “You’d have to conclude that joining these dots together and making the big decision—whatever that was, close the ward, put the staff on leave—didn’t happen,” he said.
Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy. He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.
