Inside the twisted mind of baby killer Lucy Letby exposed by her own hate-filled notes
A LEADING forensic psychologist reckons depraved messages scrawled by baby killer Lucy Letby are the closest she will ever come to a confession.
Dr Sohom Das says Post-it note missives are not the delusional ravings of a psychopath, but instead offer a “glimpse into Letby’s psyche” after she murdered seven infants and tried to kill six more.
Among the chilling phrases written in the killer’s hand was: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.”
In another disturbing memo, Letby, 33, wrote: “I am a horrible evil person.”
In capital letters, she added: “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.”
Dr Das has previously examined women who killed babies, concluding they had psychotic delusions and had lost touch with reality.
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But he does not think Letby - Britain’s most prolific child serial killer — was similarly afflicted.
‘Remorseless killer’
He wrote: “That is not what we’re seeing in these Post-it notes. There is no evidence here of a mental illness so serious that it might reduce Letby’s criminal culpability.
“What does leap out at me are the expressions of self-hatred, guilt, shame and self-loathing, along with a low self-confidence — what psychiatrists call ‘negative cognitions’.”
As examples, he cites Letby’s use of phrases such as, “I don’t deserve Mum + Dad”, “Hate myself”, “I am a horrible evil person”, “I don’t deserve to live” and “The world is better off without me”.
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The expert’s analysis came after neonatal nurse Letby was told on Monday that she would die behind bars for her murder spree at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
She got whole life terms as she cowered in a cell refusing to enter the dock.
At Manchester crown court, Judge James Goss told Letby hers was a “cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder” from June 2015 to June 2016.
Letby’s doodles are insights into the true motivation of a woman who presented a facade of bland normality to the world.
So impenetrable was her veneer of ordinariness that Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Evans, who oversaw interviewing officers, described the unassuming monster as “beige”.
Only child Letby had been showered with love by her parents, leaving her feeling “smothered”.
Susan, 63, and John, 77, were a constant presence at her trial, relocating to Manchester from their home in Hereford.
One expert suggested Letby was a “covert narcissist”, who, after she left home, craved the constant attention of her mother and father and began to pursue it in other ways.
A godmother to two children, cat-loving Letby was a “Mary Poppins” figure to friends in the resolutely middle class Hereford suburb where she grew up.
Detectives have suggested that the deeply unsettling scrawls discovered at her semi-detached home in Chester had been left for them to find to bring to an end her killing spree.
But Dr Das doesn’t believe that was Letby’s motivation.
He called her a “remorseless killer” but warned she doesn’t have all the typical traits of a psychopath.
The psychiatrist — an expert witness in court cases — added: “Her true motivations, I believe, are power, control and the thrill of being around the grieving process.”
On a green post-it note, Letby wrote in capitals: “NO HOPE”, “DESPAIR”, “PANIC”, “FEAR”, ‘LOST’.
Dr Das believes that might show a “modicum of awareness” that her deeds are “too terrible to imagine” and predicts that she may be depressed.
Letby also wrote: “There are no words. I am an awful person — I pay every day for that.”
Dr Das says that somewhere within the killer’s mind, a small part of her may have felt guilty.
And he suggests that could be why the scribblings are crammed onto small pieces of paper — which represents her “limited” conscience.
He also says the chaotic writing and the heavy black pen used for the words “hope” and “hate” hint at a mind “in turmoil”.
Dr Das warns that some of Letby’s writings are contradictory.
She notes: “I haven’t done anything wrong”, followed a few lines later by, “I AM EVIL. I DID THIS”.
The expert says there is a moral battle in Letby’s mind between right and wrong.
Unlike other criminals who convince themselves they didn’t offend, the psychiatrist reckons Letby knows what she did.
Investigating officers also say Letby’s diaries, seized at her £180,000 home during the probe, offered clues to her sickening spree.
And they reveal she used a “coded system” to chart significant moments in her life.
Detectives also discovered dozens of the Post-it notes and scraps of paper when she was first arrested in July 2018.
When they arrested her a second time, they found she had continued her incriminating jottings.
Detective Inspector Rob Woods said: “The amount of material we found at her home address was, I think, a massive surprise to us when she was first arrested.
“It gave us a really good steer for the second occasion as to what sort of things we were looking for.
“Something that’s been very useful to the inquiry has been Miss Letby’s diaries. They appeared to be, and it became clear later that it was, almost a code of coloured asterisks . . . put in a diary that marked significant events.”
Letby’s reference to “I don’t deserve Mum + Dad” in one note is a window into the insecurity she feels in her relationship with her parents.
One of her childhood friends says: “She told me she’d had quite a difficult birth herself and was quite poorly, and I think that’s affected a lot of her life.”
John and Susan were so proud of their daughter when she graduated from uni in 2011, they placed a congratulatory ad in the Hereford Times alongside a photo of Letby wearing a mortarboard.
Yet her words suggest she felt she had not met their expectations.
When a baby on a ward suffered a collapse, she messaged a colleague moving to New Zealand saying: “Not brave enough to up and leave. I couldn’t leave my parents.”
Will her scribblings remain the only insight into her state of mind?
Dr Dominic Willmott, a senior lecturer in criminology at Loughborough University, said nurses who kill appear to have a “pathological desire for attention and sympathy”.
Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings believes Letby is a psychopath who got “sadistic pleasure” from killing babies.
She says: “She has no conscience. No remorse, no guilt, nothing.”
David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City Uni, believes she probably has a “hero complex” — a “desire to be the centre of everyone’s attention”.
It is a trait shared by other killer nurses which he says demands “they should have power and control which they might have felt had been denied to them in other aspects of their lives”.
He adds: “What better way of demonstrating that power than deciding who should live and who should die?
“Not so much an ‘angel of death’ but God-like.”
Straw: Get witnesses on stand
THERE are calls for a full public inquiry into the Lucy Letby case – and one former Cabinet minister says crucial witnesses must be compelled to give evidence.
Ex-Home Secretary Jack Straw urged the Government to beef-up the probe into the baby killer so evidence is given under oath.
He joined a growing chorus of campaigners, including families involved in the tragedy, for it to be put on a statutory footing.
Mr Straw said: “You can shame a lot of (witnesses) but you can’t shame them all.”
He added: “There may be witnesses in the Letby case who really ought to be on the stand, who are the most vulnerable in terms of the positions they have taken, and who won’t be bothered about being shamed.
“They would rather be shamed for their absence than actually appear on the stand. Being able to compel a witness is really very, very important. There isn’t really any direct connection between whether an inquiry is judicially led with full powers and whether it is speedy.”
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said a beefed-up inquiry is “on the table” amid fears witnesses will not turn up, leading to concerns over a cover-up.
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Health Secretary Steve Barclay announced an independent inquiry within hours of the verdicts last Friday.
Ex-Justice Secretary David Lidington said: “For me the balance of argument points to a statutory and public inquiry.”