OPERATION Hummingbird detectives have revealed how they caught Lucy Letby – finally ending the killer nurse's reign of terror.
The Countess of Chester Hospital asked cops to investigate a spike in sudden and unexplained baby deaths in May 2017.
They called in an expert – who told them in December that the deaths of 17 babies and the non-fatal collapses of 16 more were not the result of natural causes.
Cheshire Constabulary launched Operation Hummingbird to find the child killer before they struck again.
Doctors Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram had told cops that the deaths and collapses had stopped after one nurse was moved to an admin job.
The nurse's name was Lucy Letby – but it was still possible that the killer had framed her by stopping when she was moved.
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But detectives combed through hundreds of hours of shift timetables – and noticed that only Letby had consistently been on shift before each tragedy.
More than that, Letby was often alone in the neonatal ward during the shifts.
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes told Sky News: "I made the parents a promise that we would investigate what happened to each baby.
"She was the thread running through them all."
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In June 2018 cops declared Letby a suspect and arrested her for the first time.
They found thousands of pieces at her home – including a green Post-it note covered in Letby's scrawled handwriting.
It read: "I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them.
"I AM EVIL, I DID THIS."
ANGEL OF DEATH
Detectives also found 257 confidential medical documents – many of them about babies who had unexpectedly died or collapsed.
Letby's Facebook data also revealed that she repeatedly looked up her victims' families on the anniversaries of their deaths or on Christmas Day.
The nurse also sent one of the babies' parents a sympathy card reading: "Thinking of you today and always – sorry I cannot be there to say goodbye."
She snapped the card on her phone just hours before the baby's funeral.
Cops formally charged Letby in November 2020 – and she has been in prison ever since.
Hughes said: "The one question we haven't answered is why. Only Lucy Letby can answer that."
Now detectives are examining Letby's entire career, including her placement at Liverpool Women's Hospital.
More families have now been told that their babies could have been killed by the evil nurse.
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The prosecution suggested five different motives during Letby's 10-month trial.
Evil Letby is just the fourth woman ever to be handed a whole-life prison sentence.
UK’s most prolific child killer Lucy Letby
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