One dead baby, a tragedy.
Two dead babies, a concern.
Fourteen dead babies, I don’t care about her. She’s fucked. But what fucking hospital has 14 dead babies? Are you saying you cant identify a pattern after 4 or 5?
The heads of the hospital should be gutted.
Call that place “The dead baby hospital” because wtf.
Looks like she might have targeted higher risk babies so it’s harder to catch, and of course many murders seem to be really good at faking feelings and appearing innocent. One part in the article makes me think all the victims were premature births, and that some of them were especially at risk due to that.
It’s weird to me the level of deranged guilt her diary entries show.
We are responsible for our actions. I just wonder wtf was going on in her head that allowed her to keep doing it. She hated herself for it. Like a lot.
deleted by creator
Yes, but it’s difficult to access. You need to want to get the care and actively campaign to be referred.
And that’s the “easy” things like anxiety or garden variety depression.
As soon as it gets complicated it’s a whole other story.
If she never tried to seek it out, then it doesn’t even matter as it appears she didn’t give off any “I murder babies” vibes to the extent that the investigation was delayed beyond a reasonable length of time because she was not suspected of such a thing.
Not to mention, if she was diagnosed with something severe, she would probably lose her job if not her entire career. A lot of people avoid seeking help for that reason.
deleted by creator
Ok, but she shouldn’t have had her job.
Easy to say from where we sit. Harder when that job is what’s keeping a roof over your head and food on your table.
Right, but she was compulsively murdering babies in the hospital. Can we all agree that she shouldn’t have had a job as a nurse in a NICU? That doesn’t feel like a statement with room for debate.
So a baby murderer should have been allowed to keep her job and continue to put innocent lives in danger because you 1) baselessly think she’s mentally ill, and 2) think that a condition as extreme as you’re implying shouldn’t be regarded with consequence.
I never said that she should be allowed to keep her job.
So weird that private medical info is only like sorta private except if they wanna use it
Not the right time. Not the right place.
This woman murdered a lot of babies. Your comment is wildly inappropriate.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Nah, not self defense.
That would not be murder, then. Murder requires premeditation.
deleted by creator
All murder is homicide, but not all homicide is murder.
There’s a big fucking difference between “i hate myself and want to die” and “might murder a half dozen babies this month”.
I think you might be asking a bit much of public mental health care, yeah?
It’s interesting to me just how rare the underlying mental disorder has to be. Millions of people have mental health issues too but aren’t committing unspeakably vile acts. The incidence rate has to be 1 in several hundred million births.
My other thought is that mental health played a role but isn’t the underlying cause, since mental health problems generally don’t drive people to do this. That said, with the complexities of genetics and epigenetics, it’s perfectly possible it could happen.
That’s because the mental health excuse is just that: an excuse. They don’t actually have the evidence to back up the notion that she’s mentally ill other than her diary entries. Those entries could have been forged for all they know.
They not only undermine the very real damage that woman caused by using mental health as a cynical attempt to try to give her an out, they also are being extremely ableist. Committing egregious crimes != mental illness and for them to draw that equivalency caters to the stereotype that mentally ill people are dangerous.
These are people who know that and who would call others out for being ableist, yet do so freely in threads like this without consequence or a second’s thought from anyone else. Ask yourself why that is.
Aye. Not to mention, there’s a very distinct possibility that the diary entries are true, but are a result of the evil acts. I think it’s possible for someone to fall into depression and suicidal ideation after commiting truly heinous acts. We don’t have any indication what the causation is here.
It’s foolish to think that everyone who does evil just twirls a mustache and thrives on it. I’m guessing that most people who do something like this end up with mental illness or more severe mental illness as a result. It’s far more likely to me that these people are tortured and guilt ridden, evil souls than unrepentantly evil.
Anyhow – The first time I really had my eyes opened to how offensive this sort of language is was actually from David Harbour. As someone with mental illness, it really resonated when he pointed out that labeling mass shooters as simply mentally ill was a disservice to the millions of people who struggle with depression and anxiety and etc and it was incredibly stigmatizing. I’ve tried to be cognizant of that ever since, and the language around this story set off alarm bells for me.
It’s clear everybody labeling her as mentally ill are doing it with an ulterior motive in mind. They’re almost as bad as she is.
Have you ever read The Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt?
I have not, but I’ve heard about it. I remember discussing it in world history class, just the concept.
No, not really. Both are psychiatric issues that need to be adressed.
She might think she didn’t have a problem and rationalized her actions
You’d have to look at what she got out of it emotionally. Other hospital killers did it for a combination of “They were a burden”, “I was putting them out of their misery” and a sense of godlike power of life and death. Some started doing it for seeming mercy reasons but got so comfortable with doing it that they started killing patients because they annoyed them.
I think you’re perhaps ignoring what I said about the content of her entries.
She suffered from her actions, emotionally. A lot. It’s quite clear she got nothing positive emotionally from it:
"I am evil I did this”.
The note added: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.
“I am a horrible person.
“I hate myself. There are no words. I am an awful person. I pay every day for that.”
“I panic I’ll never have children. I don’t deserve mum and dad. The world is better off without me. I did this, why me.”
“No one will ever know what happened and why . . . I’m a failure.”
“I am a problem to those who do know me . . . it would be much better for everyone if I just went away. I just want to be happy.”
“Kill me” and “Help me” along with the names of some the babies she murdered.
In one, Letby scrawled: “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.
“No one will ever understand or appreciate what’s like.”
She got something out of it though. No one was forcing her to do it so regardless of her entries at the moment of choice she wanted to do it. She may have felt regret or self-hate after the fact but it is clear that those feelings eventually passed.
Regret or self-hate can just as well turn into driving factors to continue doing harm to others. When you are mentally ill, logic starts completely bending and finally making a 180 degrees turn from normal
I read the article and didn’t see any diary stuff. Do you have a link to it?
“I am evil I did this”.
The note added: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.
“I am a horrible person.
“I hate myself. There are no words. I am an awful person. I pay every day for that.”
“I panic I’ll never have children. I don’t deserve mum and dad. The world is better off without me. I did this, why me.”
“No one will ever know what happened and why . . . I’m a failure.”
“I am a problem to those who do know me . . . it would be much better for everyone if I just went away. I just want to be happy.”
“Kill me” and “Help me” along with the names of some the babies she murdered.
In one, Letby scrawled: “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.
“No one will ever understand or appreciate what’s like.”
deleted by creator
Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good.
Ah. I see what you did there.
There’s a lot of hate here that I can empathise with and I’m trying to not take calls for her to commit suicide or be murdered/ tortured in prison literally. It’s difficult to express hate verbally without reference to physical violence that underscores it. There’s sentiment here that life in prison isn’t enough and I tend to agree, but not in a way I’ve seen talked about here or anywhere else.
Letby should be imprisoned for life, no question. But that shouldn’t stop us asking more questions about what happened here. Do we treat Letby’s murders as isolated, unique cases and expect them to never be repeated? Lock her away and continue business as usual? It’s possible that things aren’t so simple and we need to look into how somebody like Letby got away with so much for so long and maybe also why she began doing something quite so horrific.
Mental illness is an unfortunate reality to come to grips with because we are steadily recognising that it is caused by relationships an affected person has with their environment. That means there is a share of responsibility in all of us and the systems/ institutions we have built to make sure this does not happen again and that we identify it before it’s too late.
It’s entirely likely that Letby will turn to self harm, or other extreme outcomes of poor mental health. We can’t ask anyone to sympathise with her after what she has done, but we can hope to treat mental illness better in the future and offer help to those who need it, before it’s too late. And I don’t mean too late in the sense of killing people, because that’s not what all mentally ill people do.
I appreciate the leveled comment. It’s difficult to separate one’s more reactive side of anger with the reasonable side. There’s a reason the family of victims of crimes can’t be jurors. I, too, would not be able to hold it together if I was in the position of those impacted by this person. Still, like you said it’s vital we look at it from a position of a civilized society. The lens of Justice should not be focused on vengeance or punishment — both proven ineffective in terms of recidivism. Rather, the true pillars of justice involve: Separation from society, and rehabilitation (when possible). Arguably deterrence, but that is questionable.
Someone like this should not just be sentenced to life imprisonment (as a precaution to civilized society), but also subject to scientific study from both life and after death in autopsy. Every. Single. Part of her makeup should be dissected from checking for tumors (Tower shooter), analyzing her brain chemistry, relentlessly studying her past and psychoanalyzing her.
deleted by creator
Ok I know this bitch should die but this judge should do at least three months in a level two for this fit.
Just because yank Judges got no style.
Removed by mod
Baby serial killer? Oh….she’ll die in prison all right.
Yea that seems likely
I hear prison is really fun for child murderers.
After everything she has done, why did they choose a picture where it looks like she signed with a team?
Answer: it’s all to do with innocent until proven guilty laws.
Basically, in the UK, you can’t push a view in the media that someone committed the crime until they are found guilty. You can say blah happened and it is suspected that blah happened but if you say they did it before they are ruled guilty you open yourself up to legal issues.
This continues over to use of photos etc where if you use photos that make them look “bad” then that entity may be accused of pushing the view before the suspect is found guilty.
But, once found guilty, you can do it. If you go look at the BBC News site today you’ll find that they don’t really use this image and now use mugshots and other images where she doesn’t look happy/smiling.
As for why this specific picture is still sometimes used - it’s really just to do with what users will recognise, because this case has been going on for years now and that’s the picture they always showed. Sky News (the site in the link) does also have other non-happy pictures of her now.
She’s the white color
Strangely enough there is another baby murdering nurse in UK prison called Beverley Allitt who in 1993 killed children the same way. She’s been inside for 30 years and is actually eligible for parole since she hasn’t received a whole life order (i.e. to die in prison). Doesn’t mean she’ll get parole but expect an outcry if she ever does.
Before reading, I initially thought that maybe there was a reason like she could have mental health issues or that she could be just someone extremely incompetent at her job… But the more you read, the more this makes me want to vomit… It’s truly sickening!
She’s essentially a serial killer so I was looking into her past. Her parents were extremely over bearing, clingy and guilt trippers who were always smothering her, so I’m sure that contributed, but there’s gotta be more in her past that led her to this.
My parents are overbearing, clingy,and guilt trippers; I haven’t committed any murders yet.
Exactly. They still can’t point to a person and say “This person will kill and this one won’t”. It seems to require a confluence of a number of things. A violent childhood, a socially stunted development, opportunity, a lack of empathy and a psychopathic mentality, an ability to compartmentalize (good family man at home, violent psycho outside of it). Even then it still isn’t a guarantee.
They do it because they choose to. Regardless of all other circumstances, the choice is always theirs.
But that’s not helpful, it might be true in some sense but then it is for everything - would you rather wallow in hate or try to understand and prevent similar things happening in the future?
“yet”
Some people can be born with effectively broken brains.
Take any trait, generosity, comedic ability, levels of empathy, etc. All of these traits can be modulated by DNA (and epigenetics of course). It only makes sense that out of the millions of babies born, some baby will come with little ability to experience empathy. That baby could grow up to take pleasure in sick things, to grow into a sadist.
To be clear, by broken brains I’m not referring to learning disabilities or people who disagree with me etc. I’m referring to brains that cannot function in society due to an accident of birth – brains that have effectively chosen a life strategy incompatible with with the stable society the rest of our brains have chosen.
Also to be clear, those people with broken brains?.. They are mostly in positions of power.
This is only true if you’re a firm believer in all nature, no nurture. That’s not where the scientific consensus is.
This is only true if you’re a firm believer in all nature, no nurture.
I didn’t claim “nurture” is not a thing, nor do I think the existence of “nurture” negates my claims.
I think while rare, an effective psychopath (I say effective because I’m not doctor diagnosing someone but I mean the same thing) could grow up to not be a sadist given certain other traits and a positive environment. A smart psychopath that doesn’t want to die in prison and had nice parents could decide that acting in a manner compatible with society will get them what they want more than the alternatives.
deleted by creator
Bitch is going to commit suicide in jail and that’s way too good for her. She should live with it every day and be beaten daily. Even that’s too good for her. Makes my blood boil
I’m trying to understand the downvotes you have. Like yeah, what you’re saying is extreme. But murdering goddamn infants is pretty fucking extreme. If there was ever a time to wish someone pain, it would be now.
Some people aren’t mental and don’t wish to inflict pointless harm on others.
If its wrong to harm people, its wrong to harm those who harm people too.
Youre gonna get downvoted for not validating the 2 minutes’ hate. There are an awful lot of people who are very excited to find someone they can get away with doing violence against.
Well yeah, it’s a great stress reliever, AND you rid the world of a burden. Win/win.
That’s like saying we should be tolerant of republican’s fascism. Some things shouldn’t be allowed even if you sorta need to act like them towards them to get it to stop.
No its nothing like that. Shes been given 14 life sentences, how is that tolerating anything??
Isn’t exactly pointless when someone’s committed a crime against humanity – and murdering those newborns is absolutely a crime against humanity.
Stopping her from hurting anyone else is the point. Torturing her just because you can get away with it is pointless.
It would be for revenge, not pointless torture. We can certainly argue if revenge is pointless or not though.
oof
Aye there’s a word for people who take pleasure from the suffering of others…
Schadenfreude would be the term for the actual pleasure derived. And I’m not going to pretend that it’s morally right or ethical to enjoy. But it is human to desire vengeance and revenge. Wishing harm to someone who murdered newborns is one of the least morally wrong instances of vengeance.
Plus, I hold that moral absolutism is an even greater evil. This is why the paradox of tolerance exists, and why the same goes for pacifism. It’s impossible to have a pacifistic society unless you are willing to use violence to dissuade violence. You would probably say that means there’s no difference between the two individuals, and I would have to vehemently disagree. Intent and context are incredibly important.
Paradox of tolerance at work
That’s not how this works yo. The monster is in prison, she will stay in prison till she’s dead. No more need for extrajudicial punishments. No need to torture or to murder her.
There is nothing gained from hurting her further except a bunch of unwashed brainlets get hateboners; further it opens a whole can of worms of extrajudicial, punitive violence.
I swear you guys heard someone say that once and now think you can use it to justify any unrelated bullshit.
Who is “you guys” and what the fuck are you on about?
People blindly parroting “paradox of tolerence” in this case without understanding what it means.
Not at all lol
Inflicting pain on someone is not stopping them from harming others.
Making premeditated violence illegal but then punishing it with violence is retarded.
Yea, I’m generally a well composed guy, but it’s hard to keep cool in this instance
There usually isn’t much that makes me literally speechless or at a loss for words, but after I read more specific details further down in this thread it actually happened to me. I also can’t remember the last time my eyes actually widened in horror at reading something.
Absolutely, people can down vote to oblivion but I stand by what I said. Days old babies, I cannot comprehend this. It’s that reason I may sound a smidge extreme, for a very laid back easy going person this has awoken a great anger in me.
And it should, but that anger should be directed not to further hurt this sick animal, but towards all the checks and balances that should have caught this earlier - administration that refused to look into it after her colleagues raised concerns, the implicit trust we put into people in these careers, and the lack of screening that lets people like this into these jobs in the first place.
Rightfully so
Right with ya man
I don’t think she’ll get the chance to do that considering what I’ve heard about what inmates do to murderers
Reddit would suspend your account for this comment even though it is perfectly reasonable. But I also think why waste time and money on this trash and just throw her into a furnace or something.
Perfectly reasonable
Well you’re living up to your username at least.
Tldr/ootl… How and why did she do this?
Apparently she wrote in her private diary stuff like “I am evil for doing this” and “I am a horrible person for doing these things”. IMO this points more towards a massive mental health disorder rather than someone purposely doing evil acts to achieve their own selfish desires. It sounds like she had very unwanted intrusive impulses and she was unable to stop herself from acting on them.
Don’t get me wrong, her being aware that her acts were wrong doesn’t give her a get out of jail pass. The awareness of her drives being wrong means the onus was on her to get help to prevent her from acting on those drives. But IMO it does make clear that there was no motive, it was likely caused by a compulsion mental illness. This is all IMO though.
According to this article they never conclusively determined what her motive was. There were theories that it my have been Munchausen’s by proxy or simple sadism in response to seeing the families grieve, but nothing was ever proven. As for her methods, this article details them and I’ll leave you to read up on that, not going to detail it here. Suffice it to say, this woman deserves to never see the light of day again.
She used her position as a nurse to intentionally kill newborns.
Yes she will. Probably before the year is out.
I mean. . . not immediately, right?
Whats it matter? We will all die in a prison of our own making.
Shame they don’t hang any more. Maybe she’ll do it herself.
Better that she wastes away in prison knowing she will never be released.
