{"id":82186,"date":"2023-08-25T19:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T19:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/happylifestyleinc.com\/?p=82186"},"modified":"2023-08-25T19:47:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T19:47:00","slug":"scribbled-notes-are-the-only-glimpse-into-lucy-letbys-twisted-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happylifestyleinc.com\/lifestyle\/scribbled-notes-are-the-only-glimpse-into-lucy-letbys-twisted-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"'Scribbled notes are the only glimpse into Lucy Letby's twisted mind'"},"content":{"rendered":"
The closest Lucy Letby is ever likely to come to a confession of her depraved thoughts and intentions are the Post-it notes crammed with her minute scrawls.<\/p>\n
Detectives have suggested that these scraps of evidence were left for police to find in her semi-detached house in Westbourne Road, Chester, in an oblique but deliberate attempt to bring her spree of killing to an end.<\/p>\n
Though I have great respect for the police force\u2019s painstaking case against this heinous killer, I can\u2019t agree with their interpretation.<\/p>\n
Those scribbled notes are, quite simply, a glimpse into Lucy Letby\u2019s psyche.<\/p>\n
As a forensic psychiatrist, it\u2019s my job to treat and rehabilitate what some call the \u2018criminally insane\u2019, many of whom assault, rob, rape and even kill. My work takes me to high-security prisons and securely locked hospital wards across the country, as well as inside courtrooms giving evidence as an expert witness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lucy Letby, 33, will die in prison after being handed 14 whole-life orders for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others at a neonatal unit\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Sohom Das is a forensic psychiatrist and thinks the baby killer’s ‘scribbled notes are, quite simply, a glimpse into Lucy Letby\u2019s psyche’\u00a0<\/p>\n
In my career, I have examined four women who murdered babies. All of them were suffering from psychotic delusions so severe that their grip on reality had broken.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Killer nurse Lucy Letby was considered by her friends to be\u00a0‘studious’ and ‘goofy’\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is not what we\u2019re seeing in these Post-it notes. There is no evidence here of a mental illness so serious that it might reduce Letby\u2019s criminal culpability.<\/p>\n
What does leap out at me are the expressions of self-hatred, guilt, shame and self-loathing, along with a low self-confidence \u2013 what psychiatrists call \u2018negative cognitions\u2019. We see it in phrases such as \u2018I don\u2019t deserve Mum + Dad\u2019, \u2018Hate myself\u2019, \u2018I am a horrible evil person\u2019, \u2018I don\u2019t deserve to live\u2019 and \u2018The world is better off without me\u2019.<\/p>\n
Down the right-hand side of the green note she has added annotations in capital letters: \u2018NO HOPE\u2019, \u2018DESPAIR\u2019, \u2018PANIC\u2019, \u2018FEAR\u2019, \u2018LOST\u2019.<\/p>\n
Two overlapping reasons combine to explain such outbursts. The first, though this in no way diminishes the wickedness of her actions, is a modicum of awareness that what she has done is too terrible to imagine.<\/p>\n
She says: \u2018There are no words. I am an awful person \u2013 I pay every day for that.\u2019<\/p>\n
A tiny part of her, though it conflicted with what she was actually doing to those babies, appears to be feeling guilt. Perhaps that is why the words are squeezed on to such small pieces of paper: As well as self-pity, they represent her conscience \u2013 and that was very limited in scope and size.<\/p>\n
There wasn\u2019t enough guilt to stop her from continuing to kill, nor enough to make her admit what she had done during the trial. But that doesn\u2019t mean there wasn\u2019t a sliver of her subconscious mind that was conflicted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some of the thoughts are contradictory. She writes: \u2018I haven\u2019t done anything wrong.\u2019 But a few lines later, she admits: \u2018I AM EVIL. I DID THIS\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In some of her scribblings, particularly on a page torn from a notebook and covered closely on both sides, Letby repeatedly writes the names of her cats, Tigger and Smudge<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The words that run into each other, the repeated loops and letters, the \u2018HELP\u2019 and \u2018HATE\u2019 overlaid in heavy black writing, and the overall intensity are all signs of a mind in turmoil<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police recovered Letby’s diary and her notes in her semi-detached house in Westbourne Road, Chester<\/p>\n
The second possible explanation is the obvious signs of depression and anxiety in these frantic scribblings.<\/p>\n
Such negative thoughts are a common expression of depression. It\u2019s quite likely that she didn\u2019t know what was going to happen when she started writing on these Post-it notes.<\/p>\n
One of them is headed \u2018Not Good Enough\u2019, and she might have begun with the intention of just jotting a couple of thoughts down, before they exploded out of her in this chaotic and, possibly, cathartic rush.<\/p>\n
The words that run into each other, the repeated loops and letters, the \u2018HELP\u2019 and \u2018HATE\u2019 overlaid in heavy black writing, and the overall intensity are all signs of a mind in turmoil.<\/p>\n
But even if she was suffering from depression, the symptoms were not severe enough to stop her from functioning normally.<\/p>\n
To colleagues at the hospital, she didn\u2019t seem unduly stressed in her high-pressure role of supposedly caring for babies on the precipice of death.<\/p>\n
Some of the thoughts are contradictory. She writes: \u2018I haven\u2019t done anything wrong.\u2019 But a few lines later, she admits: \u2018I AM EVIL. I DID THIS.\u2019 The battle between right and wrong is palpable. We, of course, know which won.<\/p>\n
I have seen cases where people have committed crimes and later convinced themselves that the actions they remember never actually happened. That\u2019s not true of Lucy Letby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She knows deep down that she murdered those seven babies and harmed many more, but she is deeply invested in her own lies and the idea of her innocence \u2013 so completely that she feels aggrieved that anyone could doubt her words.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Das believes Letby’s true motivations to kill are power, control and the thrill of being around the grieving process<\/p>\n
This is a well-known contradiction in many people who commit less serious crimes, such as financial fraud: they have got away with it for so long that, although they know they are guilty, they feel it\u2019s unreasonable for anyone to accuse them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a kind of narcissistic entitlement, of believing they\u2019re above the law. There is also evidence of clinical psychopathy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In other words, she is a remorseless killer, guilty of unprecedented crimes, but that does not mean she automatically has all the typical traits of a psychopath.<\/p>\n
Some of the common ones appear to be missing: She was not sexually promiscuous, for example, nor does she seem to be a generally parasitic and deceptive individual across every aspect of her life.<\/p>\n
Of course, she lied consistently to police and throughout her trial, but there was a rational reason for that \u2013 she was trying to hide her crimes. There\u2019s no sign in these notes that she lies for the sake of it, or that she weaves a fantasy world.<\/p>\n
She may understand, at least as a plain fact, that what she did was morally repugnant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We call that \u2018cognitive empathy\u2019, knowing when other people are suffering. But clearly she lacks all \u2018emotive empathy\u2019 and cannot feel what others are feeling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their pain does not make her suffer: In fact, she gains some enjoyment from it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent hours trying to understand Letby\u2019s motives. Many experts have seized on one sentence in particular: \u2018I killed them on purpose because I\u2019m not good enough to care for them.\u2019<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a mistake to take that at face value. It is not an explanation, only an outburst of self-pity.<\/p>\n
Her true motivations, I believe, are power, control and the thrill of being around the grieving process.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s evidence of vitriolic anger or jealousy towards the happy family unit, expressed in the words: \u2018I\u2019ll never have children or marry, I\u2019ll never know what it\u2019s like to have a family.\u2019<\/p>\n
We know that Letby wanted to be present when parents were overwhelmed by grief, even when the dead babies had not been her own patients.<\/p>\n
She even sent one family a sympathy card after murdering their premature baby. Clearly, there\u2019s a morbid urge to feed off their pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet she is not blind to emotion. In some of her scribblings, particularly on a page torn from a notebook and covered closely on both sides, Letby repeatedly writes the names of her cats, Tigger and Smudge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The animals were a way for her to show affection and emotion, while remaining completely in control.<\/p>\n
Lucy Letby is the most extraordinary and unique clinical case I have encountered. From what we know of her life, before concerns began to be raised about the baby deaths, nothing about her struck people as strange.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She was not aggressive or impulsive, paranoid or cantankerous.<\/p>\n
Colleagues thought of her as friendly and approachable, diligent as well as competent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I doubt whether we will ever fully understand her. Because she will never leave prison, she is unlikely to get the kind of intensive psychiatric support that could lead to real remorse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Without that, it\u2019s very unlikely she could have an epiphany that explains what she has done.<\/p>\n
The only insight into her poisoned, twisted mind that we are ever likely to have lies in these bizarre Post-it notes.<\/p>\n
Dr Sohom Das is the author of In Two Minds: Stories Of Murder, Justice And Recovery From A Forensic Psychiatrist; YouTube: www.youtube.com\/@APsychForSoreMinds; Twitter\/X: @Dr_S_Das\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n