Is Lucy Letby A Baby Killer: The Medical Evidence Is Under A Microscope

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"You're listening to 10-minute murder."

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Picture a neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies.

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The evidence seemed solid.

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The case seemed closed.

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Then 14 international medical experts reviewed every single death and said, "Wait a minute.

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No crime was committed here."

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What actually killed these babies might be more terrifying than any murder because it's

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still happening in hospitals right now.

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In 2023, British neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies

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and attempting to murder eight more.

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She got 15 whole life sentences.

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The media called her "Britain's Worst Child Serial Killer in Modern History."

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Parents who lost their babies finally had someone to blame.

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Justice was served.

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Or maybe justice got it catastrophically wrong.

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In February 2025, a panel of 14 international medical experts held a press conference in

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London that sent shockwaves through the UK legal system.

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We're talking about baby doctors and specialists from six different countries led by Dr. Shouly,

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a retired newborn care specialist from Toronto.

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After reviewing all 17 cases from Letby's trial, they concluded there was no medical evidence

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that any baby was murdered.

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None. They said every single death or injury was due to natural causes or bad medical care.

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This is a panel of experts who spent months going through the medical records and testimony.

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They're saying the fundamental premise of the entire prosecution might be wrong.

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Let's rewind and talk about the woman behind the headlines.

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Lucy Letby wasn't some troubled kid with a dark history that we tell the story about

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all too many times on this podcast.

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Born in 1990, she had an average, unremarkable childhood.

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First in her family to go to university.

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She graduated in 2011 with a nursing degree and landed her dream job as a neonatal nurse

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at Countess of Chester Hospital.

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Colleagues described her as being beige, average, someone who blended in with the background.

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She had a sweet dreams, debate cover, and stuffed animals in her apartment.

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But that's not to say there weren't any red flags.

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An assessor in 2011 noted she struggled with basic medical knowledge and giving medications

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properly.

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They described her as cold, someone who had trouble reading anxious parents.

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The warning signs suggested she might not have been the most competent nurse on the ward.

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The baby unit at Countess of Chester Hospital typically saw two or three infant deaths per

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year.

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Then in June 2015, everything changed.

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Four babies declined rapidly.

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Three of those died.

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In the next year, babies would suddenly nose dive, turn strange colors, stop breathing.

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Some of those died.

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Others were brought back and suffered serious injuries.

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One nurse consistently was present when it happened.

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Lucy Letby.

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A senior nurse did a staffing analysis and found Letby was 80% more likely to be the nurse

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on duty during a decline than random chance would suggest.

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In October 2015, doctors went to hospital executives with their concerns.

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They said something was seriously wrong.

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Management basically told them to shut up.

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I don't know about the UK healthcare system, but in the US, they would have said, "Zip your

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lip before you get a suit."

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When doctors raised concerns, executives defended Letby.

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In June 2016, after two more babies died, consultants directly asked the hospital executive

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to remove Letby from the ward.

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She refused.

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She said there was no evidence and took full responsibility for keeping Letby on duty.

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Letby was eventually moved to a desk job in July 2016.

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Then she filed a complaint.

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Hospital executives agreed with her.

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They accused the consultants of "ganging up on her unfairly."

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Management demanded the doctors apologize to Lucy Letby.

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The woman they suspected of killing babies.

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Some doctors actually did it, probably because they feared for their careers.

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Dr. Ravi J. Aram, one of the doctors who raised the alarm, later said that 71% of NHS consultants

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feared that raising patient safety concerns will harm their careers.

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Management tried to return Letby to the baby ward in early 2017.

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Police weren't contacted until March 2017.

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That's a year and a half of babies being put at risk while executives protected the hospital's

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reputation.

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Lucy Letby was arrested in July 2018 and charged in November 2020.

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Her trial lasted 10 months.

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The prosecution said Letby killed babies by injecting air into their bloodstream, poisoning

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them with insulin and force feeding them milk.

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Methods chosen because they would disappear and not leave obvious traces.

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They pointed to specific skin color patterns as proof of air bubbles blocking blood vessels.

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They highlighted abnormal blood tests showing synthetic insulin.

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The lead prosecution expert was Dr. Dewey Evans, a retired baby doctor.

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When he couldn't find a natural cause of death, he concluded it must be murder.

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Then there was behavioral evidence.

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Police found posted notes in Letby's apartment with phrases like "I am evil, I did this."

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Prosecutors said this was a confession.

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The defense argued those notes showed anguish, not guilt.

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Letby wrote them on her doctor's advice to cope with the stress of being investigated.

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She was questioning whether she'd accidentally harm babies through incompetence.

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Neither side called a psychologist to interpret these writings.

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The jury decided without expert guidance.

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In August 2023, the jury convicted Letby.

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She refused to attend her own sinencing.

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The judge handed down a whole life order.

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The main theory was air bubbles in the bloodstream blocking blood vessels.

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Dr. Evans diagnosed this repeatedly.

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To support this theory, the prosecution cited a 1989 research paper about air problems

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and newborns.

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The author of that paper is Dr. Shu Li.

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The same guy now leading the panel saying Letby didn't murder anyone.

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Li says his research was completely misunderstood.

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His paper examined air problems in the lungs from ventilators.

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That's fundamentally different from injecting air into veins.

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Li says air bubbles in the blood vessels are incredibly rare and the skin color changes

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described at trial don't match what you actually see.

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Dr. Evans also has a questionable history.

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In a previous case, a judge called one of his reports worthless.

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The trial judge allowed his testimony anyway.

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The expert panel found alternative explanations for every single death.

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Baby IV allegedly killed with injected air actually died from a blood infection.

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Nomonia.

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And a condition where her blood couldn't clot.

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They noted preventable failures, delays in recognizing breathing problems, failure to

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start antibiotics.

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No evidence of air in the bloodstream.

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Baby IX died of breathing complications plus an infection with bacteria resistant to most

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antibiotics.

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Doctors failed to respond to warning signs.

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Another likely preventable death.

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No evidence of air in the bloodstream.

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The panel identified more than a dozen systemic problems.

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Failures diagnosing diseases, poor management of low blood sugar, inadequate skills in basic

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procedures, delays in essential treatments.

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Other experts concluded in February 2025 that there's no scientific justification to definitively

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state let be poison babies with insulin.

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What emerges is horrifying.

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Maybe these babies died because the baby unit was operating under terrible medical care.

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Maybe the real killer was substandard care, misdiagnosis, and under trained staff.

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Dr. Lee said that the care was so bad that in Canada, that unit would have been shut down.

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In February 2025, let be new lawyer Mark McDonald held a press conference alongside Dr. Lee.

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He now has 26 experts and over 1,000 pages of new evidence.

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He's submitted an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission which investigates

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potential wrongful convictions.

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The commission confirmed they received the application on February 3, 2025.

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They are reviewing whether the convictions could be overturned.

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This typically takes at least a year.

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In July 2025, police arrested three senior hospital leaders on suspicion of causing death

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through terrible negligence.

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These were the executives who ignored warning signs, defended let be, and demanded apologies

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from whistleblowers.

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They've been released on bail.

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Former UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt publicly stated that this case should be urgently

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re-examined.

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He wrote that if medical error was the real cause, "we need to make sure no more babies die

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from the same mistakes."

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The trial lasted 10 months.

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Jurors heard from 133 witnesses.

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They were asked to make sense of incredibly technical medical testimony.

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Jurors, like most of us, are just regular people.

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They're not doctors.

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This case relied on what one prosecution expert said.

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That expert had a history of providing unreliable testimony.

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Now 14 international experts are saying the entire medical foundation is wrong.

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That's not some small disagreement here.

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If let be is innocent, this is catastrophic.

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An innocent woman is serving 15 life sentences for crimes that never happened.

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Families are grieving murders that were actually preventable medical errors in most cases.

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The real failures haven't been fixed because everyone thought it was a serial killer responsible.

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This is about institutional failure.

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A culture where raising patient safety concerns can destroy your career.

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Families who prioritize protecting the hospital's reputation over protecting vulnerable patients.

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The hospital enabled whatever happened for over a year.

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If those babies died from substandard care, the systemic failures are terrifying because

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they're probably still happening.

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The whistleblowers were treated like troublemakers.

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They were told to apologize.

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They were pressured to stay quiet.

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That seemed to be the NHS culture.

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Lucy Letby sits in prison maintaining her innocence.

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Her attorney says she was a broken woman a year ago.

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Now she has hope.

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The criminal case's review commission is evaluating her case.

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Three hospital executives await potential charges.

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Patients who lost babies are caught in an impossible situation.

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They're being forced to reconsider everything they believed about their children's deaths.

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We might not know the real answer for years, but we do know is this.

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Whether Lucy Letby murdered seven babies or whether a dysfunctional baby unit killed

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them through incompetence, the same systemic failures enabled the tragedy.

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Executives ignored warnings.

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Whistleblowers were silenced.

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Medical errors were unaddressed.

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The most vulnerable patients paid the price.

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That's the real horror at the heart of this case.

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That's what needs to change, regardless of what happens to Lucy Letby.

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[Music]

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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I'm Joe, I'm the host, and quickly let's get to a listener email.

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Subject pet problems.

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Hey Joe, every time I listen to your show, my dog tilts its head like he's deeply concerned

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for me.

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If dogs could talk, I think mine would file a wellness check.

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Do you have any pets?

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And if so, do they have to sit through your murder mon logs too?

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Jamie from Fort Worth.

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Jamie, first of all, thanks for the email, and I'm currently pet free.

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For the first couple of years of this podcast, I did have a dog.

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She passed away a couple of years ago.

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Her name was Harper Jane, and she would sit at my feet nearly every episode that I recorded

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of this podcast.

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Sometimes she'd fall asleep and she would snore.

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And every once in a while, back in those older episodes, she'd be able to hear her snoring

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in the background.

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I just left that in.

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Well, she was used to it, I think.

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The only thing that would make her concerned is if she decided she was hungry, she wanted

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to snack or something, or if I moved my feet and I bumped her, then she would wake up,

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but then she would go rep actically.

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However, I do think that our dogs, if they're in tune with us, they can sense some kind

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of anxiety in us.

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So maybe they're not reacting to me and my words that I'm saying on this podcast, but

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they're reacting to the way that it's making you feel.

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I could be wrong, but that feels like the correct answer.

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Again, Jamie, thanks for the email.

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If you're a brand new listener to this podcast, make sure you hit subscribe right now.

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telling your friends and family about this podcast and sign up for the newsletter.

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Go to 10minuteMurder.com.

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There's a place where you can sign up for the newsletter.

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And once you do that, I send them out every Monday, check your spam folder on Monday

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morning.

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It's probably going to be in there for some reason.

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While I figure out a fix for that, I think it's going to default to your spam folder.

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But go to the website and sign up for the newsletter.

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That's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10minuteMurder.

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See you next time.