According to the indictment, the woman killed the babies between June 2015 and June 2016 by injecting them with air or poisoning them with insulin. In court, she had protested her innocence and said she would never harm a baby. The public prosecutor’s office, however, described the 33-year-old as a “coldly calculating” perpetrator who used targeted killing methods that “hardly left a trace”.
The woman was arrested after a spike in infant deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit. Colleagues had noticed that all of the deaths had occurred while the nurse was on duty. The woman’s victims were infants who needed treatment or were born prematurely.
The nurse’s youngest alleged victim, a prematurely born boy, was only one day old. According to the trial, he was “well” until June 8, 2015, when the defendant began work at the neonatal unit. 90 minutes later he was dead.
Also among the victims were two prematurely born triplets who died 24 hours apart. Her brother survived because his parents insisted that he be transferred to another hospital after the death of his siblings.
