New Yorker Story Questions Guilt Of Nurse Convicted Of Killing 7 Babies

British authorities may have ignored evidence in a rush to convict a neonatal nurse of killing seven babies, according to a sweeping investigation published Monday in The New Yorker.

Lucy Letby, 34, was found guilty in those killings and in attempts to kill six other babies while she worked at a hospital in northwest England in 2015 and 2016, The Associated Press reported. The trial lasted 10 months, and the jury deliberated for 22 days before reaching a verdict. She was sentenced to life in prison.

In the New Yorker story, “ A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It? ” reporter Rachel Aviv notes that the vilification of Letby by the British tabloids and the trial judge is a stark contrast to how she was perceived by her many close friends and colleagues.

“Letby appeared to have been a psychologically healthy and happy person,” The New Yorker article said, adding that a detective called her apparent lack of motive “completely unprecedented.”

It’s possible, The New Yorker story suggested, that the deaths of a cluster of babies in the Countess of Chester Hospital while Letby was working were “never … crimes at all.”

Letby was devastated and couldn’t help blaming herself when three babies died suddenly in June 2015, when she was working, according to text messages her friends shared with The New Yorker.

At the time, the head of Letby’s neonatal unit, Dr. Stephen Brearey, told Aviv that “nobody had any concerns about” Letby’s practice.

Brearey had said in an interview with the Chester Standard that the neonatal unit’s cramped space could increase the risk of infection among the babies. The New Yorker reported that plumbing problems in the hospital were causing sewage to back up in sinks