Dewi Evans, documentaries, Dominic Sivyer, England, Kim Pilling, Lucy Letby, Mark McDonald, movies, Netflix, Paul Hughes, reviews, Shoo Lee, Simon Blackwell, The Investigation of Lucy Letby, true crime, TV
February 11, 2026
by Carla Hay
“The Investigation of Lucy Letby”
Directed by Dominic Sivyer
Culture Representation: The true crime documentary film “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Asian) who are connected in some way to the case of Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse from Cheshire, England, who (in 2023) was convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven other infants between June 2015 and June 2016.
Culture Clash: Law enforcement says Letby is guilty of the crimes for which she has been convicted, but some of her supporters say that Letby was not given a fair trial and the evidence is faulty.
Culture Audience: “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in investigative documentaries about infanticide cases.
The true crime documentary film “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” does a fairly adequate job of presenting both sides of whether or not convicted child murderer Lucy Letby is guilty of the crimes that sent her to prison for life. Previously unreleased police footage is the main reason to watch because the documentary uncovers no new facts. “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” discloses up front that a few of the people interviewed in the documentary have their faces altered by artificial intelligence (A.I.) imagery (and labeled as digitally altered when these interviewees are shown on screen), in order to protect their identities. This use of A.I. technology might be controversial to some viewers, but the interviewees faces, not words, were altered. Most of the documentary’s previously unreleased footage consists of police camera footage during Letby’s arrest and when she was interrogated by police.
Directed by Dominic Sivyer, “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” is a conventionally straightforward documentary that lays out the facts of the case and presents both sides from the perspectives of those who think Letby is guilty or not guilty. Not surprisingly, because Letby was convicted of the crimes that she went on trial for, there are more people in the documentary who think she is guilty than people who think she is not guilty or wrongly convicted. Letby’s supporters think she deserves another trial because they believe the evidence presented in Letby’s 2023 trial had faulty evidence and an incompetent defense team for her trial. Her supporters say that Letby’s trial defense team made a big mistake by not having any expert witnesses testify for Letby’s defense.
Letby and members of her family are not interviewed in the documentary. Letby was born on January 4, 1990, in Hereford, England. She was a neonatal nurse working at Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England (located in the county of Cheshire), when she became a suspect for killing several infants at the hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby had been working at Countess of Chester Hospital since 2012. In 2018, she was arrested for these crimes and pleaded not guilty. In 2023, she went on trial and was convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven other infants. Letby was sentenced to life in prison.
Police investigators and prosecutors, by their own admission, say that all their evidence against Letby is circumstantial, since no one except the murderer and the murder victims actually witnessed who killed the babies. There were no surveillance cameras in the rooms during the times that the infants were murdered. What the murder timelines all had in common was that Letby was the only hospital employee whose work schedules showed that she was on duty during all the murders, and she had opportunities to be alone with all the babies whom she was convicted of murdering.
A police search of Letby’s home during the investigation found notebooks with disturbing hand-written statements from Letby, such as “I killed them” and “I’m evil.” When questioned by police about these written statements, Letby had no explanation but said that these statements were not murder confessions of the babies who died while she was on duty at the hospital. Letby also had access to the insulin that was found in a few of the babies who died of insulin poisoning.
According to the prosecution, Letby murdered the infants in multiple ways, in order to avoid suspicion. The causes of death included physical abuse, injecting air into the bloodstream, removing breathing tubes, and administering toxic levels of medication. When she was questioned by police, Letby claimed not to know why the babies died and gave no clear explanation of what she was doing when she was alone with the babies. When pressed for details, her usual response was to say that she did not remember. The police camera footage shows that Letby usually spoke in an even-toned voice and didn’t express a lot of emotions, except for a moment when she’s arrested and she breaks down and cries.
Dr. John Gibbs, a retired consultant pediatrician, says he was one of the early investigators who were brought in to find out why an unusually high number of babies were dying at Countess of Chester Hospital. Gibbs said he sounded the alarm that Letby was the most likely suspect, since she was the only hospital employee whose on-duty timelines matched the timelines of all the babies who were murdered from June 2016 to June 2017, and she had opportunities to be alone with the infants during times that the infants were believed to be harmed. However, Gibbs says that a hospital supervisor (whom he does not name in the documentary) told him that Letby couldn’t possibly be a suspect because Letby was known to be very shy and quiet. Countess of Chester Hospital declined to comment for this documentary because of an ongoing investigation that the hospital is getting from the U.K. government and the Cheshire Constabulary.
The two people interviewed in the documentary whose faces are altered by A.I. are a woman identified only as Maisie (who says Letby was her close friend when they were nursing students) and an unnamed woman whose baby daughter Zoe (an alias used for the documentary) was one of Letby’s murder victims. The mother of Zoe gives heartbreaking descriptions of the tragedy and trauma of losing her baby in this horrific way. Maisie staunchly defends Letby and can’t believe that Letby is guilty. Maisie says that she and Letby did some nursing training at Countess of Chester Hospital when they were both nursing students. Maisie says she was surprised that Letby wanted a permanent job at the hospital after they graduated from nursing school, because Maisie remembers other employees being standoffish and exclusionary to Letby when Letby trained there.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are prosecution expert witness Dr. Dewi Evans, Cheshire Police detective superintendent Simon Blackwell, Cheshire Police detective superintendent Paul Hughes, Cheshire Police detective sergeant Danielle Stonier and journalist Kim Pilling, who all believe Letby is guilty. Letby’s criminal defense attorney Mark McDonald (who was hired for Letby’s case after she was convicted and sentenced to prison) and honorary consultant neonatologist Shoo Lee, who are also interviewed in the documentary, think the prosecution’s case was faulty and say that Letby deserves a new trial because the prosecution misidentified the cause of death for at least one infant.
The documentary’s biggest deficiencies are that it does not have interviews with the attorneys who were involved in Letby’s 2023 trial, and there needed to be more background information on Letby, so viewers could know whether or not there were any warning signs about her before she started working at Countess of Chester Hospital. Letby is only described in the documentary as being as an introverted only child of parents who doted on her. A documentary’s epilogue mentions that her trial defense attorney Ben Myers declined to comment for the documentary, but it’s not clear if the documentary’s filmmakers contacted the trial’s prosecuting attorneys for comment.
Because of the documentary’s previously unreleased police footage, “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” gives a little more insight into how Letby was acting while she was in police custody. However, the questions about why these murders happened will probably never be answered, as long as Letby insists that she’s not guilty. If viewers have already made up their minds about whether or not Letby deserves another trial, then “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” probably won’t change a lot of people’s minds either way. Regardless of which side anyone supports, there are no real winners when so many children were senselessly killed.
Netflix premiered “The Investigation of Lucy Letby” on February 4, 2026.