On a 12-month killing spree, Lucy Letby killed seven babies and attempted to kill seven others – making her the most prolific baby killer in modern British history.
Her crimes put her near the top of the list of notorious serial killers – ahead of Moorish killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who murdered five children in Manchester in the early 1960s; nurse Beverley Allitt, who murdered four of her child patients in 1991, and Robert Black, who raped and murdered four young girls in the early 1980s.
She also becomes the second worst female serial killer of all time behind Rose West, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of 10 young girls, including her eight-year-old stepdaughter.
Amelia Dyer, a Victorian baby farmer, is estimated to have killed 400 babies in a 30-year period. However, she was only ever found guilty of one murder.
The UK’s worst ever serial killer was Dr Harold Shipman, who used his position as a GP to murder an estimated 250 patients.
Letby killed seven babies. Myra Hindley (left) helped her partner Ian Brady kill five children. Fellow nurse Beverley Allitt (right) killed four of her child patients in 1991
Dr. Harold Shipman used his position as a general practitioner to murder an estimated 250 patients, while Robert Black raped and murdered four young girls in the early 1980s.
Hindley and Brady’s the first murder occurred in July 1963 when they slaughtered 16-year-old Pauline Reade after persuading her to get into their car.
They kidnapped and killed four more children before burying their bodies on Saddleworth Moor. Keith Bennett, 12, is the only victim whose remains have not yet been found.
The couple was convicted of three murders in 1966. They later confessed to two more murders before Hindley died in prison in 2002 at the age of 60. Brady passed away in 2017.
Beverley Allitt – known as the ‘angel of death’ killed four babies and poisoned nine others over 59 days at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire, in 1991.
Allitt’s crimes were originally suspected to be of natural causes, but blood samples preserved from nine of the children who had collapsed or died revealed that they had been injected with lethal doses of insulin, potassium or lignocaine.
She received 13 life sentences and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years behind bars after a 1993 trial.
The 54-year-old is currently being treated at Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire and is eligible for parole.
Robert Black received 12 life sentences for the murders of four girls aged between five and 11 in the 1980s, but is suspected of being responsible for countless others.
He worked as a delivery driver in the 1970s and 1980s, traveling all over the UK looking for young victims to kidnap.
His reign of terror ended in 1990 when he was caught by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl.
She was found hooded, bound, gagged and crammed into a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow.
Letby is the second worst female serial killer after Rose West, who – along with her husband Fred – kidnapped, tortured and raped 12 women over a 20-year period at their home in Cromwell Street, Gloucestershire.
Fred, who confessed to the murders, committed suicide in his cell while on remand at HMP Birmingham on New Year’s Day 1995, while Rose is in prison.
The worst ever British serial killer was Dr. Shipman, who over a 27-year period dating back to 1971, killed an estimated total of 250 patients using the drug Diamorphine.
About 80 percent of his victims were older women, and his youngest victim was a 41-year-old man.
Sister Lucy Letby’s crimes are among the worst ever in Britain
Amelia Dyer, a Victorian baby farmer, murdered babies in her care over a span of thirty years and is estimated to have killed hundreds – but she was only ever found guilty of one baby
Shipman was convicted of drug offenses in 1976 after becoming addicted to pethidine as a young doctor, but was allowed to continue his practice by the General Medical Council (GMC).
He began his killing spree at Pontefract General in the early 1970s and was finally arrested in September 1998 at the age of 52 and received a life sentence in January 2000.
Letby murdered five boys and two girls between June 2015 and June 2016.
She targeted triplets and three twins and her victims ranged from a full-term baby girl to extremely premature babies, including a baby girl who survived despite being born in a hospital toilet at just 23 weeks gestation.
It is unlikely that the identities of any of the babies will ever be made public.
All were subject to life anonymity orders by the judge before the trial began, barring the media from naming them or their parents.
On one occasion, it was alleged that Letby killed a tiny baby boy born 10 weeks premature because she was angry that one of her friends she texted didn’t understand why she was angry about getting a break from work in intensive care after the death of another child.
Criminologist Professor David Wilson told the Mail that this desperation to be recognized at work was signs of a ‘hero complex’ and narcissism in Letby’s personality.
Placing himself at the center of a crisis was also indicative of Munchausen’s mental state, he said.
A corridor within the neonatal ward at Countess of Chester Hospital, where Letby worked
“She feels she deserves attention and has skills that are superior to other people,” he said. “She sees herself as a savior — she has unique skills that no one else can possess.
“But she’s quite unusual for other healthcare serial killers and nurses, who are often seen as odd by their peers, because she had friends and people she associated with.
“The other thing is that she creates a crisis around herself, which is a form of Munchausen’s. Special stories are told about what happens when she is on duty. She says, “Look at all the things that happen when I’m around.” It’s also a ruse to get the doctor she likes to see.’
After being convicted by a jury, Letby is now likely facing a life sentence.
Undated handout photo issued by Cheshire Constabulary of a cot that a baby refers to as Child G in the Lucy Letby lawsuit. The black circles were added by the police
According to government figures, about 60 criminals are still alive and serving life sentences.
They include Met PC Wayne Couzens, who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard; Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield; and Michael Adebolajo, one of Fusilier Lee Rigby’s killers.
Other infamous lifers include Mark Bridger, who kidnapped and murdered five-year-old April Jones in Powys, Wales, in 2012; neo-Nazi Thomas Mair, who murdered MP Jo Cox; Grindr serial killer Stephen Port; and terrorist Khairi Saadallah – who killed three men in a Reading park.