Crime News, England: A female nurse accused of murdering eight babies and attempting to murder another six at a hospital in northwestern England was arrested Tuesday.
The neonatal nurse, identified in media reports as Lucy Letby, 28, began working in the unit after graduating from The University of Chester in 2011, according to the Chester and District Standard.
She described her role as “caring for a wide range of babies requiring various levels of support.”
Police were searching Letby’s home and were also seen outside of her parents’ house on Westbourne Road in Chester, according to The BBC.
An investigation into the unusually high mortality rate in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester began more than a year ago.
The hospital struggled to explain the deaths of babies and infants needing special care, but asked police to “rule out unnatural causes of death.”
The investigation into the deaths of eight babies has expanded to include the deaths of 17 babies and 15 “non-fatal collapses” between March 2015 and July 2016.
Cheshire Constabulary declined to name Letby, stating only that officers arrested a female “health care professional” Tuesday on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Detective Inspector Paul Hughes called the arrest a “significant step forward” in the investigation.
As a result of the spike in deaths, the hospital stopped delivering babies before 32 weeks of pregnancy, transferring mothers-to-be to other hospitals.
Countess of Chester Hospital medical director Ian Harvey said the investigation was launched in order “to do everything we can to understand what has happened here and get the answers we and the families so desperately want.”
Source: New York Daily News
