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A
This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie and special guest this week, our executive producer, Matthew Tankard. Hi, Matthew.
B
Hi, Michelle.
A
We are here for a discussion episode. Let us know if you enjoy these episodes. By the way, let us know on Facebook or Instagram or wherever you want to let us know. You can let us know on YouTube, actually, because this will be on YouTube if you want to watch it there and see our faces. And that is entirely up to you. We decided to discuss the Lucy Letby case because we've both watched the documentary on Netflix recently. I watched it twice, Matthew. I just wanted to go back and go. And I thought to myself, am I remembering this right? Because I never had any doubt of Letby's guilt to begin with. And then after watching the documentary, I was less doubtful. But I'm reading so much commentary online, I just thought, did I miss something?
B
Oh, so you're less doubtful than I ever have been. Really?
A
Absolutely.
B
Okay. Yeah. And I was gonna say, out of all the. Of all the episodes that we choose not to get an expert on, we do the medical. Yeah, we do the Lucy Letby case.
C
It is a crime as shocking as it is evil. The murders of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others by a British nurse who preyed on the infants in her care. This angel of death, 35 year old Lucy Letby, is officially one of the most prolific child kill of modern times. But growing doubts could turn the case on its head. Letby's backers claim concerns about the reliability of complex medical and circumstantial evidence used to convict her have been turbocharged by new information that raises serious questions about her guilt. The implications couldn't be starker. Either Lucy Letby is a sadistic monster or she is the victim of an appalling miscarriage of justice.
B
You were listening to the podcast about the trial when it was coming out, right?
A
Amazing. And I would say one of the most influential podcasts that's ever happened in the world. Because now we have the trial of podcasts about certainly big trials in Australia and I'm sure everywhere else in the world, but the trial of Lucy Let Be. The podcast was brilliant and it was a new, whole new concept where just journalists and experts were recording every day at the end of evidence. So they were sitting in the courtroom watching the trial and then at the end of the day meeting for an hour or something and recording an episode about what they had just witnessed and heard. I did feel like I'd heard the evidence I was familiar with the evidence. I personally was happy with the jury's verdict. It just all made sense to me. So then the New Yorker puts out an article In 2024, a British nurse was found guilty of killing seven babies. Did she do it? And I feel like that kicked off this round of doubt. It's a circumstantial case, but I feel like increasingly people don't understand what that means, or they think that's nothing. And a circumstantial case is not nothing. I mean, I would say probably the majority of murders, let's say, are. Aren't witnessed by another person. That's a big objective when you're a murderer, is to not be caught doing it. Most cases are circumstantial. And I read a great quote somewhere recently where somebody said, okay, put it this way, every. If you think every circumstance, every piece of circumstantial evidence is not strong on its own. Think of them as a piece of string. Each of them's a piece of string. If you wind enough of them together, you get a piece of rope. And that is strong.
B
Yes. But I do think with circumstantial evidence, with that rope that's being formed, that rope is usually being formed through storytelling that can be manipulated pretty easily with circumstantial evidence. And you would think, you know, Lucy Letby is now convicted and known as the worst child serial killer in modern British history. Right.
A
So it's hard to think of anything worse, isn't it, than a young female nurse murdering babies.
B
And you would think to have a title like that, there would be maybe be a bit more outside of circumstantial evidence.
A
I mean, as I say, she. If. If she was the person that she's been convicted of being, then it makes complete sense that if anything, I'm shocked that there's so much circumstantial evidence. If anything, I think, well, you left a lot of breadcrumbs behind you. You know, if we look at the evidence, you know, all of these babies, I mean, I suppose, how else are they meant to die? How else are you meant to kill babies if, if not on your shift? But all the babies died on her shift. All. All the episodes, not all the babies died, but all the episodes, the crashing episodes happened. She was the only person on shift for all of them. She was on night shift at that time. The first thing the hospital did when they started to think, this is statistically weird, was changed her onto day shift. And at that point they started happening on day shift.
B
But then they do make the great point, though, that, well, she'd taken more courses than lots of the other nurses. Of course she was there. If anything, it'd be weird if she wasn't there for the most sickly babies.
A
Yeah. Her team relies a lot on that. Relies on? A, that it was a place for struggling babies in the beginning. B, she was very, very qualified with struggling babies.
B
Yeah, well, that's what they say. Right. Being in the neonatal ward means that these babies are vulner.
A
Yes.
B
Right, Yep.
A
Yeah. But some of the babies they were saying, you know, weren't particularly vulnerable. And the doctor's attitudes were that, no, this one's coming good, this one's. We can put this one in the ward. She's getting better. The terrible case of baby Zoe, was it? They call her in the doco.
B
Yeah. Not her real name.
A
Yeah. And they thought that she was improving and there was no reason for her to crash. For me, in terms of the individual cases, it's the baby with the synthetic insulin being found in his system when he was autopsied. That's the one for me. I know there's conjecture about the other ones was air injected into them, bloodstreams and all these things, and different experts will say different things about that, but the insulin, there's no explanation for that to be found in that baby's body. The insulin was kept in the same refrigerator that the feeding bags were in.
B
You know, that let me. Had access to.
A
And she had access to. And she was the person who had set up the drip bag. So, again, that feels like a really solid string to me. To be wound with the others.
B
Absolutely, yeah. So, just as a recap, the methods in which she was accused and convicted of harming these babies was either injecting air into the intubation tubes, purposefully blocking or dislodging the tubes, causing trauma to a baby's abdomen. Overfeeding the babies. And with. Yeah, with the synthetic insulin, lots of people saw that as. Like the smoking gun, as you can kind of come up with other excuses for the other ones. But with synthetic insulin. And the point they make in the documentary is, well, someone did that.
A
Someone did that.
B
And that must have been a malicious. But Dr. Shu Li, who is one of the world's leading neonatologists, and he
A
literally wrote the book that was used by another expert at trial to accuse Letby of some of these crimes. And then he's in Canada, this bloke based in Canada. And then he came forward and went, none of that's What I meant.
B
Yeah. So he led this panel with a bunch of other leading pediatricians across the world. And I'll play this clip here. Baby 6's insulin level and IC ratios do not prove that exogenous insulin was used and are, in fact, within the normal range for preterm infants. Ultimately, all of these experts found that in every single case, with every baby, all of them could be explained by natural causes. None of them were found to be any sort of malicious intent. These are all people working totally pro bono.
A
Two things this bit of the show makes me think about, and one of them is that we know, everyone knows you can get experts to say the opposite about the same thing.
B
Yeah.
A
And that's what happens in court cases a lot. The defence gets a bloke to say, one, it means this. The prosecution gets a different bloke to say, no, it means the opposite of that. That's, you know, how a trial works. But also, it made me think so much about the Kathleen Folbig case here in Australia, where Kathleen Folbig went to jail for murdering her four babies, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura. She spent 20 years in jail. And just a couple of years back now, a team of experts came together, including people we know here in Melbourne, and they went through the autopsies again, went through the evidence again, and they said, there are no murders here. So when this guy said it about Letby, I thought, I think someone's watched a few documentaries about Volbig and read the stories about Volbig. I must say, you know, I kind of forgot that when I first read the story of Dr. Shue coming forward and saying, I wrote the book, they've referenced in the trial and I think they've misrepresented what I wrote in the book. That did give me pause for thought. I did think, oh, shit, that's really worrisome. You know, has this been a big miscarriage of justice? And I had to go back and go back through the evidence and think to convince myself, no, no, that's almost a sideshow. That is a piece of evidence about one, maybe two of the babies, right? That injecting into their stomach air via nasogastric tubes creates a rash. I think that is quite specifically about that particular accusation and him saying, no, that's not what I meant. But, I mean, that is one of the five methods she's accused of using to kill babies. So for that reason, it felt like a sideshow to me. I thought, fine, that's not what you meant. As the expert who Spoke at the trial, said he said, well, that's not the only book I read about it either. Like I've done more research than that. It wasn't just his paper that I based my evidence on. It feels incredibly flimsy. The case for Lucy Letby being innocent,
B
I mean, that alone for sure. But that then caused Dr. Shuley to then put this panel together and they reviewed every single case and they said with all of them, they found it
A
to be natural causes, similar to the Folbeg case. I mean, the reason that Kathleen Folbig was released from jail was because this other team of experts found a genetic problem with two of the children and said these children were terminally ill, they were going to die anyway, or at some point, not anyway, but they were going to die of these issues. And so that kind of pulls the whole case apart. The whole case was that she's guilty because she's guilty, she must have killed the fourth one because three have died beforehand. So when they found that, well, no, the fourth one had myocarditis, I think it's pronounced, which was terminal. It just kind of pulled apart the rest of the case. I don't think that's the case here. I don't think the confusion over whether or not this method creates a rash pulls apart all the other threads. If you'd like to talk to someone about abuse that's taken place in your life, no matter how long ago it happened, your GP is always a good place to start. If that's not going to work for you, you can contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or via their website, 1-800respect.org au or you can call Lifeline's 24 hour phone counselling service on 13, 11, 14. Let's talk about behavioural evidence, allegations. She inserted herself into post death processes. Um, she searched the parents of one of the babies on Facebook in the days afterwards. Is that creepy or is that nosy?
B
I think that's not the weirdest thing anyone could do. But it does fly in the face of when she was being interviewed about this particular baby that they named Baby Zoe. That was the one where she said that she couldn't really remember anything about it. And that flies in the face of the fact that she went home and googled and Facebook searched the parents.
A
And also that in her diary she, she kept notes. Not the famous diary where she was writing things like I did it, I'm evil, all of that. But in her just like weekly diary she would Asterisk, the date on which babies died.
B
I mean, there'd be stressful days, like there would be emotional days, you know, and diary evidence as well. I'm always a bit sus when people pull from diaries because.
A
Well, the Folbe case, again.
B
Yeah, people use diaries to express, you know, they want to maybe write from someone else's point of view. They want to. I think she saw a therapist when she was moved off the neonatal ward. They said in the documentary that the therapist encouraged her to write out what she's feeling or her fears, all that kind of stuff.
A
Like, Kathleen Folbig was the same. She was convicted largely on diary evidence. And then in retrospect, they had experts take the stand and say, well, of course she's a mother and her babies keep dying. So she feels guilty. Any parent really could understand that, I think how much responsibility we take for things that happen to our kids. We always feel guilty about it, that we could have stopped it somehow, that we could have done something. And Lucy Letby said the same. She said that's why she was writing those things, because she was a very experienced nurse. She felt like she should have done something, been able to save these babies, and that's why she was writing that stuff. But again, it's a thread. It's a thread that goes with all the other threads.
B
The box in her wardrobe titled Keep this Another one.
A
This was a big fat thread to me. When she took home the documentation from
B
the hospital, she says accidentally, like folded in her pocket and then she didn't know how to dispose of it correctly, that whole sequence.
A
So she says, I accidentally took home these notes about the babies, some of whom were the babies who died. But there were other babies as well in these notes. Yeah, she filed them chronologically in a box. She wrote keep on the front of the box. And then she told the cops, I didn't know how to dispose of them. Cause you're supposed to shred them. And I don't have a shredder. And I'll be buggered if they didn't find a shredder in her bedroom.
B
I mean, Matthew, kind of.
A
Come on. And further to the weirdness, when her parents reactions. Her parents are furious, by the way, because they did not give permission to be included in the doco. And they are included auditorially. The sounds of them, basically, is what I was trying to say. Yeah. So they are furious that Police Body cam has been used in this documentary. In fact, it opens with the sound of her mum. I know, howling I know when the police rock up to the front door and saying, not again, not again. And perhaps she knew they were there to arrest Lucy. Perhaps. I mean, I can hear again, as a parent, she's hysterical. The sight of the cops at the front door is just too much for her. Lucy's upstairs still in bed. Like, this is a family that's just so strung out at this stage already. And the police are back. Her mum howls and cries, begging them, no, not again, not again. One thing they didn't include in the documentary was the moment where her mum apparently cried. Okay, I did it. Take me.
B
I found that so heavy to begin with. And then I was thinking about, you know, when she says, I didn't do it. And they go, we know you didn't do it. We know, of course. And then I'm thinking, flash forward to now. Your daughter's known as this terrible. Like, it's literally worst case scenario, you know?
A
Absolutely is worst case scenario. I mean, parents, we just pray our kid isn't a bully at school. We pray our kid wouldn't be mean to another kid. We pray. I think maybe more than anything that our child is nice, is a nice person. And you know what else? Not weird. Yeah. I feel like a lot of parents just can't accept that their kid is weird. And I know it sounds like I'm diminishing this because it's a lot more than weird, but when I hear them say, no, we know you didn't. We know you didn't do it, I think, how could you ever accept that she did? It's much easier to say, this is a miscarriage of justice, it's ridiculous, than to ever say to yourself and to your partner, our daughter killed babies.
B
Yeah. And that's why I was really glad to hear recently when you talked to Charlie Buzina, he was talking about how they also care for the offender's family as well. Yeah, yeah, they care for the victim's family. They care for the offender's family because they haven't done anything. And they're now in the most shocking time of their life.
A
But I think in order for that to work, I think the offender's family needs to be real. Cause I know that Lucy Letby's parents are very angry with the police because they believe in their hearts that this is a terrible miscarriage of justice, that she has been targeted. They believe she was bullied by the hospital. You know, that whole narrative that's going on in this documentary, too, from her best mate.
B
Yeah. I thought that Was completely pointless of her friend saying it was her first day and she walked into like the staff room. Like, none of the nurses there talk to her.
A
It's like, that's not important. And I think they hate her because she's quiet and shy. Nobody hates a person at work for being quiet and shy.
B
I guess. What's the thread there? I guess people are trying to say that it wasn't Lucy Letby's fault, it was the hospital's fault. So they're trying to show, okay, they were looking for a full person.
A
That's the third pillar that this argument is built on, you know, is that the. The science is junk science that's been used against her. And that, yeah, she's been bullied. And that the hospital, Dr. Hsu said, the Canadian guy said, oh, the hospital was so inept, they should never have had sick babies there. And all the evidence I see tells me that the hospital should be shut down. Very extreme. But again, all these blaming everything else to me, I just go back to those strands, the thickest ones for me, where I go, who gave the baby the insulin? That's got nothing to do with staffing levels. That's got nothing to do with being bullied in the lunchroom by the other nurses. Somebody did that, as you said earlier. So to me, that's all. They're red herrings. They're like, you know, the hospital is bullying her by making it look like she killed all the babies. Well, the guy who runs the hospital said, in my career, I have never seen this many babies crash. Like, you have to believe the man who was there who ran the hospital for years, who said, I had to raise the alarm. I've never seen this before. Something's terribly going wrong in our hospital.
B
Yeah. But it also just seems like one of the weakest things they could have shown. When the doctor documentaries trying to depict, you know, doubt that Lucy Letby was involved in this, to even include anything about bullying or being left out. When it's like, there was plenty more in that press conference with Dr. Shuley and the panelists and the panel of experts. That is so much more convincing than any of that. Because in the documentary, again, smoking gun is the insulin. They do address that. So this is what I'm saying is like, cut the part about her being
A
bullied and what fun she was at uni.
B
Yeah, yeah, cut all that and include this very suggestion that the insulin has got nothing to do with it.
A
Wow. Well, also, I guess they were trying to do a fairly even handed documentary and it seemed to me the only person they could find to speak positively on Lucy's side was this old mate from uni. Again, is it sizzle time? Matthew, it's very unkind of me to ask that question, but I hate to say it, mate. If you were done for something like this, I don't know that I'd go, yeah, I'll talk about what funny was in the office, you know, like, you might even if. I just don't know that I need to be on TV talking about it either.
B
It's even with my face AI'd.
A
Yeah, let's talk about that. Because I love it. And a lot of people. I'm reading a lot of commentary. I'm, like, hating it. Yeah. And listeners, people who know us, you and I will know that we've dabbled in AI in the past, had a bit of fun with it, you know, put out some podcasts that were AI, and I'm not freaked out by it, but instead of blurring people's faces or putting them in silhouette in this show, they've just chosen to use AI to digitally change their faces.
B
I think it's an appropriate use of the technology. It's better than, like, Elon Musk's grok. Like, it's a good use of AI, I think.
A
And it just didn't take me out of it. It just. I've just felt like, okay, in a way, it was an easier experience than when someone's in silhouette or.
B
Yeah, I did find. Yes, I totally agree. And I think it worked pretty well, though the context of it, of this being a, you know, a documentary about these horrific crimes of, like, babies being murdered and then these faces are all AI. It's all very, like, hell world. It's all very surreal and just. Don't you think.
A
No, I don't feel that, but I know I've read a lot of people online saying I didn't even notice it because I was doing something else. And it's only through Reddit or something that I found out that some of those things were digitally altered. And I'm furious. And I thought, why? You didn't even know. So it feels like just a more stuff, seamless experience than looking at photos with one person blurred or one, you know, here's Lucy at the pub, and the other person's pixelated. Yeah.
B
I guess it just depends what's gonna make someone. Cause, you know, they AI Lucy's friend, but they also AI the mother of baby Zoe. And in terms of. As a viewer, empathetically Attaching yourself to that person, to the mother. Are you gonna be closer to a silhouette? I think I was more connected to her, actually seeing her as a character rather than.
A
I agree.
B
Nothing.
A
I agree.
B
A blurred face.
A
Because you're right. If you haven't seen the show yet and you do watch it, you'll see that. You can tell. I mean, if you look, looking close enough, you can go, yeah, okay, I can see that's not actually a real lady. But. But. But watch it. Have a look at it for yourself, because I think it's worth it. But I do think a lot of people react emotionally to. To the idea of AI and this is a very emotional program, so there's probably. Probably a bit of displaced anger going toward the AI of it all.
B
Yeah.
A
Because the whole show is so disturbing.
B
That's kind of what I mean. I think it adds, like, this surreal element to it, though. And I think people, you know, people hate AI at the best of times. So in that context.
A
Yes.
B
Then it's not going to be a friendly audience.
A
What was your emotional reaction to the whole show? Like? I found myself just really angry at Lucy. Let be. Just. Just, you know, all my emotion went all there, really. All to. How could you? How could you. And as we talked to Charlie Wazina about recently, some people just go, oh, you wouldn't. You couldn't do these things. Well, some people do, and I believe she did.
B
Yeah. I think I also maybe experienced another Charlie Bazina thing.
A
Yeah.
B
Of. You know how he talks about in. In court cases. He. You should have photos up of the deceased.
A
Yeah.
B
In there. Because otherwise you're just seeing the perpetrator and you get a bit of Stockholm syndrome for the perpetrator.
A
Literally. In this case, though, because calling them baby A, baby B, baby C in court. I remember listening to that podcast and thinking, God, this is so. That was really surreal for me. Was them saying there was one baby in particular. I can't remember what they called him, like Baby D. And the story was horrifying. I think this was one of the babies even that crashed twice. So the suggestion, the accusation was that she had tried to kill this baby and failed and gone back. To hear this baby just referred to as a letter was really. Even now, it's making me emotional. It felt so inappropriate, even though I can understand why, but it felt like so cold and clinical and like, it felt like the way she must have thought about these babies. That's how it felt to me. Like, in order to kill a baby, you must not see it as a vulnerable little baby human that needs you to survive. I don't know what you're seeing it as, but in court it was seen as baby dad.
B
And I think I had to remind myself of that when I was watching the documentary, because I'm. Because of just the way that it's made. You're seeing Lucy's face all the time. You're seeing her being arrested, you're seeing her parents crying. And so then I had to remind myself, even though, you know, I might be a little bit closer to thinking, well, maybe. Maybe there's room for doubt than you might be, I still had to remind myself, well, she's convicted of. She's, you know, I had to remind myself of the horrors because when I was watching the documentary, I see her hugging her cat and I go, and I get all sad for her that it's. Yeah, I had to remember. Now, that's. Again, that's why I think it's good that they had at least they honed in on one story and they gave a fake name. They used the AI face for the mother and all those things. But because otherwise, what's that quote of like, one death is a tragedy, A thousand deaths is a statistic.
A
So true.
B
It's kind of that, the documentary, right? It's like, this is so big. Yeah, it's so big. So many families affected and the hospital staff as well.
A
I mean, you've got. She reckons she was bullied at this hospital and yet the evidence of the head nurse, her boss, was initially was, no, you're barking up the wrong tree. She's an excellent nurse, she's a brilliant practitioner. I trust her implicitly. Imagine that lady, she's given that evidence and then she sat through all the other evidence. And the nurse under her watch has been convicted of killing babies. The man who was running the hospital, he was. He said towards the end of the show, you know, I'm being accused of running a dangerous hospital, bullying my staff, including Lucy Letby, letting babies die through poor practice. You know, he said, that's. That's. There's a lot of people who believe those things about me. And he's been proven in court. There's a jury that says, no, there was one person who was a problem at this hospital and she's been convicted.
B
Last year, though, three ex bosses at the Countess of Chester Hospital were arrested.
C
The Countess of Chester Hospital again at the center of bleak investigations over the deaths of babies in their care. Cheshire Police say yesterday, three people who were Senior leaders here, 10 years ago were arrested. In a statement, the force said three individuals who were part of the senior leadership team at the Countess of chester Hospital in 2015-2016 were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. All three have subsequently been bailed pending further inquiries.
B
Wow. So that does say something again to the way that the hospital's run.
A
Yep. Where are we at now with Lucy Letby's case? I know that police approached their dpp, whatever it's called, the Department of Prosecutions. It's called something else in England with nine more charges. And the Department declined to pursue them?
B
Yes, they declined to pursue that. And in terms of the existing conviction, it's sitting with the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
A
Okay.
B
And I think England in particular, it's really tough to get an appeal compared to Australia, compared to other countries.
A
That's really interesting because when you mentioned the Criminal Cases Review Commission, took me back to the episode we did recently about Shorty Jamison and his supporters are saying if only Australia had a Criminal Cases Review Commission, a lot of people would be able to get out of jail because that commission would realise that it was a miscarriage of justice.
B
Yeah.
A
But you're saying it's actually really difficult still in England to get an appeal up.
B
And that's not the Criminal Cases Review Commission's fault. They're the ones who try to get in there and fix it. That Review Commission just the other day had to release a timeline of everything that they've received and everything they've done in regards to this application because they're just getting so much pressure now because of the documentary. And they also had to say, we make an effort to not let any external forces, any. Especially media.
A
Especially social media.
B
Yeah, social media expedite anything in front of anything else. But they did feel compelled to say, all right, this is what we've been doing. Like, we're working on it.
A
Basically, we're on it. I just think it's a classic case of, you know, however many people who don't know what they're on about, getting very focused on it and creating these huge social media zeitgeists, you know, and it's like just. I honestly think, go back and listen to the trial of Lucy Letby. It's hard work because being on a jury is hard work. It's no. There's no shortcuts, there's no, you know, highlights. Real. You gotta sit for days on end and hear a lot of boring stuff in between the interesting bits. And that's kind of what the podcast is too, because it's the trial. Right. And go back and listen to that. And if you still have doubts at the end of that, tweet it. But until you've put in the work, Seriously, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear that she's innocent. That's a miscarriage of justice. Just like. Come on. Let us know what you think in the comments. Either if you're watching us on YouTube or if you're listening, wherever you're listening, tell us what you think about this. And also, do you like discussions? And you know what? We should get some listeners on for discussions.
B
Yeah.
A
If you would like to do that, let's discuss.
B
Let's get some more civilians in here talking about it.
A
Let's do it.
B
More than you and I. Yeah, exactly.
A
If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 1311 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800respect.org au. Indigenous Australians can contact 13Yarn on 1392. 76 or 13yarn.yorg au.
B
The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.
This discussion episode delves into the complex and chilling case of Lucy Letby. Hosts Meshel Laurie and executive producer Matthew Tankard revisit the case in light of a new Netflix documentary and a wave of renewed public and media debate. They question the evidence, discuss expert opinions, and examine the wider context of public opinion, hospital accountability, and media portrayals. The tone is conversational, reflective, and sometimes emotional, as the hosts weigh their own evolving perspectives.
On circumstantial evidence:
“If you wind enough [circumstantial evidence] together, you get a piece of rope. And that is strong.” — Meshel [03:19]
On the “smoking gun”:
“With the synthetic insulin...someone did that.” — Matthew [07:17]
“And that must have been malicious.” — Meshel [07:18]
On expert testimony and the risk of mistakes:
“You can get experts to say the opposite about the same thing.” — Meshel [08:19]
On diaries as evidence:
“I'm always a bit sus when people pull from diaries.” — Matthew [13:11]
On emotional reaction and remembering the victims:
“Calling them baby A, baby B, baby C in court…felt so inappropriate… like the way she must have thought about these babies.” — Meshel [24:07]
On social media and public perception:
“Huge social media zeitgeists…go back and listen to the trial…put in the work… Seriously, I don't want to hear it.” — Meshel [29:20]
| Timestamp | Segment | Highlight | |-----------|----------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 00:22 | Opening Opinions | Meshel’s initial certainty, new doubts emerge | | 03:19 | Circumstantial evidence | The “rope” analogy for cumulative evidence | | 05:53 | Insulin evidence | The “smoking gun” explanation | | 07:42 | Dr. Shu Li & expert panel | Countering malicious intent claims | | 12:36 | Behavioral evidence | Letby’s Facebook searches, diary entries | | 15:04 | Physical evidence | "Keep" box and retained hospital notes | | 17:00 | Parental reactions | Refusal to accept guilt, emotional processing | | 18:58 | Rebutting hospital-bullying view | Evidence versus red herrings | | 27:06 | Hospital accountability | Arrests of former hospital executives | | 28:09 | Legal process | Appeal difficulties and CCRC review | | 29:20 | Media influence | Media/social media’s role in shaping opinions | | 24:07 | Remembering victims | Emotional response to depersonalization |
The episode offers a passionate, deeply informed but nuanced meditation on one of the most notorious and contested criminal cases in recent memory. The hosts balance reasoned skepticism with personal ethics and emotion, ultimately urging listeners to grapple with the full, complicated scope of the evidence—and resist easy answers shaped by media narratives or online debate.