Lucy Letby: Did She Really Kill These Babies?

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: The magnitude of this story cannot be overstated,

[00:00:05] it's because Lucy Levy's alleged victims were babies.

[00:00:09] Adam Cox: we've tried to keep an open mind, but there is a lot of evidence.

[00:00:12] Kyle Risi: It's Even more harrowing the way Lucy presented herself to the world,

[00:00:16] with Lucy, there are no red flags.

[00:00:18] Not even a small one.

[00:00:19] Adam Cox: It's either a case of this is a terrible mis justice's or Yeah. You can't see A killer anymore.

[00:00:29] Kyle Risi: every time a [00:00:30] child collapsed or died, Lucy was on shift. Every single one of them, Adam, by the end of a 10 month trial the court found her guilty from that moment, Lucy became known as one of Britain's most prolific serial child killers.

[00:00:44] That wasn't until February of 2025. When a major press conference was held, that claimed Lucy Lepe is in fact 100% innocent

[00:00:54] Adam Cox: a hundred percent innocent. Wow. That's powerful.

[00:00:57]

[00:01:22] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating things, a weekly variety podcasts that gives you just enough information to stand your [00:01:30] ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:32] Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

[00:01:39] Kyle Risi: As always, I'm Kyle Reese, your Ring master for this week's episode.

[00:01:42] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the dolphin enrollment officer for this week. Oh, nice. Yep. So very nice. Once they get recruited, they go for a very extensive 13 week training course. A long time dedication. Yeah. And I, I teach them how to catch fish in their mouth.

[00:01:57] Kyle Risi: Things that they don't naturally

[00:01:58] Adam Cox: already do. They, when they come, [00:02:00] they're fresh off the boat. They don't understand anything. That's so rude. So yeah, that's what I do. I get them to splash the crowd for the people in the crowd that we don't like.

[00:02:08] Kyle Risi: No, the little timmies.

[00:02:10] Adam Cox: And then they go for graduation and they put on a little hat.

[00:02:12] Kyle Risi: You have a celebration. Okay, nice. I like that. Have you noticed that on Instagram I've started creating you an ID card for every single episode, want to say? Of course, yes. It says it's got like the logo on there. It's got a picture of you, a different one every week, I think. And then it's got like Adam Cox and then it's got employee id, which is the [00:02:30] episode number uhhuh, and it says title and then it'll be like the barman or like the confetti control officer.

[00:02:35] Adam Cox: Never have, we had such dull jobs as the barman.

[00:02:39] Kyle Risi: You put the bar, you were like, I'm just a barman this week. Oh, so that, that maybe I was from you, but maybe the people who, if we do any episodes that are suggested by listeners of the show, maybe we should honor them and send them an id kind of their own.

[00:02:52] We'll give them a made up name this week. Adam, this episode is suggested by Timmy. He is the, the, the sawdust. [00:03:00] Softness, moisture Coordinator. This, this

[00:03:03] Adam Cox: is why you don't come up with the job titles.

[00:03:06] Kyle Risi: Guys. If you are new to the show and you wanna support us in the absolute best way to support the show and enjoy exclusive perks is of course to join us over a Patreon because signing up is completely free and it gives you access to next week's episode a whole seven days early.

[00:03:21] Adam Cox: And for as little as $5 a month, you'll become a fellow freak of the show unlocking our entire back catalog. So there's about 20 episodes in there. Mm-hmm. Which, [00:03:30] you know, go have a rummage and you'll, you'll enjoy it.

[00:03:32] Kyle Risi: And it's all a free as well. Yeah. So you don't have to hear from our sponsors.

[00:03:34] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:03:35] Nonstop us.

[00:03:37] Kyle Risi: And as a special thank you, all of our certified Pret Tier members now receive an exclusive compendium key chain, so we can always be dangling near your crotch. It's a true crotch dangler.

[00:03:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. Keeping your crotch nice and cool with the metal of the

[00:03:51] Kyle Risi: That's right. Oh, my crotch is a bit warm.

[00:03:54] Cool it down. Yeah, metal dissipates the heat. Slap our key ring on. Please just buy the key chain. [00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Adam Cox: And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support helps others find our show and keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:04:08] Kyle Risi: Adam. Today's episode is actually suggested by Phoebe Elliot via the Freaky Register on Patreon.

[00:04:14] And it's probably not the episode that Phoebe thinks she's gonna receive. Oh. 'cause I fell down a rabbit hole. And boy did I open up a Pandora's box in this story. Wow. What have you got for us today then Adam? Today on the compendium, [00:04:30] we are diving into an assembly of institutional calm, masking a storm of collapse.

[00:04:36] Adam Cox: Okay, that sounds very epic.

[00:04:39] Kyle Risi: Today's story begins on the 10th of October, 2022, and it is the first day of trial for 33-year-old neonatal nurse. Lucy Lbe.

[00:04:51] Adam Cox: Oh, the Lucy Lbe case. This is gonna be quite a tough one to listen to, I feel. It's

[00:04:56] Kyle Risi: a big one. Yes. And of course, as we know, she's been [00:05:00] charged with seven counts of murder and 10 counts.

[00:05:03] Attempted murder all linked to incidents that took place at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June, 2015 and June, 2016. Adam, the magnitude of this story cannot be overstated, and it's because Lucy Levy's alleged victims were babies.

[00:05:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. She's become like one of the most notorious serial killers.

[00:05:24] Yeah. Am I, can I, is she a serial killer?

[00:05:26] Kyle Risi: She's considered a serial killer. Britain's most prolific [00:05:30] child, serial killer is what she's been dubbed. Yeah. And the case is even more harrowing when you consider the way Lucy presented herself to the world, to her friends and her colleagues. Lucy's described as polite, unassuming.

[00:05:42] She's softly spoken. Adam impossibly normal. With all the cases we've covered in the past, there is usually these clear, very red flags that kind of show up, that kind of help us understand what drives people to kill. Often those red flags only emerge in hindsight, but in Lucy's case, there were none, not even [00:06:00] after she was prosecuted.

[00:06:01] She was a sweet, passionate nurse. She wasn't perfect by any means, but she was dedicated enough to be selected as the poster child for fundraising campaigns at this hospital. Mm-hmm. She was an exemplary nurse. Someone who anxious parents at the Countess of chess or hospital would've trusted with their baby without hesitation.

[00:06:21] It is in this environment that Lucy would later claim as her killing field. What do you remember of the story?

[00:06:28] Adam Cox: I think maybe I learned about this story [00:06:30] when, you know, she'd already been announced as the suspect. So I think I was quite late into the story in terms of, yeah, there wasn't much of an investigation.

[00:06:36] I think I found out she had been charged or whatever.

[00:06:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Kind of at the trial basically, or towards the end of the trial that that really exploded in the media. And she just,

[00:06:44] Adam Cox: well, from the pictures and sort of video clips that I have seen, she seems like a very average, normal, mm-hmm. Woman, right? Yeah, sure.

[00:06:52] And so. It to be painted as this ruthless, horrible killer. Her. That's it. Just, yeah. The tooth don't go hand in hand.

[00:06:58] Kyle Risi: They really don't. And also at trial, [00:07:00] Lucy denies all allegations against her and argues that she was just being used as a scapegoat to cover up the chronic systemic issues rooted deep within the NHS.

[00:07:07] And she claims that her unit was understaffed, overstretched, and routinely providing inadequate care to the most vulnerable patients in the hospital. And that's true. Mm-hmm. When we think about the state of the NHS today, that is routine. The amount of time that we have to wait for doctor's appointments.

[00:07:23] Today, when my mother was in hospital, she had a share ward that was built for four people. There were eight people in that ward.

[00:07:29] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:07:29] Kyle Risi: [00:07:30] So they are really understaffed and undermanaged. So I can understand how that would be true. But at the start of a trial in October, 2022, she was accused of murdering or attempting to murder 22 infants, Adam.

[00:07:44] And by the end of a 10 month trial in August of 2023, the court found her guilty of 14 of those. And from that moment, Lucy became known as one of Britain's most prolific serial child killers. The most haunting aspects of her story is that Lucy did not fit that [00:08:00] classic image of that branded title. It's a detail that only amplifies how chilling the story really is.

[00:08:05] That evil can really be lurking behind a pretty face. Yeah. So Adam, today on the compendium, I'm gonna take you through the horrific case of Lucy Levy. We'll break down the suspicious deaths and the collapses of her victims, how the pattern against her first emerged and how the case eventually came together.

[00:08:22] But we'll also explore how something like this could even be allowed to happen inside a modern NHS hospital. [00:08:30]

[00:08:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. But like you say, I think even Harold Shipman, when was that? That's 20, 30 years ago. Mm-hmm. And just think how much the NHS has been under strain since then.

[00:08:39] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Also we're gonna explore Lucy's possible motives.

[00:08:43] Remember, the prosecution didn't need to prove a motive. And as we know, that can be sometimes the most frustrating aspect of cases like this because without one, it becomes a struggle for people to really understand why. So we'll draw on what we find out about Lucy's personal life and whether or not that gives us any clues as to why she might have done this.

[00:08:58] Mm-hmm. But it [00:09:00] will be difficult because in this case, there is no single smoking gun when it comes to the evidence. Instead, as the prosecution say, it's dozens of small, really unsettling arrows that all point in one direction and that direction is of course, Lucy. And it's the fact that this case hinges on so much circumstantial evidence that a cause 'em to question the validity of her actual conviction.

[00:09:23] Should 15 whole life sentences be handed down entirely on circumstantial evidence? That's the question because [00:09:30] like I said, there's nothing that goes, she did this and this is the concrete evidence.

[00:09:33] Adam Cox: That's interesting. 'cause I don't think I know enough about this case to really pass judgment. So I'm in a weird way, quite curious to find out what actually went down and what they actually found.

[00:09:43] What they can say is hard evidence and what is circumstantial. I figured that they had a lot of proof to back this up. That's why she was put away.

[00:09:50] Kyle Risi: It's really interesting. The strange thing is that her story isn't even over Adam following her conviction. There have been calls for additional reviews, not only into more deaths, but also into [00:10:00] her current conviction because it's not a cut and dry case.

[00:10:03] In fact, it's one of the more disturbing cases I've ever come across and it's not for the reason I initially thought because if she's innocent, it actually highlights something even way more disturbing about the culture and the system that we rely on for our healthcare. I

[00:10:20] Adam Cox: mean, the fact that you've said that if she is innocent is interesting because from the media, that's not even an option.

[00:10:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, okay. Let's go through the story and then you can decide [00:10:30] for yourself. Okay, so Lucy let Bee's killing Field for a lack of a better term. Adam was the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester. Serving the local population for North Wales incredibly its maternity to wing, delivers over 2000 babies every year.

[00:10:44] And crucially, the hospital is equipped with a special care unit where the most vulnerable, sick, premature babies can receive round the clock care. The reality of working in a unit like this is the sad understanding that not every single baby will survive. These are remember among the most [00:11:00] vulnerable babies in the country.

[00:11:01] But of course, technology, resilience and the dedication of the medical teams do mean that most babies thankfully do pull through. And a testament to this is that out of the roughly 2000 babies that are born every year at the Countess infant deaths, while obviously tragic remains extremely low, in 2010, there was only one recorded death of a premature baby.

[00:11:21] Remember, these are the most vulnerable as well. Mm-hmm. In both 2011 and 2012, only two deaths in 2013. There were three and [00:11:30] three in 2014. So when you consider the amount of deaths that happened, it's extremely low and it's extremely reassuring that they're doing a great job.

[00:11:37] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's like naught point, whatever it is.

[00:11:39] So that is a very small amount, which is good. It sounds like they're doing a good job with that.

[00:11:44] Kyle Risi: Sure. Absolutely. And Lucy had been working at the hospital since 2012, so she'd lived through five of those babies. Mm-hmm. But Adam, everything changed in 2015 when the number of infant deaths suddenly searched to eight.

[00:11:58] The alarming thing wasn't just a [00:12:00] sudden rise. It was the nature of the deaths before these babies died. They were relatively stable and progressing well only to suddenly deteriorate without any warning. Even in a high risk special care unit like this, Adam, this pattern itself is very concerning, right?

[00:12:14] Mm-hmm. A death is a lot. What's particularly striking is how differently these deaths of you, depending on where you sat within the hospital, and it's a reflection of the bureaucratic climate of the NHS and what it's become because for nurses and doctors on the front line, these losses represent shattered [00:12:30] hopes for the team, but most importantly for the parents.

[00:12:33] Mm-hmm. Right. You can't help but empathize them. You've spent months caring for some of these babies and now one's died, and you have to kind of go through all that with the parents. So it's tragic for everyone all around on the frontline. But for senior management, these losses represent data points.

[00:12:48] Numbers that needed to, of course be explained, numbers that threaten the performance targets and KPIs of the ward and the hospital. And so you get this strange juxtaposition in an [00:13:00] institution built around patient care like the bedside reality and the managerial perspectives just end up drifting further and further apart.

[00:13:07] But they aim towards the same goal. Yes, but they saw their path very differently. Either way, these deaths were worrying not just now that there were eight. But already there were concerns after the third death that year.

[00:13:20] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, even when it gets to like three, so now it's tripled pretty much.

[00:13:24] Kyle Risi: So on the 2nd of July, 2015, so we're going back a little shortly after the third death, a lead consultants [00:13:30] of the Ward, Dr.

[00:13:30] Steven Brewery, he reports concerns to senior management. His concerns specifically involved 33-year-old neonatal nurse named Lucy Lepe. Now, Dr. Brewery had noticed a disturbing pattern that Lucy had been present at all three of the deaths that year. His concern, however, lands on deaf ears and it was exceptionally frustrating, especially when over the next few months there were three more babies that died.

[00:13:56] And this strange pattern surrounding Lucy now seemed [00:14:00] undeniable. She is still present at all of these additional deaths and other consultants. They start to notice too morbidly, it becomes a sort of a running joke among the medical staff whenever a baby collapses or worse dies. The immediate question is, and not entirely joking, was, was Lucy on shift?

[00:14:16] Adam Cox: Wow. So even within that first year of, I guess this increase in deaths mm-hmm. People are already caught an on that. Something a bit odd.

[00:14:23] Kyle Risi: Caught in on, but also gossiping and whispering.

[00:14:26] Adam Cox: Yeah. So why did no one take those conversations [00:14:30] seriously? It's

[00:14:30] Kyle Risi: so tricky because by February, 2016, another consultant, Dr.

[00:14:34] Ravi Jra, approached the hospital's chief executive Tony Chambers, with the same concern about Lucy. Tony was dubious and he told Dr. J Ramm that he could see how Dr. J Ram, the person partly responsible for managing the neonatal unit might view these concerns as a convenient explanation for the war's poor performance.

[00:14:55] Which is just an incredible reaction. The implication being that Dr. Jra and the other [00:15:00] consultants were pinning the units wider failings on Lucy, it really exemplifies the bureaucratic machine that the NHS has become.

[00:15:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, and I would've thought, let's say once it got to the fourth or fifth death, or even after every death, is there not like an investigation or kind of like a, what happened here?

[00:15:15] Oh, it was a failing of this equipment, or it was unforeseen. Surely they would've gone through that. And if Lucy's at all those things. Mm-hmm. She has to give some kind of statement.

[00:15:24] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So Dr. JM left the meeting knowing his concerns were not being taken seriously. Between February and May [00:15:30] two more deaths and several more collapses occur in the units and Tony Chambers was right.

[00:15:35] The ward was not doing well. There were really enough senior cover on shift. Mistakes were being made and vital procedures were not being carried out, especially after the deaths and also after the collapses. The continued collapses and deaths sends morale into a downward spiral, and by June, the atmosphere in this ward is just completely unbearable, especially for the kind of the frontline team who are working and have to deal with the fallout of these tragic cases.

[00:15:59] By the end of June, [00:16:00] Dr. Brewery held a meeting with the wider medical team, partly to address the rise in deaths, but also partly to try and lift the team spirits. During the meeting, he notices that Lucy did not show any visible emotion. She had been the single nurse president at every single incident that year.

[00:16:15] He assumed that she would be taken this harder than anyone else. So after the meeting, Dr. Brewery privately checks in with her to ask her how she was coping and whether or not she was considering taking a few days off work. Lucy, of course, was grateful for the check-in, but she told him that she was fine and that she didn't see [00:16:30] any need to take any time away, and that she would be back on shift the very next day to him.

[00:16:34] That's crazy. You were at the forefront of all these deaths. Why are you not taking this hard?

[00:16:39] Adam Cox: Yeah. You'd think would she be questioning her ability? Mm-hmm. Was it her fault? Is she saying, actually, I don't feel supported or anything like that? Is she just rushing it off? Then?

[00:16:48] Kyle Risi: I'll say this now. Lucy is very much a closed book.

[00:16:51] She's struggling with all this on the inside. She just doesn't present on her face. It's an aspect of her personality and the way she comes across that makes [00:17:00] her seem really guilty.

[00:17:01] Adam Cox: So people are expecting her to be visibly distraught or you know, if she's

[00:17:05] Kyle Risi: just calm, collected, she's suffering on the inside.

[00:17:07] That evening, Dr. Brewery contacts the head of nursing for the urgent care division, a woman named Karen Reese. He tells her plainly that he believed that Lucy was harming babies and that she needed to be taken off the unit, not tomorrow, not next week, but immediately. And again, just like Tony Chambers, she dismisses his concerns and she tells him that in her opinion, Lucy poses no threat to patients and without concrete evidence, [00:17:30] she would not be able to act.

[00:17:31] To reassure him, she adds that if anything else were to happen involving Lucy, she would take personal responsibility for,

[00:17:37] Adam Cox: okay,

[00:17:38] Kyle Risi: the very next day, another baby collapses, Adam and Lucy again. On shift. Consultants continue to mount pressure against a hospital. And finally Lucy is moved to administrative duties.

[00:17:50] This is a huge relief, but they are dealt an equally huge blow. When they learn that despite moving Lucy to administrative duties, the hospital, were not gonna be taking [00:18:00] any further action. And when they question this, they were told that moving Lucy off the unit was us taking action. And then Adam, they were asked, please stop emailing on the matter.

[00:18:11] Adam Cox: To be honest, I'm not sure I quite get that because by them taking Lucy off the ward, then that suggests that they think that maybe there's something wrong and by then not following up any further and just get, oh, she can just do some paperwork. Hang on a minute, people or some children have died.

[00:18:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:18:26] How is that enough? They don't have evidence, Adam. It all [00:18:30] stems from the hospital going, you're not running the ward effectively enough.

[00:18:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:34] Kyle Risi: And while we don't have evidence, we can't take action 'cause there is no evidence. But we will do our best to try and take your concern seriously in a way that is a happy medium.

[00:18:44] Adam Cox: I kind of get that because they need proof before they can probably progress it. But how long do you keep Lucy on admin duty? Do you go right, let's keep her on for like several months. Mm-hmm. Oh, there's no baby that's died. Okay, fine. She can go back on.

[00:18:57] Kyle Risi: You're absolutely right. And this is the thing that generally blows my [00:19:00] mind.

[00:19:00] For these consultants they were bringing to light early weak clinical signals. It didn't matter that it might just be all a coincidence. Remember to stop history from repeating itself. What we discussed with Harold Shipman, the hospital should have taken this seriously, very seriously. And yet to them, their concerns are completely dismissed.

[00:19:16] It's a perfect illustration of what the NHS has quietly become a system where more and more frontline autonomy to act in the best interest of patients has drifted upwards into the hands of nonclinical managers, people whose priorities revolve around [00:19:30] efficiency metrics and governance, rather than the realities of what is being observed on the frontline.

[00:19:34] Yeah. And in that widening gap, an environment has emerged where something very serious continued to go unchecked. It continues to go unchecked because the senior management weren't listening to the consultants when they were saying, we're understaffed. We need more staff, we need more equipment, we need more resources.

[00:19:50] And they were like,

[00:19:51] Adam Cox: eh, the best we can do is just take off your concern off the ward. That doesn't seem well enough. It doesn't

[00:19:57] Kyle Risi: seem enough, does it? So after Lucy was reassigned to [00:20:00] admin duties, the whispering about why she'd been redeployed, it inevitably made it way back to her, and in response, Lucy files a formal grievance against seven consultants stating that her reassignments was a result of baseless accusations.

[00:20:14] In her grievance letter, Adam, she says that after returning from annual leave, her life was just upended by being removed from her post. She said that she felt excluded and isolated. Described the process as professionally devastating. She says that while she acknowledged staff have the right to raise concerns, [00:20:30] that allegations against her were communicated informally, sometimes even publicly, which she found distressing.

[00:20:36] Adam Cox: Yeah, so it sounds like they have not dealt with this whatsoever, and she is generally hurt by this.

[00:20:41] Kyle Risi: She talks about how her colleagues started branding her behind her back, the angel of death. She was a murderer. She was called and calculated, and even one consultant responded, I do not care if she ended up harming herself as a result of this.

[00:20:55] Adam Cox: So people are against her, and I'm not saying she did or she didn't at this point. If [00:21:00] she did hurt those babies and there's a suspicion about that, why is she just not? I know there's no hard evidence, but there's enough now for people just to go like, why are they not just suspended her? They

[00:21:11] Kyle Risi: don't have the evidence.

[00:21:12] 'cause she says in her complaint that she believed that consultants had orchestrated her removal without any hard evidence, which is true. And that morality analysis tables were altered in order to justify their actions. So you've also got this allegation of them tampering the charts to make her look guilty.

[00:21:29] She says that [00:21:30] despite maintaining professionalism during her redeployment, the emotional toll and the isolation from her colleagues and the secrecy surrounding her situation, a secrecy that she believed was to protect others rather than her had began to affect her mental health and obviously her confidence.

[00:21:43] And she says that despite all of this, she did actually want to return to the Chesa units where she trained and began her career.

[00:21:51] Adam Cox: Really? Because I would've thought you'd been hurt by your employers, your colleagues. Would you want to stay?

[00:21:57] Kyle Risi: I dunno. Maybe if you were a killer, maybe it doesn't [00:22:00] matter. You could always go and find another hospital where could ago and kill that?

[00:22:03] I don't know.

[00:22:03] Adam Cox: So she either wants to repair her reputation and get back in to show that I'm not that person, or is she looking to get back in order to get closer to children again?

[00:22:13] Kyle Risi: Exactly. We dunno really know what her motivations are. But the point is, Adam, when senior management receive her complaints, they take it very seriously.

[00:22:19] The two consultants in question, they are forced into mediation sessions with Lucy and all seven of the consultants are instructed to apologize in writing or that they would be reported to the [00:22:30] general medical counsel. Okay. This is where everything gets tangled. What develops isn't management versus consultants.

[00:22:37] It's two kind of very different safeguarding issues pulling against each other. The consultants, of course, as we know, they believe that this was a patient safety issue, but there was nothing to prove it beyond just a gut feeling. That's literally it. They were like, what's your evidence for this? They're like.

[00:22:52] Gut feeling management, they can't accept that all they saw was a failing ward backed up by the data that they were seeing. Mm-hmm. [00:23:00] However, they do have very clear evidence that a staff member, Lucy was being treated unfairly. And so from that point of view, they are obliged to protect her because that's what they have evidence for.

[00:23:10] Yeah. If Dr. Brewery was really that concerned about the mortality rates, then more efforts the senior management say, should have been put into ensuring that the well-established post-incident procedures were followed so that evidence could be then collected and built up, but they didn't do this, but possibly due to the staff shortage issues.

[00:23:28] So it becomes this kind of catch [00:23:30] 22, right? We are so overstretched and understaffed that we physically cannot collect that evidence when there's an incident.

[00:23:37] Adam Cox: That's crazy to me that they wouldn't be able to do that. That's one of the first things, like if something goes wrong, you go to like the black box.

[00:23:44] How did this happen? That's stop it from happening again.

[00:23:46] Kyle Risi: It's wild. In the end, Adam, all seven consultants are forced to write a letter of apology to Lucy. The gist of the letter is, dear Lucy, we'd like to apologize for any inappropriate comments that we may have made during this difficult period. We are very sorry for [00:24:00] the stress and the upset that you have experienced in the last year.

[00:24:02] Please be reassured that patient safety has been an absolute priority during this very difficult time, which is, which is. I get what they're saying there. Can you sense the undertones? Like, yeah, we're sorry, but actually we're doing this because we are fearing for patient safety.

[00:24:17] Adam Cox: Yeah, I understand that.

[00:24:18] But if you've got a gut feeling and you're being forced to write this letter mm-hmm. To then carry on to keep your job or whatever,

[00:24:24] Kyle Risi: isn't that

[00:24:25] Adam Cox: so messed up?

[00:24:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it is, isn't it?

[00:24:27] Adam Cox: When you've got a genuine suspicion about the [00:24:30] wellbeing mm-hmm. Of your patients and you think it's a colleague that's doing this.

[00:24:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But also isn't it wild as well that like they're saying we cannot collect this evidence because we're so understaffed and the hospital are like, you need to sort it out. And they're like, can't you just give us more resources? So who is culpable there? These doctors and consultants can only get the resources they need and the staff if it's signed off by senior management, but they're not willing to do that.

[00:24:52] Adam Cox: So it's such a bureaucracy that they're not listening. If, if they're taken action, it feels like, okay, there's issues [00:25:00] amongst several parties. But if the higher ups had gone, okay, this is what we're gonna do moving forward, we're gonna make sure you've got the resource to document all those kind of things to make sure, okay, then we'll put Lucy back, potentially monitor her.

[00:25:12] And if those things don't happen anymore, then you've solved the problem.

[00:25:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. So Adam, the consultants, they're deeply incensed by having to do this. Even worse, Adam, it does not go unnoticed. That while Lucy is on administrative duties, the unexplained deaths and collapses completely stop.

[00:25:28] Adam Cox: Oh [00:25:30] really?

[00:25:30] Kyle Risi: And so as a result, they don't drop the issue. They continue pushing to carry out a formal investigation and eventually the hospital, they cave in and they asked the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health to conduct an external review. The consultants expected this to finally validate their concerns, vindication, if you will.

[00:25:49] Mm-hmm. And in part it does. The review finds that the hospital may have downplayed the full extent of the concerns raised about Lucy, so that's good. But because of how badly the unit was being managed, [00:26:00] there wasn't enough information to establish a cause of death or collapse in any. Of the baby's cases, the review suggests an external independent review of each unexpected death should be carried out.

[00:26:10] Partly, obviously, they're trying to protect their own backs in that instance, right? They need to do that. And as a result of this review, not because of the deaths themselves, but due to the management of the ward, how poorly it was being run, the hospital decides that they're gonna stop accepting any babies under 32 weeks of gestation until management issues are completely sorted [00:26:30] out in the ward.

[00:26:30] This is a massive blow to the consultants. Remember, they'd insisted that Lucy was doing harm and now senior management were firmly convinced that the problem was poor ward management, not foul play. And this report aligns with Tony Chamber's earlier view that Lucy was a convenient target for them to blame the poor performance of their ward on

[00:26:49] Adam Cox: it is a bit odd that she just happened to be there at every time that someone died.

[00:26:53] Kyle Risi: So odd. Or some would say that's almost incriminating.

[00:26:56] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:26:57] Kyle Risi: Because of this review, the hospital [00:27:00] management choose not to follow the review's recommendation of an external investigation. And so as a result, in April, 2017, the consultants, including Dr. Steven Brewery formally report their suspicions to the police.

[00:27:11] Ah, now, Chester Police, they launched an investigation and formally invite a Dr. Dewey Evans. He is a retired pediatrician, by the way. This is at his own request. May I add? He had heard what was happening and basically he just volunteers to conduct the independent review on behalf of the police. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:28] From the very start, he [00:27:30] makes it very clear that he does not want to be made aware of any of the police or the hospital suspicions that might end up swaying or affecting his ability to be objective. Dr. Evans was given records of 30 babies for half of them. He was able to find a very clear, objective explanation for their deaths.

[00:27:46] Their deaths were either due to infections or hemorrhages, et cetera. For 15 of those deaths, he could not establish any objective explanation. In his opinion, it was a suddenness of their deterioration that [00:28:00] just didn't add up.

[00:28:00] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:28:01] Kyle Risi: As he looked deeper, he noticed that some of the babies showed signs of air embolisms in their system, which to him could only have occurred if air had entered into their bloodstream in a way that couldn't happen accidentally in short air had been injected into them.

[00:28:18] One isolated case wouldn't have really alarmed him, maybe even two. But the fact that several babies showed the same pattern was somehow just really concerning to him.

[00:28:26] Adam Cox: Right. Okay. And so would be pretty uncommon for a [00:28:30] baby to have air, like there's no reason to have air injected as either by accident.

[00:28:33] Mm-hmm. Or some one's done this on purpose. Exactly.

[00:28:36] Kyle Risi: You also noticed that some of the baby showed signs of being overfed in volumes that premature babies just cannot handle. When it comes to a premature baby is strictly documented and carefully measured in tiny, regular intervals. Too much milk ends up restricting their ability to breed because it kind of stops their diaphragm from being able to contract.

[00:28:53] And so that's what he's suggesting is happening in a lot of these cases.

[00:28:57] Adam Cox: To me, it almost seems like yes, it could be [00:29:00] done on purpose. Someone's doing this maliciously mm-hmm. To harm babies. Or actually the nurses just aren't clearly strong enough checking the charts or checking the charts. Maybe not good enough.

[00:29:09] Maybe the fact that they're understaffed. So there's clearly a problem here, regardless. Yeah. It's just if they've gotta find out if there's intent behind these deaths.

[00:29:17] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. So he also finds signs of direct trauma in some of the babies, evidence of blood around their mouths or the back of their throats.

[00:29:24] To him, that suggests objectively that the breathing tubes or the air tubes that these babies were fitted with were [00:29:30] forcibly inserted or removed, causing catastrophic bleeding. These babies would then go off and they would internally bleed for ages and then end up dying.

[00:29:37] Adam Cox: Poor things.

[00:29:38] Kyle Risi: His findings are.

[00:29:39] Alarming right to him, and of course to the police, it was enough for them to pull even more case files. In particular, those involving a set of twins who'd both deteriorated rapidly after a sudden drop in blood sugar levels. At first, this looks ordinary, which is why it was missed. But when their blood is tested, they found extremely high levels of [00:30:00] insulin, the kind that could only be present if it had been administered externally.

[00:30:04] They knew this because when insulin is produced naturally in the body, the body also produces equal amounts of something called C-peptide. If there is far more insulin than eptide in the baby system, this to them, is a very clear indication that the insulin was injected. Okay, so for Dr. Evans, this was by far the most damning evidence that these collapses were intentional.

[00:30:25] So now police have 17 unexplained deaths and 16 suspicious collapses. But [00:30:30] it's the two insulin cases that allow them to pinpoint who was responsible because. A collapse caused by injecting insulin happens within minutes. So whoever did this had to have been on shift. They decided to pull the shift logs for both the insulin cases, and Lucy was on duty.

[00:30:47] For both of them. They then cross-referenced the other incidences. The same pattern appeared. Dr. Ravi Jiram said that by the fourth case, the pattern was obvious, and by the end it was absolute. Lucy was the [00:31:00] only single common denominator amongst all of the suspicious cases that they had identified.

[00:31:05] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:31:05] It doesn't look good.

[00:31:06] Kyle Risi: It does not does it? So this basically gives police calls to arrest Lucy on the 3rd of July, 2018. Police arrest her at her home when they knock on her door. She's the one who wanted, and she's described as being extremely calm and quiet. She's not panicked. There's no insistence of innocence as she's even taken out to the car.

[00:31:25] She even politely asked the police officer if they can move her seat forward because like she'd recently had [00:31:30] knee surgery. Even throughout the police interviews, detectives all say that she was completely cooperative. She was unp, panicked. There was no sign of distress considering what she's been accused of.

[00:31:42] Adam Cox: I guess you could look at that in two ways, right? So if you do protest your innocence, does that look guilty? Or is it that she is trying to stay calm to just to help out and basically prove her innocence? But I think you would show some concern to go, well, what are you talking about? Yeah, that wasn't me, but I guess [00:32:00] she's been suspected previously, so this isn't like a brand new bit of information that's just been thrown out.

[00:32:05] She knew this

[00:32:06] Kyle Risi: was coming, basically. Mm-hmm. But obviously the world don't know this. When they see the reporting and remember, no matter how she reacted, it would be spun in a way that was like, see, this is evidence that she's guilty, or she's called, or whatever it might be. Yeah. Meanwhile, police begin searching her house, and honestly, Adam, it's ordinary.

[00:32:21] Her bedroom was pink and white. She had teddy bears arranged on display. She's got glittery photograph frames and fairy light slogan art everywhere. Just very normal [00:32:30] stuff. The only odd thing is to me when I was reading this, like it's kind of painted as like, yeah, she was juvenile and like she had this, it just with teddy bears.

[00:32:38] Adam Cox: I feel like that's like almost sounds like she's a teenager.

[00:32:40] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And I mean, yeah, maybe it is odd for a 33-year-old woman, but it wasn't the smoking gun for me. Nothing jumps out. But a lot of the reporting online kind of really focuses in on how juvenile her existence was.

[00:32:52] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:32:53] Kyle Risi: But what mattered the most to police was what they find under her bed.

[00:32:57] They find 257 confidential [00:33:00] hospital documents, including handover sheets, medical notes, oxygen reports, eight of which related to the babies that had died or collapsed. Now the police, they also find a series of post-it notes and diary pages where she'd written on them explicitly, I killed them. I did this, I'm evil.

[00:33:18] Wow. The notes looked basically on the surface, like confessions. Others were questioning her guilt like, did I do this? Was this me? Why is this happening? So undertones that [00:33:30] suggest maybe a mix of self-loathing or despair that she's going through and even questioning.

[00:33:34] Adam Cox: I mean, having these records is like, why has she got hospital records under a bed?

[00:33:38] Mm-hmm. So is she keeping that as some kind of weird trophy? Yep. And then she's got these notes. So actually, is she well mentally because this is pretty damning evidence or It's pretty unusual, so I can completely get why people thought it was her.

[00:33:53] Kyle Risi: But here's the thing, Adam, about her relative calmness, right?

[00:33:55] As you alluded to earlier. Lucy explained that while her arrest that [00:34:00] morning was a surprise, she was expecting it to show up at some point, right? She was fully aware of the investigation against her. She knew this was happening, but in isolation, the body cam footage paints a very different picture of this cold, detached woman against this backdrop of what she's accused of as for the documents found under her bed, these look very suspicious.

[00:34:19] Like they do look like almost trophies as you alluded to, but Lucy says these are simply documents that she had forgotten were in her pockets over time, like she'd kept them together under a bed with the intention of shredding them. At one point, [00:34:30] she even had a shredder in house. She just hadn't got round to destroying that batch.

[00:34:34] Right. Eventually, over time, they piled up. Now, I'm not a nurse. I don't know if you routinely go home with documents. I think that's quite plausible. Like you're walking around, you're on your feet a lot. You might have a document in your pocket and you might forget about it.

[00:34:47] Adam Cox: I guess so, but I almost feel like you shouldn't be bringing patients records outside the hospital.

[00:34:52] Kyle Risi: She had a shredder, and I'm assuming other nurses also have shredders, is that that is a regular occurrence and the protocol is to just destroy it whenever you can and [00:35:00] she's clearly not destroy it. I'm playing devil's advocate here, right?

[00:35:03] Adam Cox: Yeah. I dunno if that's normal or not. It just seems a bit odd.

[00:35:06] You'd kind of be like, it actually, it does. I'll get rid of this straight away, or I'll take it back to work and shred it there or leave it. Sure. Yeah.

[00:35:12] Kyle Risi: It's a problem for the prosecution, basically, that she's got these documents under her bed. As for the diary, she explained that because of the investigation against her, the Redeployments and her colleagues whispering about this case behind her back, she fell into this real deep depression.

[00:35:26] Her GP advised her to start keeping her journal to stop [00:35:30] processing what was happening to her. And she says that she regularly questioned whether or not she was responsible for these deaths and collapses, not because she maliciously did anything, but because she had been made to feel that she was inadequate as a nurse.

[00:35:42] Like these notes were her questioning her competence. I did this, I'm evil. Did I do this? Was this me? Why is this happening? So in that context, I kind of see where she's coming from in that aspect, I,

[00:35:56] Adam Cox: yeah, I can understand that. I think 'cause I, I wasn't aware of that. [00:36:00] So. For her to be told that this is a way to deal with this investigation.

[00:36:04] I get it, but equally I also get, it just doesn't seem right.

[00:36:10] Kyle Risi: I mean, for a long time it wasn't that you deliberately harm these babies. It was a case of you are not great as a nurse and you're causing these collapses because you keep making stupid mistakes. I can understand why you would then go, well, because of my incompetence, because of mistakes, because of my inadequacies as a nurse.

[00:36:27] I have killed these babies, but she's coming from a, from a [00:36:30] different angle. Do you know what I mean?

[00:36:31] Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess so. But is that just an angle she's using to try and defend herself? It could

[00:36:36] Kyle Risi: be

[00:36:37] Adam Cox: because. She might have known that the way that she did kill these babies, she could prove that it was an accident or whatever it was.

[00:36:44] So I don't know if I fully buy that.

[00:36:47] Kyle Risi: So as well as the notes and the documents, police also find that Lucy had searched for the parents of the babies involved sometimes immediately after incidents, other times on anniversaries of their death. Again, it's [00:37:00] argued in court that she was seeking them out to revel in the grief that she had caused.

[00:37:03] But the defense say this was normal behavior. Neonatal practitioners, they bond deeply with families and the babies, and when a death occurs, it hits everyone hard. They argued this was a natural thing for nurses to do, to check in on families from afar. Even on anniversaries, when you know it's coming up, you go, do you remember that terrible kind of case of that baby that died awful?

[00:37:22] I wonder how the family is getting on, and so. They were arguing that as well as the families remembering nurses remember too.

[00:37:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. [00:37:30]

[00:37:30] Kyle Risi: Lisa also found photos that she had taken, or bereavement cards she had written. Giving these cars, of course, is standard, but photographing them and keeping them to the police was like a step in a very strange territory to them.

[00:37:41] They were trophies and mementos that she was keeping.

[00:37:44] Adam Cox: Yeah. That is a bit odd to take a picture. Why would she do that? What was her justification for that?

[00:37:50] Kyle Risi: It's an interesting one, and I've not looked into it. I don't know why she would've, I'm not sure if I would do the same.

[00:37:55] Adam Cox: Yeah. I think if you had been on the ward when a death [00:38:00] occurred and you'd send a card, but you'd know, okay, it wasn't me or it wasn't down to me or whatever, but you do that anyway.

[00:38:07] You wouldn't probably take a picture of that card. So for her to take a picture of a card of a death that she may have caused. It does feel a bit suspicious. Like why would you do that? Yeah. If you didn't think it, what you were linked to it in any way.

[00:38:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I have the answer for that one. But Adam, let me tell you a bit about Lucy, because one of the most striking things about this case is that she [00:38:30] simply just does not fit the profile of someone who would harm babies, which leaves us with two possibilities.

[00:38:34] Either the police have got this horribly wrong, or evil can hide in the most unexpected places. She is routinely described in the media as the vanilla killer because she's just so ordinary and boring.

[00:38:46] Adam Cox: But have we not seen this before? Where like, tell me

[00:38:49] Kyle Risi: where, where, I dunno.

[00:38:50] Adam Cox: Yeah, but I'm trying to think.

[00:38:51] I'm sure I've seen like killers before, which just seem so normal, but actually they're not.

[00:38:57] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I think there's always red flags, even in [00:39:00] hindsight, even at a stretch. There just isn't. Anyway, Lucy was born in Hereford in January, 1990, making her 33 years old. At the time of trial, she went to Ale Stone High School, and later she studied nursing at the University of Chester.

[00:39:14] She. I'd always known that she'd had a difficult birth. Her mom often told the story of how nurses were instrumental in saving her when she was an infant, and so these stories are what really inspires her to become a neonatal nurse. When Lucy graduates, she secures a permanent role at the Countess of [00:39:30] Chester Hospital neonatal units in early 2012.

[00:39:33] Her early feedback is mixed. Adam Assessor said that she lacks some clinical knowledge. She needed more experience recognizing nonverbal distress in parents, even describing her as cold sometimes. Mm-hmm. That's because I don't wanna go as far as saying she has wrestling bitch face, because that's not the case.

[00:39:47] She just doesn't show the emotion on her face. Mm-hmm. But once she settles into her career, she's described as competent, reliable, really well-liked by colleagues. Her home life also matches this, like it was warm, loving, [00:40:00] stable, no signs of trauma or abuse. Friends said that she was shy at first, but bubbly and silly.

[00:40:05] Once she was comfortable spending her free time drinking cocktails with the girls, going salsa, dancing, going to ibi, bha, just very normal. Mm-hmm. When the investigation began, Lucy was very open with friends and family about what was happening. But when she was finally arrested, even though they knew an investigation was underway, they said this was still a massive shock to them.

[00:40:24] Her best friend says that she will never believe that Lucy did this unless Lucy herself [00:40:30] admits that she did it, and her family shared the exact same unwavering support. There's just no question out of anyone who knows her, there's no question that she would ever do something like this. In all of the true crime cases that we have covered.

[00:40:43] I think that we could always find some foreshadowing in that person's past that might indicate that they had done the crime. But with Lucy, there are no red flags. Not even a small one.

[00:40:54] Adam Cox: It's either a case of this is a terrible mis justice's what's happened to her, or [00:41:00] Yeah. You can't see a killer anymore.

[00:41:01] Yeah. She's just one of those, maybe she's a rarity or an abnormality. Sure. In that actually these killers, that makes it more terrifying in my opinion. Yeah, exactly. So I, I dunno, I've tried to come in this with an open mind, even though I know what the media said about her. Mm-hmm. Think when it comes to infant deaths like this, it's, it's quite easy to hate on someone straight away.

[00:41:21] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's the most unforgivable crime.

[00:41:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. And so that's why I, I don't wanna completely defend her, but I am willing to appear [00:41:30] alternative.

[00:41:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And I also want to be careful that I'm not defending her either. I have a slightly different stance. A big part of me is very undecided. But I also don't wanna come across like I'm defending her because I also don't know, right?

[00:41:41] Mm-hmm. I don't wanna be sending him two years time going. Yeah, she definitely killed them and she killed a bunch more. 'cause that would just be mortifying.

[00:41:49] Adam Cox: Yeah. But I

[00:41:49] Kyle Risi: just don't know.

[00:41:50] Adam Cox: And we've seen these instances, whether it's been with police or whether it's been with the NHS, Harold Chipman, these things can happen that actually, that either is mis [00:42:00] justice or there is like a horrible person at the center of this.

[00:42:03] Kyle Risi: Correct? Yeah. Now, of course, the fact that she doesn't have any red flags in the past does not prove that she's innocent. But it does make this case very different from the others that we've talked about on the show. And so by the end of this phase of the investigation, police have moved from suspicion and odd anomalies to a set of findings that they believed fit together and all pointed in Lucy's direction that she had harmed these babies.

[00:42:24] Remember, these included the blood tests showing instant poisoning evidence of air embolisms caused [00:42:30] by injecting air into these babies, signs of overfeeding and direct trauma that she was causing to these babies. That was the key findings that they felt proved that she had done all this.

[00:42:40] Adam Cox: And can they prove, 'cause you mentioned that trauma, the blood they found at the back of the throats that was kind of pulling, forcing in the tube or pulling a tube out.

[00:42:48] Do they know that she did that? It wasn't another nurse?

[00:42:50] Kyle Risi: Well, this is the thing. It's all circumstantial evidence and we're gonna go through it in turn. The other key piece of evidence against her was the rotor showing that Lucy [00:43:00] was the only nurse present at all 25 suspicious incidents, as well as the 257 confidential documents that were found under her bed, along with obviously the handwritten notes that all looked like confessions to the police.

[00:43:12] Not to mention Adam, the 31 internet searches looking for the victim's parents plus the sympathy cards that she photographed. It all just looked very strange to them. There was also testimony from witnesses, including medical staff and parents who said they had seen Lucy at the bedsides of these babies just [00:43:30] before incidences that occurred.

[00:43:32] So it looks really damning when you frame it in that way, doesn't it?

[00:43:36] Adam Cox: Yes, I agree. Because whilst none of these things prove she did it, there's so much circumstantial to make you not able to disprove that she did it, if that makes sense. That's

[00:43:48] Kyle Risi: right, yes. A set of patterns that there are insisting proves that she did this.

[00:43:52] And so Adam, on the 10th of October, 2022, Lucy's trial began at Manchester Crown Court. It lasted 10 months and it became [00:44:00] one of the longest criminal trials in British history. 10 months, I guess there's a lot of cases to go through, isn't there?

[00:44:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, but is that the same jury? Are they on the whole time?

[00:44:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Can you imagine? Stuck in a hotel for 10 months? No. So she's accused of murdering seven babies and the attempted murder of 15, and at her plea hearing, she said, of course she was not guilty. The prosecution's evidence largely centered around one key finding that they said definitively proved that she did this, and that was the blood test result showing insulin [00:44:30] poisoning in these two infants, these were known as Baby F and baby L.

[00:44:35] Everything else they argued was just supporting the fact that she was guilty because of course, the sensitivity around the victims, the names and their parents' names were anonymized. So each baby was assigned a letter from a. To Q. Wow. So there's a lot of them. The first case was that of child A and B, a little boy and little girl.

[00:44:55] They were twins, both born premature at 31 weeks old. Now, despite [00:45:00] this, they were progressing really well on the day in question. Lucy began a shift at 7:30 PM and was assigned as a designated nurse for child A. At around 8:00 PM Lucy urgently called doctors because child, a skin was starting to turn blue in model patches.

[00:45:17] From there, he ends up deteriorating really quickly, and despite efforts to try and saving, he ends up dying at 9:00 PM that evening.

[00:45:25] Adam Cox: So that's a very quick turnaround within a couple of hours of her being on her [00:45:30] shift.

[00:45:30] Kyle Risi: That's right. Yeah. Later, that same night, just before midnight, her twin sister child B also suddenly collapsed in a similar way, and this was because her oxygen tube had somehow become dislodged.

[00:45:41] The prosecution says that Lucy wanted to kill Child B, but ended up failing. Meanwhile, the defense argued that this was just an assumption, a conclusion that was shaped by cognitive bias. They explained that once suspicion around Lucy had already been heightened, people naturally connected those dots in a way that [00:46:00] seemed to fit the narrative that they were already starting to believe.

[00:46:03] The court also heard about Child G, who was born 23 weeks and six days. Her father said, Adam, that she weigh just 500 grams when she was born, small enough that she could fit inside the palm of his hand. Wow. So she's tiny. Now, despite the odds, she was also progressing really well, she'd done so well that when she reached her 100th day, the nurses baked a cake to celebrate because they weren't sure that she would make it this far.

[00:46:27] So it was a huge cause of celebration. But the next [00:46:30] morning, child G suddenly begins vomiting with such a force, Adam, that it travels several feet across the room. Ah,

[00:46:36] Adam Cox: that's a lot for a tiny little baby.

[00:46:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Her oxygen levels and heart rate, they collapsed immediately Afterwards, she was stabilized, but based on how critical her condition was, the team decided to transfer her to a specialist hospital for urgent care.

[00:46:49] At the time, the nursing team was shocked by just the sheer volume of vomit that had come out. This tiny little baby. Before the transfer, they decided to aspirate her stomach only to [00:47:00] find far more milk than she had actually been fed, along with a significant amount of air. The mixture, basically, it overwhelmed her diaphragm and basically triggered this collapse.

[00:47:09] Adam Cox: So had she been overfed

[00:47:11] Kyle Risi: then, that's what they're saying, yeah. The question whether or not she had received additional feeding was what was essentially posed, but her chart showed that all she had received was the 45 mil of feed that she was prescribed for that evening.

[00:47:24] Adam Cox: So are they suggesting that Lucy snuck in an extra feed or didn't log [00:47:30] a feed?

[00:47:30] Kyle Risi: They are suggesting that she deliberately overfed her again. Mm-hmm. A few weeks later, child G returns back to the Countess of Chester. Her assigned nurse for that evening had fed her the required 45 meals of milk and then stepped out for a break. During that time, the baby then collapsed again with more vomiting.

[00:47:48] Lucy was the one who ended up sounding the alarm, but it's also noted that Child G's monitor had been turned off, meaning that there was a delay before anyone realized that she was deteriorating. She [00:48:00] was stabilized again. But Adam, she's left with such severe brain damage and later diagnosed with quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

[00:48:07] Adam Cox: That's terrible. It's awful.

[00:48:09] Kyle Risi: Again, the team, they aspirated her stomach and once again, they found the original 45 mil of milk still present despite the amount of vomit that baby produced.

[00:48:18] Adam Cox: I feel so sorry for the poor parents that they've had a child, they are expecting, 'cause they're nurses and the doctors that they're gonna take good care of their child.

[00:48:27] Yeah. And they could be home, I don't know, [00:48:30] getting on with their lives, waiting to go visit their child in the hospital again, and then they get a call about this.

[00:48:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's awful. The prosecution claimed that knowing the baby had just been fed, Lucy basically did it again, but then she also injected air into her stomach knowing this would cause a collapse.

[00:48:44] They argued that she had turned off the monitor in order to prevent the alarm from being raised, because of course if she was starting to collapse, the alarm would've gone off and then it would've alerted someone a lot sooner. Sure. The prosecution says that Lucy attempted to kill Baby G. Three times.

[00:48:59] [00:49:00] Three times, we won't go through all the babies in sequence because largely they all follow the same handful of mechanics. So these incidents weren't isolated. Similar patterns were alleged in the other babies as well injected air into their bloodstream, overfeeding, or deliberate dislodging, or breathing tubes, or feeding tubes.

[00:49:18] But the court also heard about child F and child l. The babies who were injected with insulin, the prosecution said that this was their key evidence because it was impossible for the insulin levels in their blood to [00:49:30] appear naturally alongside the lower measured eptide levels. Remember, when your body produces insulin, you produce the exact equal amount of eptide in your system.

[00:49:39] If there's a disparity between those two, then it suggests that it was injected artificially.

[00:49:43] Adam Cox: Yeah, sure.

[00:49:44] Kyle Risi: That said, this evidence is still circumstantial. It doesn't directly prove that Lucy administered that insulin, but the prosecution argued that the surrounding circumstances made it clear that it must have been her, and that included the fact that Lucy was the only one of two [00:50:00] nurses on duty during both of those incidences.

[00:50:02] She was the one responsible for child F at the time, and so they argued it could only have been her child L's collapse. Lucy had volunteered to take an extra shift and volunteered to take care of child L only for the baby to then collapse very soon after. They also showed that child F and child L were among the parents that she had searched for soon after those instances had happened, which the prosecution claimed demonstrated this kind of morbid interest and planning basically.

[00:50:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, because I feel [00:50:30] with these two deaths, obviously injecting insulin, that's not an accident, whereas the other ones could pass off as an accident.

[00:50:37] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:50:37] Adam Cox: Is there a chance that it's not just Lucy that's maybe not good at her job, but the other nurses at the moment, she's the common denominator across all of these, but that doesn't mean to say that the other nurses are any better than her,

[00:50:51] Kyle Risi: correct.

[00:50:51] Yeah, and I guess it goes stem back to what they said earlier on with. Her being the common denominator. Obviously, we know that the ward has been managed [00:51:00] poorly, but they've settled into this belief that they've already started to create for themselves as cognitive bias. So when something goes wrong, they go, well, Lucy's the one who's been incriminated for these things.

[00:51:09] She's the one under suspicion. Could it just be her? I guess it's just confirming what people have started to whisper about.

[00:51:14] Adam Cox: True. But I'd like to think that the other nurses were also questioned just to either rule them out and to make sure it's confident that it was Lucy,

[00:51:23] Kyle Risi: but the fact that she was present at both these instances where the insulin levels were recorded higher is quite [00:51:30] significant, right?

[00:51:31] Mm-hmm. Both the prosecution and the defense, including Lucy, agreed that the insulin levels found in these baby systems could not occur naturally without the C-peptide levels rising too. But all Lucy says in her defense was, all I can do is speak for myself and that I did not do this. That's all she says.

[00:51:46] Mm-hmm. The court then heard from the mother of child E. She said she walked in to find Lucy with her distressed baby and noticed that there was a lot of blood around its mouth. When she had asked what had happened, Lucy had told her that the cause was a [00:52:00] neo gastric feeding tube that you kind of insert, and that it had somehow had caused maybe a little bit of a scratch in the back of the throat.

[00:52:07] She reassured her that there was nothing to worry about and that she should trust her because she was a nurse.

[00:52:13] Adam Cox: I mean, yeah, a potential killing nurse

[00:52:16] Kyle Risi: that night. Child E then goes on to experience a catastrophic blood loss and ends up dying. It wasn't just a scratch, it had caused massive internal bleeding.

[00:52:25] And then as a result, he died. The attending doctor described the volume of [00:52:30] blood was unlike anything that he'd ever seen inside an infant. Oh my God. Lucy's notes. They never mention the bleeding at all, but they did contain a documented meeting between the mother and the doctor, of which both of them deny ever took place.

[00:52:46] Adam Cox: The mother and the doctor. Yeah. I dunno why that doesn't make sense.

[00:52:49] Kyle Risi: So she'd obviously written something down that the doctor had come and spoken to the mum but hadn't. The prosecution said that Lucy deliberately caused the bleed by being too forceful when inserting or removing the tube. [00:53:00] And then of course, she left it untreated, likely knowing it could cause a catastrophic blood loss.

[00:53:05] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:06] Kyle Risi: There were also testimony from the assigned nurse to child Kay, who described walking in to find Lucy in the baby's room. Child Kay's oxygen saturation had dropped to a dangerously low level and the feeding tube that she had been administered had been then dislodged. And according to that nurse, Lucy was just standing there doing nothing or even calling for help.

[00:53:25] She was just watching the baby over the next few hours. The baby's breathing [00:53:30] tube was then found, dislodged a few more times, and eventually the baby has to be transferred to another kind of unit for special care. But that's where that baby died four days later. I mean,

[00:53:41] Adam Cox: we've tried to keep an open mind, but this there is a lot of evidence.

[00:53:45] Mm-hmm. And I appreciate. Some of it is more circumstantial, but there is just so much of it.

[00:53:50] Kyle Risi: Sure. And I mean, at the end of the day, the jury are not idiots. They probably looked at this circumstantial evidence over the last 10 months and gone, do you know what [00:54:00] this does point to the fact that she most likely did this, so I'm not denying their interpretation of the evidence.

[00:54:07] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, to me, when you go through these count by count it, it feels like she did have a hand in the deaths of some of these babies.

[00:54:15] Kyle Risi: So these are the key children that they went through during the trial. They did obviously cover every single case over the 10 month proceedings, but by large, the alleged mechanisms were all similar.

[00:54:25] But next, during the trial, the prosecution presented the court with a graph showing that every [00:54:30] time a child had collapsed or died, Lucy was on shift. Every single one of them, Adam, they argued that this pattern was too consistent to be a mere coincidence. Here's an image of it, right? So down the left hand side are all the babies labeled from A to Q.

[00:54:44] You then have the date of each incident in the next column, and then along the top you have all the staff members against each baby. There's an X against each nurse indicating that they were on shift. Lucy is highlighted in purple,

[00:54:57] Adam Cox: so yeah, this is just like an Excel [00:55:00] table essentially, and all the different nurses along the top and then all the babies.

[00:55:04] But yeah, for her, which is highlighted, yeah, every single one. Whereas all the other nurses or doctors, whatever, it's pretty sporadic. Like probably got maybe two or three against their names each, and there's 20 of them. Maybe. When you look at it like that, how could you not deny that she's involved?

[00:55:22] Kyle Risi: It's an emotionally powerful chart, right?

[00:55:24] It clearly draws a correlation between Lucy's presence and each collapse or death. The intuitive [00:55:30] message is that these events keep happening when she's there, so she must be causing them. But interestingly, the prosecution were very, very careful not to claim that this was statistical proof of her guilt.

[00:55:41] Only that it was just one brick in the wall, though they put it a very heavy one, and I agree with that, right? It looks really damning. They were also very careful 'cause they suspected the defense team would scrutinize this, which they did, though, not in a way that the jury found persuasive. 'cause of course, at the end of the day, she ends up being found guilty, right?

[00:55:59] [00:56:00] After the trial, a group of statisticians reviewed the defense's arguments against the chart and said that they could have explained the flaws in the graph far better than the defense had tried to. And basically they were saying that the data was essentially meaningless, which is crazy. We'll also link to the chart in the show notes so you guys can have a look at yourself.

[00:56:18] It is really powerful. It is really persuasive. So them to turn around and say, this data is all meaningless. Like how? What is the argument? How could it possibly be meaningless?

[00:56:28] Adam Cox: Yeah. Do you have the answer [00:56:30] to that?

[00:56:30] Kyle Risi: I

[00:56:30] Adam Cox: do. Okay.

[00:56:31] Kyle Risi: They explained that the chart didn't control for basic variables, basically, which babies were the sickest on which days, which nurses were assigned to which infants, which nurses work the most high acuity shifts.

[00:56:43] So basically the ones where they're dealing with the sickest babies. Basically they were asking, did Lucy simply work more nights? 'cause those are the shifts where babies tend to be more critical times when collapses and deaths rise naturally, were the sickest babies typically assigned to the more experienced [00:57:00] nurses.

[00:57:00] If you don't control for these factors, then the graph cannot show a causation basically, is what they're saying.

[00:57:05] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's mislead.

[00:57:07] Kyle Risi: They also argue that with such a small data set, a limited number of nurses compared against just 17 cases, out of hundreds of babies being treated, the chances of finding misleading patterns can rise sharply.

[00:57:19] They also added that the rotor system that wasn't evenly distributed, basically, senior nurses typically being assigned higher risk babies, you then have an increased likelihood of an apparent [00:57:30] clustering. This is what statisticians call a clustering illusion. Patterns that can look meaningful, but are simply the kind of false clusters that small or uneven data sets tend to generate.

[00:57:41] Here's an analogy that we can work with. Imagine, uh, shop with 15 cashiers, right? One cashier, Emma, she works the longer shifts. She covers most of the evenings and is always placed on the busiest till by pure chance she ends up being on duty four out of the five shoplifting incidents that happen over [00:58:00] that week, three of the card machines end up failing because she's working on the busiest tills.

[00:58:05] There's two instances where she has to deal with abusive customers and they escalate to a degree because they don't have the security guards on shift. The manager might then turn around at the end of that week and say, Emma is always here. When something bad happens is she causing it? But in reality, she's just simply more present more often when high risk stuff happens basically.

[00:58:27] Adam Cox: I see. So she's one of the most senior nurses, and so [00:58:30] she gets perhaps some of the toughest jobs.

[00:58:32] Kyle Risi: That's what they're saying. I don't think that's what they're saying, but they're saying you need to account for that. Yeah, but they also point out that although the prosecution ultimately focused on 25, suspicious instance, there were far more.

[00:58:45] That were initially considered during the investigation, but by the time the trial started, the prosecution had whittled these down to the cases that they said appeared more suspicious because they could then potentially get a more concrete conviction out of this. Right. I see. There [00:59:00] were

[00:59:00] Adam Cox: 60 cases, so 60, so we saw about what, 20 or 30 on that chart?

[00:59:04] Kyle Risi: 17 came forward basically. Okay. Yeah. Fine. So, but yeah, basically they'd whittle them down to the ones that seem more suspicious. They were arguing that who makes a decision on what's considered suspicious? Every incident should be recorded on that chart,

[00:59:17] Adam Cox: right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:59:18] Kyle Risi: The implication is that the ones that were missed off that chart were the ones that didn't support the potency of what that chart ended up being.

[00:59:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause if you added another 40 odd instances, then how often are other [00:59:30] people's name or across against their name come up?

[00:59:32] Kyle Risi: Sure. And do we then start to see gaps in Lucy's presence? Yeah. In other words, they began with the assumption that Lucy was guilty and then selectively leaned on circumstantial evidence to basically reinforce the conclusion that they had already made.

[00:59:45] Of course, your prosecution. So naturally you start with that conclusion that she is guilty 'cause you're trying to find her guilty, basically. Mm-hmm. When Lucy is finally court to the stand, though, she spends 14 days under cross examination. Wow. She maintains her innocence, and again, [01:00:00] her demeanor is consistent.

[01:00:01] She's incredibly calm, she's very soft voice, rarely showing any emotion. Her core defense was that she didn't do any of this and that she was being used as a scapegoat for the wider systemic failings within the ward. But Adam, when she's pressed for the specifics. She struggles to elaborate. Like, remember this trial was a long time coming, innocent or guilty, you would expect her to have some explanation.

[01:00:25] Adam Cox: If you're trying to defend yourself, you'd be like, this thing happened. There was this incident. I raised this, but this [01:00:30] wasn't taking, you know, you'd go through the whole lot. Yeah. Are you saying that she basically defended herself poorly?

[01:00:34] Kyle Risi: Either way. It wasn't persuasive enough for the jury, hence why they found her guilty.

[01:00:38] Right. The most she said was that the deaths and the collapses were due to systemic problems, including understaffing, inadequate resources and the stressful environments where mistakes and shortcuts were primed to happen. And as you can imagine, this undermines her defense and does not satisfy the jury because she's not specific with it.

[01:00:55] Adam Cox: Yeah. She's almost saying, yeah, I probably am a bit guilty for not doing a good job [01:01:00] because of all these other reasons. Mm-hmm. So it's not really saying that she was innocent at all.

[01:01:04] Kyle Risi: The trial last 10 months and on the 10th of July, 2023, the jury began the deliberations and after 22 days on the 13th of August, 2023, they find Lucy guilty of seven murders and six attempted murders.

[01:01:18] I believe three of the counts, they were just left undecided. And so Adam Lucy was sentenced on the 21st of August, 2023 to 14 whole life orders, which Adam is exceptionally rare in the [01:01:30] UK justice system. She's only the fourth woman in British history To receive that kind of sentence, along with Myra, Henley and Rose West,

[01:01:37] Adam Cox: I was gonna say, those two must come up.

[01:01:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Which basically means she's going to die in prison. Wow. The judge said the sentence reflected the exceptionally grave harm that she had caused the extreme vulnerability of the victims and what the court accepted as a deliberate pattern of behavior on her part. And while the sentence brings clarity for the families, it doesn't really bring [01:02:00] closure.

[01:02:00] It's even more heartbreaking when you understand the extreme lengths that some of these parents went to just to have these babies in the first place, like suffering through grueling IVF processes. Mm-hmm. That take months to months to month. Right. Failures, repeated attempts and the constant hope only turn up losing your child.

[01:02:16] It's awful. Not just losing your child naturally, but potentially by murder.

[01:02:20] Adam Cox: Yeah. And a place that you think is safe. Exactly. And even if she didn't murder them, then malpractice because it was so poorly run. Yeah. Either way's. No [01:02:30] comfort in either option. I don't think

[01:02:31] Kyle Risi: exactly the victim impact statements at the end of the trial, Adam, it's just brutal to read over and over.

[01:02:36] It's the same kind of theme that appears stolen futures, birthdays never reached, first steps that will never happen. Hopes and imagined lives that just ended before they could even begin. And for the babies who did survive, families spoke about the lifelong care that they now needed. Others described how the turmoil tore the families apart.

[01:02:55] Couples drifted away under the weight of the grief, some even contemplated [01:03:00] ending their lives. So it's awful. Yeah. And before I forget. Lucy, she refused to attend her verdict or her sentencing. She didn't need to sit through any of the victim impact statements, which honestly just gives me goosebumps as a parent.

[01:03:13] Do you know what I mean? This is your moment essentially, to look at their perpetrator in the eye and tell them what they have taken away from you. But they were robbed at that chance because she decided that she didn't want to attend that hearing.

[01:03:25] Adam Cox: I dunno how that makes her seem. If she is innocent, I can understand.

[01:03:29] If you are [01:03:30] innocent, you're like, I don't want to go through that 'cause that's gonna be horrible and I didn't do it. Mm-hmm. But equally, it feels if I was the victim. Yeah. Like you say, you don't have your chance to say your peace.

[01:03:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah. She argued that she had severe PTSD from the trial. At some points as well.

[01:03:46] She claimed that she suffered from anxiety so much that she didn't want to have to walk to the dock, which was being cross-examined. So the judge agreed for her to get into the dock before anyone walked into the room. So there made these [01:04:00] special allowances for her because she was suffering from PTSD as a result of this trial, essentially.

[01:04:05] Which, I mean, you're on trial for murder. Should you be making those allowances? I

[01:04:09] Adam Cox: don't know.

[01:04:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but they didn't want to be, again, it's a bureaucracy of this. They don't want to then be stung with a charge of like human rights violations, uhhuh, but also. Could this potentially be used as a way of her appealing and then getting off because of a mistrial or whatever?

[01:04:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. For me it just reinforces that she is guilty in, in my eyes anyway.

[01:04:29] Kyle Risi: What's [01:04:30] interesting is that she is following a trend that is becoming more and more common in the justice system, where these people on trial have got the option to kind of say, listen, I've got PTSD, I don't want to attend. So it seems she seems to be following a trend

[01:04:44] Adam Cox: that is so odd and that they would even accept that.

[01:04:47] Like if you've been found guilty, I don't feel like you should be given that option.

[01:04:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I guess they don't wanna risk her potentially committing suicide in prison. I don't know. The point is, politicians, they are starting to look at this and [01:05:00] changing this as a law. Of course, the families, as we know, they're devastated by this.

[01:05:04] They ended up calling Lucy Cowardly, which if she's guilty, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Piece of shit. But reading these statements to an empty dock just feels like another wound that's been opened to them. This was the final denial of accountability from the person that the court was holding responsible for these murders.

[01:05:20] Yeah. Yeah. Awful. And so, Adam, while Lucy's sentence doesn't erase any of the pain, it is at least a step towards moving forward for these families, and it does open up a path, [01:05:30] or the next question, which is why would someone do this in the first place? Hmm. So, as you know, in these cases, the prosecution aren't really required to prove a motive.

[01:05:40] But after the trial, this is what a lot of online sleuths and psychologists try to set out to answer. The key theories that people have suggested was the idea that Lucy was seeking a thrill or enjoyed playing kind of God controlling that flux between life and death.

[01:05:56] Adam Cox: That's the only thing I could think of to be honest.

[01:05:58] Kyle Risi: Others have argued that she had a [01:06:00] fascination with the emotional process of grieving and the power dynamics involved with causing grief, which would explain why she searched for the parents online afterwards and taking

[01:06:08] Adam Cox: photos of those cards.

[01:06:09] Kyle Risi: Exactly, including on the anniversaries. But I also see how this could be seen as normal behavior as well.

[01:06:14] I don't know if it's abnormal for you to take a picture of a grieving card that you sent to a parent, especially when you've been through that turmoil as well. I dunno.

[01:06:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, I dunno enough to make a judgment on that. It seems odd to me, but maybe if I was in that situation, [01:06:30] would I do that? I dunno.

[01:06:32] Kyle Risi: Another theory is jealousy. She was 33. She lived alone, and at the time she had no clear prospects of having a family of her own. The idea that she was overcome with jealousy of these happy families could explain why the collapses and deaths began so suddenly rather than brewing or escalating slowly over time.

[01:06:48] Usually these red flags, remember they appear gradually one incident, then another incident, and then the numbers slowly start to escalate before they then get too raisin and then something slips them up. But at the Countess of [01:07:00] Chester, the mortality rates before 2015 were all completely normal. They all just started in that one year.

[01:07:05] What makes all of this so difficult is that from a psychological profiling standpoint, she misses every single marker of a typical serial killer, which is why she's described by the daily male as the vanilla killer, because it's like it doesn't add up, right? Even the public see that it doesn't add up.

[01:07:20] Adam Cox: Why does everyone need a name or a nickname? I know it's kind of crazy like that, isn't it?

[01:07:23] Kyle Risi: It's wild. The prosecution do float. Another possibility, and that was that this might have been an [01:07:30] attempt to get closer to a doctor that she was deeply interested in. They said that whenever a crisis happened, it was often this doctor who was called to the scene after many of the incidents, he would shower her with praise about how well she handled things.

[01:07:42] This was something that she just came to grave.

[01:07:43] Adam Cox: I mean, that feels like a stretch, but maybe, maybe that could

[01:07:47] Kyle Risi: happen. Well, they say that over time they ended up forming a really close relationship. Lucy says that they were just friends, but the prosecution argued that it was more than that, and this was based on the late night text exchanges that they would often engage in, but also his name [01:08:00] appears in her journal, written repeatedly and surrounded by a bunch of love hearts.

[01:08:04] They would also go on these regular walks together. He visited a house alone. Sometimes they even took day trips to London, sometimes. But the problem was that the relationship in her mind could never go anywhere meaningful. Because he was married and he had two kids, their interactions were very limited and very sporadic.

[01:08:21] And so the prosecution argued, she engineered these incidents as a way to draw him in and create a situation that they could bond over.

[01:08:28] Adam Cox: I see that. [01:08:30] That does make sense. Although just have a normal affair. Yeah. But she was going to London on a day trip with him. Mm-hmm. I'm assuming other people 'cause together, that does seem a bit odd to have your wife let you go to London with another woman, which fair enough if you are like close friends, whatever.

[01:08:45] But this is just sort of a colleague from work. Yeah, it's a bit weird.

[01:08:48] Kyle Risi: It is a bit weird. Apparently when the case was unfolding, this particular doctor stood by her right up until the point that she was arrested. In one of their texts, he said, you are one of the few nurses across the region. And I've [01:09:00] worked pretty much everywhere that I would trust with my own children.

[01:09:03] So he believes though, and he's standing by her. That suggests to me that they have quite a close relationship. He even offers to write her a statement vouching for her if anyone questioned the quality of care that she was giving. He also kept her informed about the details of an internal review that was being carried out about her.

[01:09:19] Something that the prosecution said allowed her to stay ahead of the game. Oh. When the doctor was finally called to testify, by this point, he had completely turned against her. It is one of the [01:09:30] few times that Lucy has seen being really emotional in court, actually breaking down in tears.

[01:09:35] Adam Cox: So that kind of proves that theory, that there was a romantic element maybe to her interaction with him or equally.

[01:09:43] He had defended her and now is not defending her. Maybe the case seems overwhelming for him to like possibly not, not do that possibly. Mm-hmm. She probably feels a bit hurt and betrayed for that.

[01:09:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So even though Lucy is now in prison, the investigation isn't over, Adam Police are reviewing the entirety.

[01:09:58] Of her clinical [01:10:00] footprint and new charges might still follow. In 2024, Lucy went through a retrial concerning baby K. That was the case that the jury were previously undecided about. The assertion had been that the baby might have dislodged his own breathing tube multiple times due to how active the baby was.

[01:10:16] Mm-hmm. Which apparently some clinicians say it can be quite common, but at the retrial, Lucy was found guilty for attempting to murder him, and as a result she received an additional life sentence. So she's now got 15. Yeah. Since the trial, the Countess of Chest Hospital has [01:10:30] implemented an entirely new leadership team.

[01:10:32] They still haven't lifted the restriction on accepting babies under the 32 week gestation period. And naturally, Adam, people want to know how this was even allowed to happen in the first place In a modern NHS hospital, this wasn't a case where concerns were never raised. They were raised consistently after the third death, but each time those concerns were shut down.

[01:10:51] Management argued that because the ward was performing poorly, the procedures weren't being followed, and therefore, evidence to support the consultants' [01:11:00] concerns just was simply never captured. But surely, Adam, surely, if the ward is overstretched to the point that basic procedures cannot be followed, it's senior management's responsibility to provide the resources to ensure that they can.

[01:11:15] Instead, consultants were effectively told. It's up to you to sort out

[01:11:19] Adam Cox: and you deal with it. So were any of these senior management, were they found guilty? Did anyone else questioned in this? Because whilst Lucy is potentially or is the killer. [01:11:30] Then they let this slide for far too long. And equally, the deaths that Lucy was not involved with or the instances, it sounds like there's a real poor system anyway.

[01:11:40] Someone

[01:11:40] Kyle Risi: should be held accountable for that.

[01:11:42] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:11:42] Kyle Risi: It seems that following cases like Harold Shipman in the late 1990s, in the early two thousands where he was able to kill over 200 patients, the checks and measures introduced to track suspicious behavior have now gone way too far in the opposite direction, and a new oversight gap has emerged, one dominated by bureaucratic pressure rather than [01:12:00] clinical judgment.

[01:12:00] Frontline practitioners are overruled when they try and raise the alarm because they're like, well, the paperwork's not in order. We can't take action. Do you know what I mean?

[01:12:09] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:12:10] Kyle Risi: There is something to be said for gut instinct.

[01:12:12] Adam Cox: Yeah. And it seems like these parents, they walked in when Lucy was doing something odd, something triggered them to go, well, this didn't feel right.

[01:12:20] So I feel like a lot of people have pretty good intuition.

[01:12:24] Kyle Risi: Listen, it indicates that something was wrong. They were probably misguided in my opinion. It was down [01:12:30] to Lucy, but something was wrong and it was, in my opinion, a systemic issue. And that's because I want to end this episode with one last thing.

[01:12:38] 'cause I think I've tried to not really overtly assert my opinion on Lucy's guilt because when we searched in this episode, I approached it trusting the verdict, right. That she was guilty. Mm-hmm. That wasn't until February of 2025. When a major press conference was held, that Lucy Lepe is in fact 100% innocent,

[01:12:57] Adam Cox: a

[01:12:57] hundred percent innocent.

[01:12:59] Kyle Risi: The press conference was held [01:13:00] in London by Dr. Shoe Lee, and 14 international neonatal specialists who had spent months reviewing all 17 cases

[01:13:06] Adam Cox: and independently.

[01:13:07] Kyle Risi: Independently. They are not commissioned by anyone. They have not been asked to do this. Collectively, this team represents around 500 person years of neonatal experience from some of the world's most prestigious children's hospitals, including Boston Children's, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Sikh Kids, Toronto, Imperial College, and Major Centers in Tokyo and Singapore.

[01:13:29] Adam Cox: Okay. [01:13:30]

[01:13:30] Kyle Risi: They said that they were deeply concerned about how the medical evidence had been interpreted at trial, and so they basically volunteered their time to reexamine the clinical records of every single baby. Their findings were grouped into six categories, matching, obviously the allegations, uh, embolisms introduced obviously through feeding tubes, insulin administration, abdominal trauma, overfeeding, and obviously other deteriorations, right?

[01:13:54] Mm-hmm. The headline conclusion was that they found no medical evidence or intentional [01:14:00] harm in any of the 17 cases. In their view, they said every single collapse or death was explained by natural disease or failure of care within an overstretched neonatal unit.

[01:14:14] Adam Cox: Wow. That's powerful.

[01:14:16] Kyle Risi: They said for baby one, the baby, the prosecution said died due to air being injected into the IV line evidenced by patchy skin discoloration.

[01:14:25] The panel said that this pattern does not occur in venous air embolisms, [01:14:30] and it isn't supported by any of the literature. The literature they're referring to is the literature penned by Dr. Shu Lee himself. The evidence that they used to say that she was guilty was a paper that Dr. Shu Lee had written in 1989, and he is saying that You misinterpreted my data.

[01:14:49] Adam Cox: Really? Yeah. Where was he at this trial? Yeah, exactly. So the, when they did the original study or investigation, was it just by one doctor? Am I right in saying that? Dr. Dr. Dewey [01:15:00] Evans. Dewey Evans. Was it just him or were there others? It

[01:15:04] Kyle Risi: was just him. During this press conference, one of the people in the press panel asked what he thought of Dr.

[01:15:09] Dewey's testimony, and he was like. There are major flaws with Dr. Dewey's past and the evidence that he's presented in the past. I haven't got this written down here, but in one case they said that a judge branded one of his testimony completely worthless because of how poorly it was written and or how in factual or misleading it was.

[01:15:26] And that was just one case.

[01:15:27] Adam Cox: So is that again, a case [01:15:30] of the prosecution using someone that they could use to corroborate or use? The thing is though, this

[01:15:34] Kyle Risi: was before the trial, right? Yeah. This was during the investigation that they called someone in. He volunteered. That's true. And he, he was a retired pediatrician and that this was his expert opinion.

[01:15:43] Adam Cox: This is why they should always have a panel of people that independently do something and then come together. So that's what's happened with these people all over the world. They weren't like looking at each other's notes and then all came to the same conclusion. Mm-hmm. Well then that's pretty evident, right?

[01:15:57] That there's something not right here.

[01:15:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Let's [01:16:00] continue. So they said in terms of the air embolisms. Instead, they argued that the babies most likely die from blood clots caused by repeated IV line problems and several hours where the lines were inserted, but not infusing fluids into the actual bloodstream itself.

[01:16:16] It was going to the tissue, Adam. They also said that in one case, given the mother's clotting condition, they said that a thrombosis formed and then later dislodged. And then when the infusion eventually did resume, so they pulled it out 'cause you have to change it every so often [01:16:30] and then put it back in.

[01:16:31] It then caused the blood clot to then dislodged, traveled up to the brain and caused the sudden collapse. So basically not knowing how to properly fit an IV in a newborn baby.

[01:16:42] Adam Cox: That could have come from multiple nurses, not just loosely poor training

[01:16:46] Kyle Risi: across the board. Yeah, they said baby four and baby nine died from severe infection and respiratory failure, not injected air.

[01:16:54] In baby nine's case, an untreated infection caused repeated airway obstructions, and then an eventual [01:17:00] collapse for baby 11. They rejected the claim that Lucy deliberately dislodged the breathing tube. They identified that in this case there was a 94% air leak caused by using an undersized tube in that baby.

[01:17:13] Therefore, that air then ended up flooding the baby system with air.

[01:17:16] Adam Cox: So is that something that Lucy should have known that this tube that I'm putting back into a child is too small or not the right size, or if they haven't got the supplies, that's all she has?

[01:17:27] Kyle Risi: Possibly there would need to be another trial to prove [01:17:30] that she was incompetent enough to cause these deaths.

[01:17:33] But then at the same time, you've got a whole team of nurses that are routinely changing these air tubes. Mm-hmm. Getting them fitted and putting the IVs in, et cetera. So it's pointing to why systemic issues of training and understaffing. They also addressed the allegation that Lucy had turned off the monitor.

[01:17:49] Do you remember that one? Yes. The baby apparently was gasping in intervals under 20 seconds, just below the alarm threshold, and while one nurse [01:18:00] thought the monitor was off, another one said that it was not off. So they said it was off because the alarm didn't sound, so they assumed it was. The baby was gasping intervals of 20 seconds, therefore, just above their threshold.

[01:18:14] They would then gasp. The machine would go, oh, they're breathing. No need to sound the alarm. Yeah, but it was doing that for ages and therefore just never went below their threshold. If it'd been slightly longer, then maybe it would've done for baby 15 who the prosecution said had died from blunt trauma.

[01:18:29] The [01:18:30] panel said that the baby had a liver hematoma basically from a rapid traumatic delivery, which then later erupted and caused basically a catastrophic hemorrhage, and that's the cause of that baby's death. They said that an infection had set in and that's what caused it for baby seven, who the prosecution said that lucid overfed with milk and air.

[01:18:51] The panel found that the baby instead had an infection and they noted that although overfeeding can cause vomiting, it does not cause large watery stools, which was seen in [01:19:00] this case. Therefore, pointing to the fact that the baby had an infection. The air on the x-ray they said was introduced by the bag and mask ventilation during the process of resuscitating their baby, and that's how their egg got introduced into the baby system.

[01:19:14] So it's because you resuscitated the fuck outta their baby.

[01:19:17] Adam Cox: Isn't that kind of crazy to think that they're looking at these records and images and whatever and they're able to put this together, but no one else was able to put this together?

[01:19:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's 'cause they didn't get the experts in and these guys are independent [01:19:30] and they're spread across the world.

[01:19:31] They're not from the same institution, they're from all different schools of study. Do you know what I mean?

[01:19:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. You have no vested interest in Lucy. Let me, being free.

[01:19:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's exactly what they said during the press conference, that we're not here to prove Lucy Le Be's innocence or guilt in any way.

[01:19:45] We just wanna set the record straight. Mm-hmm. What her lawyers choose to do with this information is completely up to them. They're not involved in that process. To sum up, when it comes to the air embolisms, they say they found no evidence of deliberate overfeeding or air injection in any of the [01:20:00] babies in regards to baby six, the one with insulin, the one that is difficult to dispute.

[01:20:05] Sure. They said that prolonged low blood sugar was explained by infection and the IV line that had been inserted into the tissue rather than the vein repeated bogus doses of glucose, it lightly triggered the baby's own insulin to then surge worsening their hypoglycemia. I'm not gonna pretend to ex understand what that means, but they were very adamant with that.

[01:20:26] They also stressed that the insulin c peptide comparison [01:20:30] that was used at trial relied on an adult standard, which does not apply to premature babies. And that insulin tests in preterm can read falsely high due to antibodies infection or medication interference, right? Mm-hmm. So basically, the disparity between insulin and eptide in a preterm baby is completely normal.

[01:20:51] In summary, the panel said that many of the medical explanations presented at trial were either unsupported or contradicted by the evidence in their view, all the [01:21:00] deaths, all the collapses were consistent with either infection, prematurity equipment, and line complications and delayed treatment, but also systemic lapse in care, including.

[01:21:11] Unhygienic conditions, like they didn't even have functioning plumbing in this particular ward. And so therefore, in their view, none of the 17 cases were as a result of direct harm.

[01:21:24] Adam Cox: Wow. Damn. So that was back in February? Yeah. And what's happened since then?

[01:21:28] Kyle Risi: It's been taken very [01:21:30] seriously. Lucy's lawyer has submitted their findings to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which will take around a year for them to complete, which means Lucy could become eligible for a retrial.

[01:21:40] To show how seriously this case has been scrutinized. In July, 2025, the police arrested three senior hospital leaders on suspicion of causing death through serious negligence. So you asked why the hospital weren't being held accountable for some of the other cases. They are. Three of them have been arrested.

[01:21:58] Oh. These were the same [01:22:00] executives who dismissed the consultants' concerns out of lack of evidence, while openly admitting that the ward was overstretch and understaffed and saying, the onus is on the consultants to put right. It's not, it's up to the senior management to make sure that they get rectified,

[01:22:12] Adam Cox: and that's what they've been arrested for because they didn't take care of this.

[01:22:15] Kyle Risi: It's been kept highly secretive. I don't even know who they are.

[01:22:18] Adam Cox: That's weird. How does other people have their name dragged through the mud? Yeah. How do they get protection? But do

[01:22:23] Kyle Risi: senior officials don't? Yeah, exactly. But equally, Jeremy Hunts, our former health secretary, he's called for the case to be urgently reexamined, saying that if these [01:22:30] deaths were caused by medical error rather than a deliberate harm, then the priority must be ensuring that no further babies die from the same mistakes, which I absolutely agree with.

[01:22:38] Adam Cox: Exactly. Regardless of Lucy. Exactly. We need to know, actually, was there other foul play or malpractice?

[01:22:44] Kyle Risi: So Lucy does have a glimmer of hope in her future if she's innocent. But Adam, it does leave the parents in this impossible position. Right. They're now being forced to reconsider everything they believe about their baby's deaths reopening these wounds.

[01:22:57] That were only just beginning to heal [01:23:00] potentially. Mm. So it is really tricky. What we do know is this, whether Lucy murder seven babies or whether or not, if this is a result of a dysfunctional neonatal unit that killed them through their incompetence, it is beyond question that the same systemic failures enabled this tragedy.

[01:23:17] Basically, if it wasn't for them downplaying these accusations or properly investigating it, then maybe a proper investigation could have been done and maybe more evidence could have been collected after each collapse, and then maybe it could have been [01:23:30] attributed to the correct conclusion. Right. That it was actually, it was Lucy Lippi or it was something else.

[01:23:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. Regardless, they've either let Lucy carry on killing at some point, or they have stopped the hospital from putting things. Right.

[01:23:44] Kyle Risi: Exactly. In my opinion, that is a real horror at the heart of this case, and that's what needs to change regardless of what happens to Lucy. But I am standing by to find out what the next steps are, because if she's innocent.

[01:23:57] Awful. If she's guilty, good [01:24:00] riddance. Lock her away forever. Mm-hmm. But can you imagine like we live in a world where we grow up thinking that the status quo will always prevail. Only for it to turn on you in that way is awful.

[01:24:11] Adam Cox: Yeah. But if I was to put myself in her shoes and knowing that I was innocent, like how do you feel like you could get out of this?

[01:24:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. For me, the biggest alarm bells are of course the press conference that was held in February, 2025. What the statisticians say about the chart, which to them is the most damning [01:24:30] bit of evidence, but the insulin, how that is completely normal for there to be those contradictions in the different levels, but also how she presented herself to the world.

[01:24:38] I couldn't really find any red flags. 'cause remember when I started this research, I came in thinking she was guilty and by then I'd already gone through her past and I've not noticed any red flags. And I did find that was unusual. The things that people really focused on were things like, yeah, her room is all pink.

[01:24:54] She had loads of like, kind of like glittery things around. She had the motifs everywhere, but so do a million other [01:25:00] 30-year-old women that live out there in the world.

[01:25:02] Adam Cox: Yeah. And let's not trust a girl who's like a 10-year-old girl who's got like a pink bedroom. 'cause you know what she could grow up into.

[01:25:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It was especially red-handed where they really went into that on their particular podcast and they were going, yeah, it's so weird that she, I had all these pink things in her in the house. It's just weird for someone to be so juvenile. And they were pointing at the fact that that made her a killer.

[01:25:21] And I was like, no, it doesn't.

[01:25:22] Adam Cox: Mm. My

[01:25:22] Kyle Risi: sister's like that. She's not going around killing people

[01:25:25] Adam Cox: that we know of.

[01:25:26] Kyle Risi: That we know of. So I don't know. But Adam, that is the [01:25:30] story of Lucy Lepe.

[01:25:31] Adam Cox: It's fascinating 'cause I didn't know half as much of that, so thank you. But I dunno how I feel at the moment. Too

[01:25:37] Kyle Risi: much uncertainty.

[01:25:38] Adam Cox: Yeah. Do you know what

[01:25:39] Kyle Risi: I mean? We're all on the fence right now until we know what the appeals court comes out with and whether or not they decide to come of, go ahead and do a retrial. We won't know until that decisions be made. But if they do come back and they say. That actually she's guilty. I dunno how I'd feel.

[01:25:53] Yeah. If they uphold the conviction, say, we're not gonna retrial her. I guarantee you that based [01:26:00] on what we saw at the press conference and everything that's followed after that, people are gonna say, this is a systemic coverup from the NHS or for the government. 'cause it looks bad on the government then, right?

[01:26:09] Adam Cox: Yeah. Because ultimately if she is released, then what's that gonna do? That's, that's gonna open up a whole can of worms, which should happen really, if she is not guilty. But yeah, I think anyone who's also made up their mind, like I'm thinking if I was a, it was my child that died, it'd be quite hard to convince me otherwise at this point in time that oh, all of a sudden she's [01:26:30] now not guilty.

[01:26:31] Sure. So it's gonna take a lot to convince people if that is the case.

[01:26:35] Kyle Risi: Really, I think in the world that we live in, especially in the last two decades, where we've seen the strain that the NHS is under and the bureaucracy that's been injected into the NHS. I somehow would be easily persuade if on one hand someone said someone killed your child and it was this evil nurse and then they go, actually the NHS is a pile of dog shit.

[01:26:56] I'd go, it'd be easy for me to switch. It would be heartbreaking [01:27:00] because there's a reopen up those wounds, but at least we can get to a resolution.

[01:27:03] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean that's a good point. 'cause I had a friend who retired from nursing recently and I think she always used to say like how different it is and would maybe critique certain nurses now because of the level of care and attention to detail that they provide and also the fact that they're so stretched.

[01:27:21] And that's not always to say that the nurses, they've got a bad, but how were they perhaps been trained or the same standard isn't being kept.

[01:27:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's [01:27:30] crazy. So we'll see, I guess in a year's time what happens with the court of appeal. Mm-hmm. Should we run the outro for this week? Let's do it. And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things.

[01:27:44] We really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

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[01:28:13] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, evidence isn't truth until we learn how to question it. See you next time.

[01:28:21] Adam Cox: See ya. [01:28:30]